Almost There!!

Have you ever seen a television show called “Renovation Realities”? Here is the summary from IMDB. Home renovation looks so easy on TV. We see a project move quickly and smoothly from start to finish - and the results are always beautiful. But somewhere between "before" and "after" there are always at least a few speed bumps - and one great story. Budgets skyrocket, tempers flare, relationships suffer. This is real life, and DIY Network's Renovation Realities proves that even in home improvement, truth is often stranger than fiction.

Last weekend, DIY network was on our television, and they were running back-to-back-to-back episodes of that show. We've been known to watch it on occasion; the kids will even watch it with us sometimes because it can be quite entertaining at times. I must also admit that sometimes we'll armchair quarterback what they're doing, or how they're doing it.

At the beginning of each show, a couple will talk about their planned renovation, why they want to do the renovation, their vision of the finished renovation, expected time frame, and budget. The common theme is a very tight (almost always unrealistic) time frame, and a tight budget. It seemed every episode we caught last weekend had a projected time frame of five days. Five days for a full bathroom remodel, or five days to put an addition on their house. The show has been on for about 8 or 9 years, I think, and in all that time, I don't think we've ever seen a couple finish in the projected time frame. On budget, yes. On time? Not so much.

The reason I mentioned this is because today is day number five for us. Granted, we aren't doing actual renovations, we're just sprucing up and changing things around, but it's still day number five. And just like in a renovation, we've hit some speed bumps, too. Ours have been extremely minor, more like annoyances or inconveniences, but we've had them. Here are our glitches and fixes (so far) in no particular order:

The bedroom set I originally wanted had to be ordered. It would have taken a minimum of 2 weeks to arrive, so we had to choose another set. Luckily, we did find a set we liked that was in stock for delivery this week. It's scheduled to be delivered today, in fact. I'm just waiting for the phone call.

The comforter set for my son's room won't be here until Monday, but when I ordered it, the expected delivery date was today. On the bright side, he can use one of our old comforters for a couple of days.

We couldn't find an affordable (remember, I'm frugal) rug for my daughter's room that she liked. On a whim, we stopped at a carpet store on our way to the furniture store, and the carpet store had a really large remnant with bound edges in the color she wanted for a fraction of the original price.

When we first put the paint on the walls in our room, it looked turquoise. A really bright turquoise. It dried to the color I was expecting,

It's really not this bright of a blue; the flash makes it look like it is, though.

but for a while, I was really unhappy. I kept telling myself that it was better than purple.

I'm not sure how I'm going to store my shoes. Though I purged several pairs of shoes when I cleaned out my closet upstairs, I still have a fair amount. Once we get the dressers, I'll survey the situation and figure something out I'm sure.

Once the bedrooms are together and clothing switched, we will need to reassemble the craft room upstairs. Before we can do that, we'll need to gather all the clothing donations and actually get them donated. Between all of our purging, plus my mom's things, I bet my Durango will be really full.

If we can finish this little project with only those issues, I will be one happy girl!