Ranking right up there with “All Time Stupid Decisions” is the one to have our house remodeled to the point where we have to move out of it for 8-10 months immediately after having a baby. Pretty much the whole house had to be packed up and moved.
It started a few years ago as we thought about remodeling the house, essentially expanding the upstairs to utilize the full footprint. Currently our house has a second floor that doesn’t make full use of the space. The roof slopes down and the walls are about 3 feet high. It’s pretty standard “expansion” stuff from back when the upstairs was built and it was fine when we had just one kid. With the 6th on its way, it was pretty obvious something needed to be done.
After a lot of planning and agonizing we started to actually put things in motion slowly last year. From looking into permits and hiring an architect to figuring out where to live. This is the sort of remodel that we wouldn’t be able to live in the basement during. The structural reinforcements necessary were such that there would be no livable space for one person, let alone the 8 of us.
Renting a house in our neighborhood was going to be a major expense but we lucked into a very good deal that became available a month before the remodel was set to begin. This meant we could start moving in some of our stuff in advance of the move. What also made this particular place appealing was its location – literally a block away. This means the kids routines are not going to be disrupted (such as continuing to walk to school).
With everything lining up, we went ahead and moved forward with the plans for remodeling. Yes, knowing we were going to have a newborn as the project commenced.
It was a choice of doing this now, right after the baby was born, or waiting a year. If we had the remodel done next year then we’d have to move but have the added logistics of a toddler. This may be one of the toughest years we will ever undergo, but it will be worth it. Faced with a choice of having one very tough year of one year of a kind of rough year followed by another year that would be perhaps equally rough it was almost as if the decision was made for us.
So here we sit, in a rental house with a newborn while our (actual) house currently has no roof. Or second floor. Because demolition begun as we were moving out. With a newborn.