The right time to renovate — Our Little Farmhouse

When is the right time to start a home renovation?

As we're finally winding down on the major points of the kitchen renovation, I thought back to the start. Mainly, when to start. There are so many moving parts to consider. How long it will take? How much money it will cost? How are you going to function without a kitchen/bathroom/whatever until it’s complete? It’s easy to see why people put off starting these types of projects.

We didn’t start to tackle the kitchen until living in our house for two years. We bought the house knowing that we would be giving the kitchen (and probably the whole house) a complete makeover. Our house was move-in ready, which afforded us the time to get a feeling of how we actually use the house and how we could use it better. Sure, I knew right away the upper cabinets were not in it for the long haul, but how would I replace them? There are so many different options out there and I only ever knew closed up, solid cabinet doors. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t learn to appreciate something else though.

I hated the open cabinets when we moved. I liked the freedom of shoving something in a cabinet and not having to see that it was a disaster in there 24/7. At first, seeing all of our kitchen-ly objects on display was too much for me. But soon I got some wire shelves to maximize space, a couple pretty baskets to store random items and found a way to arrange things in a way that pleased my eye. I actually started to like the open shelves. (That open cabinet above the stove never won me over though. The first -and only- time we made stove top burgers we found out what a total grease trap that cabinet was and the ensuing smoke clamored for an exhaust fan.)

But living with what was there helped us learn what we want and need in a kitchen.

Now I’m not trying to say that if we immediately started renovating when we moved in we wouldn’t have put in a range hood, but there are other things we may have done differently. The rose-colored glasses we bought the house with didn’t show us how dark the kitchen actually is, or how underutilized some spaces are. But that time allowed us to realize our priorities, mainly how to get more storage and how to bring in more light.

It helped us to live and function in the space before changing it. I did a lot of rearranging in that first year, putting things in places I actually use them instead of where I thought they “fit” best. Now that the renovation is underway the decisions seem easier to make because there’s a starting point. Suddenly the overwhelming backsplash aisles get smaller since we know we want white to reflect the light. Or we learn that we need wipe-able fabric on the banquette to combat messy toddler fingerprints.

Some things to consider if you’re thinking about renovating-

How big is the project? Will the entire kitchen or bathroom be out of use for weeks- or months? How will you manage in the meantime? Kitchen renovations are even trickier on some fronts because even though you may still have the means to cook a proper meal, the dust generated from the process makes it that much harder. Thankfully we shouldn’t be without any part of our kitchen for too long, but when we put down new flooring I know that we will probably aim to do it when it’s warm enough to be outside to cook on the grill, but not so cold that we can’t open the windows. This would definitely be a great time to meal plan though, or figure out a good takeout schedule.

How much will it cost? How will it be paid for? What areas can you cut back on and what things are worth the splurge? We are lucky that white subway tile is inexpensive, but it’s also plain. So when we go to pick out a faucet, we will want one that’s a little showier and we’re prepared to shell out a little more for it.

Will you be changing how you use the space? How will that change affect other things? For example, we put in those awesome pipe shelves near the stove and now we aren't able to fully open both doors to the deck. It wasn’t much of a thought until we needed to buy a new fridge and I worried about getting it in the door. (The door still opens up most of the way, so getting it in wasn't a huge deal.)

Do you have a deadline? We started this at the beginning of summer and hope to get it done by Christmas. Sure, we would have loved for it to have been done when all our family came over for our daughter’s birthday, but that wasn’t how we wanted to spend our summer. So it stayed partially complete. Obviously bringing in an outside crew would make things go faster, but hiccups can happen at anytime to anyone so plan accordingly. November might not be the best time for a kitchen overhaul and December isn’t the time to build a deck.