For those who don't know, Brian and I bought a house back in October 2025. It was older (built in the 60's), and the previous owner was an artist and did most of the "construction" and "wiring" work himself. From the outside, it was beautiful, and we were excited to finally find a house that suited us (we had been looking for over a year). We got the home inspection done, and there wasn't anything major, or so we thought. The house was a lot, I won't say how much, but trust me, it was a lot. We had planned for $50,000 to fix it up and hoped to have it all done by the end of November.
We knew we wanted to add Solar and an AC unit (those costs weren't going to be part of the $50,000 we set aside to fix it up). We had only planned to remodel the master bathroom and other little odds and ends.
I'm not going to go into great detail, as Brian likes his privacy, but let's say that things didn't go as planned. Cabinets were unexpectedly torn down, other shelves were removed (for no apparent reason), the wiring that the previous owner used was wrong and could have burned down the house, and the plumbing was all kinds of bad. We had planned to keep the flooring and baseboards, but "folks" had different ideas, and both were removed. We had to replace the upstairs shower, all of the toilets, faucets, and sinks. We had a master bathroom shower built (they didn't build it as Brian requested), so they had to tear it all down. I can go on...
Needless to say, there were a lot of unexpected costs and delays. We had issues with our contractors, electrician, and plumbers. We have come to find out that it is tough to find good and honest tradesmen.
Our latest was our new beautiful hardwood floor, which we had scheduled to be laid last week. The flooring we chose had a polyurethane seal, but when they started to lay the floor, they noticed that it would scratch easily. We contacted the flooring people, and after a week of going back and forth with inspectors, they determined that the wood "is just like that". This flooring was non-refundable, but thankfully, we were able to talk them into giving us a credit. It's taken Brian months to pick out this wood, and now we have to find new wood (hopefully) within a week.
We are 9 months into what was supposed to be this quick remodel, and 5 times over the budget. We are out of money, but still need to find a new floor and a few more finishing touches on the master bathroom. I don't want to guess when we will be moving in, as it never happens. It was supposed to be the end of November, then December, then January... and so on.
It's been very stressful and heartbreaking. Brian and I just want to start our life together, and it seems like life just doesn't want that to happen. We try to stay positive and tell ourselves that the house is beautiful and worth all this hassle, but sometimes I don't know.
Anyways... hopefully we can finish up what needs to get done, and we can move it... wish us luck!
