I Lived in My House During My Kitchen Reno, and Here's Why I Would Do It Again

I love exposed brick. Every time I see it in restaurants and on TV, I think it's such a stunning accent to any room. When we demoed our kitchen, we were graced with brick underneath the old plaster. After talking it over, we decided to forgo our original plan to put up drywall, and instead decided to keep and clean the brick. The only problem was, even after a lot of hard work getting it to look as nice as we could, it never looked as put together as we wanted. Our interior brick was never meant to be exposed, and thus it was rough and just not pretty. Since we had a chance to live with the brick, it helped us realize that our kitchen needed something more than drywall to feel finished. Inspired by the brick, we installed subway tile. This was the right way to go for our space, but I don't think we would have come to that decision if we hadn't had to live with the brick in the first place.

By agreeing to live in our house while our kitchen was being worked on, we were able to save a lot of money. My husband worked on the renovation when he had time after work and on the weekends. This relaxed timeline meant that our $60,000 kitchen remodel actually ended up costing us closer to $20,000. The money saved can be reallocated to nicer fixtures. If we had agreed to move out of our house for a couple of months and let a contractor do the work, we would have have spent a lot more money. This would have directly affected the quality of our kitchen. We were able to spend a little more money on our appliances, countertops, and cabinets because we knew we were going to save a lot of money in the install.

As a general rule, I hate having appliances and clutter on the countertop. I think it looks messy and it's just another thing I have to clean. My husband disagrees and likes things to be out and accessible. The kitchen renovation forced all of our extraneous knick-knacks and appliances to the basement or to our dining table. While this was its own point of contention (we couldn't eat at our table for weeks), it helped identify the key aspects of our kitchen. Did we really need to keep our espresso maker on the counter, considering the last time we actually used the thing was back when Obama was a first-term president? Was it absolutely necessary to display all of our vintage pitchers? Thankfully for me, the answer to these question was obviously, "no," and we were able to simplify our decor once the bulk of our renovation was over.

I'll be honest: I didn't do a lot of the work. I feel like a bad feminist to admit it, but my husband was so much better equipped to do the work. As an architect it's within his wheelhouse, and I am woefully ignorant of some basic home remodel aspects. While I suspected from the beginning that I'm not one to get dirty, it was confirmed for me on this DIY experience. Whatever I was trying to do to help, I took twice as long as my husband; It didn't come naturally to me, and that's ok. I helped when I could, largely with painting and by keeping the baby away. We each did our part and I'm proud of our jointed efforts. It means more to do it yourself. There's real satisfaction in being able to say we did it ourselves, and not just in the smug way that we would at a party. There's ownership over every aspect of the kitchen, and a desire to make it as perfect as we can.

Sometimes I wish we were able to get the big reveal, where we walk into our now modernized space and, "ooo," and, "ahhh," over the changes. Since we were living in our house as the kitchen was being fixed up, I was able to see how the sausage gets made, so to speak. Being able to see the kitchen slowly change was a pleasure on it's own. There were many nights where we would stand back with a glass of wine, or two, and look at the progress and talk about how nice it was going to look, and how much of an improvement it was already.

We will always be tinkering and find ways to improve the space, and there are always little things that can be done. That's ok though, because at the end of the day, once you've done the big work, the little stuff doesn't seem so daunting.