What Were We Thinking?

With the way DH and I do things sometimes, you would think that we had a carved in stone mantra that goes something like ‘why do things that way when you can do it so much harder this way?’ I mean, seriously. We have been in this beautiful home for barely six months and already we are week one into several weeks of a significant basement renovation which will result in the entire house being developed.

Why?

Because we finished our renovations on our home in Kanata the same day we signed the real estate paperwork to sell the house. Those renovations took us five years and countless weekends and evenings spent either working on the house or overshadowed by the guilt of taking time away from working on the house. We didn’t want to do it that way again.

My ‘settle into this house’ plan deadline is 2012 (I strive to underachieve in certain life areas!) so it seemed to be a good time for us to force the household into short term pain for some long term gain. Because, fellow blog readers, I am hoping that this renovation with close the door, so to speak, on the whole renovation process on the inside of this house (the outside development will be ongoing and lengthy) for at least ten years. Remind me of that when I’m whining about the perpetual building dust All. Over. The. House. In future posts, will ya?

Here are some before photos to keep you up to date.

The workspace.

What was once a neat and tidy recreation room (who am I kidding? It was never that neat and tidy but generally better than the rest of the house).

The car and a half sized garage stuffed just under one inch of its life (seriously too much stuff).

The ‘tunnel’ to get out the side door in the garage, the door we most often use.

This renovation will take at least two months. Someone pass me the Earl Grey and my knitting bag because I’m going to need a whole lot of relaxation therapy to get us over this one.

I can tell you that the likelihood of DH and I ever splitting up is very, very slim considering the crazy things we have put ourselves through over the years (remind me to tell you about our ‘Christmas from Hell’ sometime…!). I can admit it: DH and I are nuts. Seriously.