Last week we celebrated the one year anniversary of purchasing this house. We had a glass of wine and toasted to our little suburban home, and reminisced about all the work we’ve put into it since we’ve been here.

Of course, we haven’t actually “been here” for a year. Not yet. That anniversary will come in another few weeks.

Instead of moving right in as -presumably- most people do after they buy a house, we immediately left town for a few weeks, high on the knowledge that our lives were about to change drastically. Not only were we moving in together after less than a year of dating but we were now joint tenants – co-owning a house together, and becoming landlords together. Big commitments. Some might say it was a life commitment similar to marriage, only instead of public vows, a white dress, and the followup questions about when we’re gonna start popping out kids, this event included a handshake from a lawyer whose name we don’t remember, a monthly mortgage obligation, and a long list of renovation projects to begin. Oh, and a house we couldn’t move into for a month – as per the owner at the time. (And still we get the questions about kids anyway.)

Don’t get me wrong, the house was not really a fixer upper. Plenty of people probably would have been content with the state it was in, at least after a minimum of cleaning out all the trash left behind for us to sort though (again, courtesy of the previous owner). But there were things on our ‘to do’ list from day one that we simply had to do to make it feel comfortable, and to make it our own. Plus, we were excited about the prospect of doing renovations together. With Mark as the ideas guy and me as the implementer, we embraced the opportunity to bring out the potential of the house and the small suburban lot it sits on.

tomato jungle in the garden right now

Some of the past year’s projects, you may recall, included pulling out nasty carpeting in the bathroom of all places, building a closet, cutting down a tree, installing a bathroom window, installing a dishwasher, installing a new downstairs bathroom sink, a lawn-to-garden conversion, installing a kitchen shelving unit and other kitchen pantry shelving, installing a pergola, building shelving, building a chicken coop, and lots of painting.

And so, one year later (or thereabouts), we share a toast to all we’ve accomplished, and to all that’s left to do. We’re still renovating, still improving, and still coming up with ideas for the next project.

In fact, I’ve stopped twice in the middle of writing this post to do some work on the Master Suite Renovation that we haven’t yet finished. Some of you might be thinking It’s been weeks! Why aren’t you DONE with the master suite renovation by now? I know, I think this to myself every day. And then I remember, there are two answers: 1) distractions, and 2) heat.  The latter excuse applies only to today, where temperatures outside were in the high 90’s – uncommon this time of year in Vermont. After working all morning: installing, taping and mudding drywall, we finally stopped when the sweat dripping into our eyes prevented us from seeing what we were doing. (I’ve learned it’s not the best idea to pick up a power tool when you hands are covered in sweat.) Despite our best efforts to keep the house cool by keeping all blinds and curtains shut, windows closed, and fans circulating the air, I’ll admit that the heat became unbearable even for me today (and someone thinks they’re going to get me to move south, ha!).

View from where we camped out at Solarfest

As for the distractions excuse, that includes everything from my work commitments, gardening, an awesome bike tour that I co-organized, other house projects we’ve started and not finished, a fun weekend hippie fest, social time, taking care of chickens, and some very big obligations like seeing the latest Harry Potter movie on opening day (not my decision, mind you). This category of excuses also includes the times we’ve stopped what we’re doing to wait for a friend or contractor to help us figure out the next step, or bring their tools over so we could move forward.

View of the active ladies in their chicken run

I’d say the project is 90% complete. Though, I’d be lying if I said we were done with even one aspect of it, like the flooring or the painting, but at least we’ve got a good start and we know what we’re doing for the rest of the project. Except the electrical wiring. And the choice of paint colors. And we learned today that you are NOT SUPPOSED TO INSTALL FLOORING ON HOT AND HUMID DAYS. Oh.

Speaking of flooring, we got a great deal on 5″ unfinished oak, rustic grade, that has some very cool gnarly features. Here are some photos.

The pile of wood and demolition debris in the office a few weeks ago…

The bedroom was the first to get the flooring.

And another one of the floor. It obviously will be sanded and those marks will come off.

I promise more “after” photos soon. As in “after” we’ve exhausted ourselves to the point of collapse. “After” we break up over choice of paint colors. “After” we swear to each other that this is the final renovation – ever.

Because really, we’d like to be done with renovations. Recently, house projects lead to disagreements about decisions, or to indecisive tendencies taking over and no decisions being made. But thankfully there are several things we do agree on. Like the fact that we’d rather be outside – okay, maybe not all day in the sun on a day when the heat index is over 100 degrees – but in general, we’d rather work on the stuff outside of our house than inside. The place where we can truly feel productive, literally producing the fruits of our labor: in the garden.

And there’s another thing we agree on: our next house will not be a fixer upper.

PS – Here’s a little video about the aforementioned awesome bike tour.