Earlier this year–okay, much earlier this year–I embarked on renovating my back bedroom. I live in a three bedroom house, and this bedroom was the final one to be renovated. I’m making my way through renovating the rooms in my house at an average rate of about one every two years. I know that seems like it takes a while, but in my defense, I do pretty much all the work myself with the occasional help from friends and family when I do something stupid like break my wrist (but more on that later). I also had a renovation hiatus of about two and a half years while my sister was occupying one of those bedrooms. So figuring that in, it’s probably more like I complete a room every 1.33 years.
As I mentioned in my post about my wedding anniversary, the completion of the back bedroom is the final piece in the cohabitation puzzle for my husband and me. I had been aiming to finish it in time for our anniversary, but somewhere in mid-September I realized that I was going to fall short of my goal. It was looking like I’d finish it only a couple of weeks late, and then I broke my left wrist playing frisbee. I was really bummed out, but Ben agreed to complete the rest of the work, which consisted mainly of running electrical and reattaching the baseboards. And then he tore a ligament in his right index finger. October was a tough month for the Wittzlers.
I love doing renovation work for many reasons–you get to use your hands, it’s easy to see the progress you’re making, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, it makes me feel a connection to the history of the house. However, as much as love it, I always reach a point somewhere in the process where I am convinced that I am never going to be finished. Then I push through, and I fall of the impatience cliff, where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and just want the damn thing to be done. It happens every time. At the end of the project, I inevitably vow to hire someone to do the work the next time, but within several months, I suffer a blow to the head from a large, blunt object and start scraping wallpaper again myself. (What’s the definition of insanity again?)
But really, in the end, the work is immensely rewarding. The satisfaction of being able to walk into the room and say, “I did this,” is hard to describe. And when it’s your own house, you get to experience that joy over and over again for years. It’s probably why I keeping picking up that stupid wallpaper scraper.