People said it a million times: Home ownership is stressful. Home renovations are even more stressful.

Turns out… there is more accuracy in those words than anything I’ve ever heard prior.

We have been in for a month and every spare moment has been occupied by home… stuff.  There is just so much to do, and the fact that our contractor was awful, fell off the face of the earth for 3 weeks, then came back to “finish” and still did a ton wrong sure didn’t help.

But we are getting there.

We have a bathroom with a cabinet (so there is storage).

We have a brand new walk-in closet in the bedroom, converted from 2 smaller, “L” shaped closets (before and after pictures):

And we have a newly designed kitchen! We kept the appliances and cabinets and swapped out the floor for a black and white checkerboard (which I’ve wanted all my life), soap stone counters, and a dark red wall. I LOVE the kitchen.

HOWEVER, our contractor did this all wrong and we are still not quite right.

In fact, a new set of contractors are here right now to do some of the last fixes in the apartment, including regrouting the entire backsplash in the kitchen (because the last guy did it wrong), sealing the kitchen and bathroom (since the last guy did that wrong, too), and hanging all the bathroom racks (we’ve been using a wire hanger as a toilet paper holder for the past month):

Slowly but surely, we will make it.

But right now I’m taking advantage of a day off to post some reviews that have been waiting in the wings for weeks. I’ve missed blogging a lot, so hopefully I can get back on track now!

EDIT: Some more photos of what was finished on Monday…

The finally finished kitchen:

Bathroom hardware (all pipe bars/shelves done custom by Etsy artist David at Splinterwerx):

And the entrance to our apartment, surrounded by artwork from my family… Grandpa Axel’s violin sculpture on the left, 2 pictures by my Great Aunt Dinah (who is 100 years old and still making artwork!) flanking the door, and a sign from our wedding drawn by my mom in the center of the door.

More to come!

Tags: bathroom renovation, checkerboard floor, contractors, etsy, home renovation, home repair, kitchen renovation, new home, pipe hardware, pipe shelves, pipe towel bar, splinterwerx