Stop Expecting To Be Done With Home Repairs And Renovations: Here's Why

When we tell the story of our house, my wife and I always know when our guests will start giving each other puzzled looks. We bought the land at the height of the pandemic, we say, and there was nothing here. It is, apparently, impossible to believe we've done all of this in fewer than five years. And by "done all this," I mean "made such a mess."

Visitors seem to want to put our residency at something closer to 30 years. They explain that everything just looks settled in, and all the obvious past and present reinventions of our spaces suggest we've lived with it long enough for some things to no longer suit us or to need fixing. Indeed, we started renovating and refining shortly after we started building in 2020. Apparently, some people buy houses with no intention of making changes to them. I can't imagine just accepting the decisions and preferences of a builder or previous homeowner ... or even of myself in a different season of life. I believe that DIYers in particular will find that they're in the same perpetual state of repair and renovation, and that's a good thing.

I write this, perhaps my last piece for House Digest, as a year ends and I prepare to devote all my time to a sister publication. I'm entering my fourth year writing for these great people and my fifth year wrangling our house into what the also-pretty-good people of my family need it to be. Transitions create the friction that makes strong, permanent things work. Without friction, you can't start things or guide things, and they get away from you.

Things break, of course. Many of them are designed to break, and I am unusually skilled at breaking the rest myself. Psychologically, philosophically, and financially, I'm inclined to also fix things myself. As my competence and confidence have grown with each DIY repair, so has my willingness to do more. An engaged homeowner will oversee repairs to hardwood floors, perhaps, or to driveways, roofs, walls, appliances, fences, plumbing, and dozens of other things. And that's to say nothing of everyday lawn maintenance tasks, and the maintenance of HVAC systems, water heaters, patios and decks, windows, gardens, gutters, and more. 

Same with renovation projects. Since living here, we have converted a storage shed into a bike repair shop for one kid, then into an RC car repair shop for another. We converted an 8-by-12 playhouse into a fairly elaborate music recording studio. After building the house, we moved my garage workshop into a much larger freestanding one, which is a perpetual space-management puzzle. We have remodeled our kitchen three times without finishing it once. We're converting a back porch into an additional bedroom and bathroom.

This isn't madness, and while it's a bit excessive, it isn't unique to us. Your list might include a bathroom, cabinets, countertops, closets, a laundry room, or a master suite rather than three kitchen renos. No matter the order you'll change things in, being finished is not a thing people with imagination do easily. This isn't a quagmire, but a place of constant promise and hope. There's always something to do, and to some extent, we're willing to do it.

Every now and then, one of my kids proclaims that he's bored, and I just stare in astonishment. The last time I was bored was grand jury duty, where being productive was prohibited as a matter of law. I can't imagine not having things to do, even if I don't do them all particularly well. So now, when they say they're bored, it's effectively enrolling in a home improvement course with daddy. I certainly don't want them learning on their own, as I did.

As a result of my self-education, you probably have more skills and better organizational and decision-making habits than I do, but it seems likely that you're interested in making the place you live a place that's better and more suited to your life. This is, you have decided subconsciously or otherwise, what you prefer to watching more football or trying out new lawn mowing patterns. If something's not working, at the very least, it goes on a list of things that need to change. You didn't buy, build, or renovate your home because you planned to be done with it. I certainly didn't.

For the longest time, we didn't invite people over for dinner, playdates, and that sort of thing because our house wasn't yet finished. We eventually came to realize that inviting friends into a home where a new bedroom is being added, or a wood stove installed, or a recording studio wired is far more interesting to visitors than a house that's finished, like all the others on the block, and it will never be anything else.