Serious Home Remodeling

I first learned what “serious” home remodeling was when I found the blog Home is a Process, where Luke and Laura have taken on magnanimous projects (at least I think they are).

Then a few weeks ago, I discovered this a few blocks from our house:

Although it looks horrible right now, any home remodeler knows this is just The Ugly Duckling phase for a home that’s about to transform into swan. One month ago, that house looked even more hopeless thanks to a visibly rotting roof, busted windows and deteriorating siding. Now all that’s gone.

The siding vanished, revealing worn and weathered clapboards that hint at the home’s age. Slowly, new insulation, windows and shingles are appearing.

Joey and I hear nailing and sawing every night and every weekend coming from the direction of this house, but there is no crew of workers making all the racket. Rather, it’s just two people laboring hard to transform a run-down structure into a well-built house.

Just one look at the equipment in the yard and I understand this is a level of home-remodeling I will never be capable of. I don’t have the skills, the patience or the emotional stamina to get through a project like that.

I so admire all of you – the skilled surgeons of the home remodeling world who go beyond the cosmetic and actually reset the bones of their house. Although we did break our home’s face and tidy it up, we’re more like dermatologists than plastic surgeons – we’ve spent most of our time attacking pock-marks and explosive acne rather than messing with its structure.

All medical comparisons aside, what I’m trying to say is this: There are different levels of home remodeling and we choose which one we’re comfortable with when we start our projects (that is unless the project snowballs and drags you kicking and screaming to another, much-less-desirable level). I admire any and all DIYers because I’ve been there. Whether I’m ahead of you or behind you on the path of home improvement, I’ve tip-toed on it long enough to understand the amount of work you’ve taken on. I get what it means to rebuild walls, to rip out plumbing and spend months creating a new bathroom. But I do not know the joy and suffering of installing a roof, pouring new floors or rebuilding a foundation. And I commend those of you who do. And I wish you God’s speed in getting it all done, because holy crap you are in it up to your eyeballs.