Today I’m sharing with you the beginning stages of our condo reconstruction. The pictures might seem like a crazy collage of chaos to you, but this was the stage where we had a glimmer of hope that this could be our home. Last time I mentioned that we had a ton of problems with the place. In case you didn’t catch my previous entries, you can see our BEFORE PICS HERE and our DEMOLITION PICS HERE.
One of the more major problems was with the bathroom floors. After our inspection, we found out that there was no foundation underneath the tiles of both of our bathrooms…like if we jumped on them, we could fall through the ceiling of our downstairs neighbors. So we had to rip up the existing tiles, put in solid flooring support, and then add new tiles again, as well as new toilets and vanities.
We also had to fix all the doors. They were all either not up to fire code, or warped and didn’t close…which defeats the purpose of a door. And the master bathroom didn’t even have a door so we had to add one.
The kitchen was a HOT MESS too.
There was some improper ventilation stuff going on, electricity problems, and plumbing issues. So the gist was we needed to gut out everything from there, fix the problems from behind the walls, and build a new kitchen again, including cabinetry, sink, backsplash, counters, and appliances. We even had to route the water line under the flooring to the other side so it could connect with our refrigerator. We had to hire a general contractor, an electrician, and a plumber to get the job done right.
I don’t even know how many times Joe and I ran to Ikea and Home Depot. We picked up all the supplies ourselves, in order to save money on labor costs. As we stared at the piles of boxes, trash bags, and rubble everywhere, we kept questioning if we could really see ourselves living here.
But slowly, one by one, walls got painted, permits went through, things got repaired, the closet system got installed, and kitchen cabinetry got built. And when we finally had water, electricity, and heat, we felt a little sense of peace.
In the same vein, a couple weeks ago, Joe challenged me to make improvements to our work flow by setting our work schedule ONE MONTH in advance. I was like, “say what?” That seemed impossible to me, because I don’t always know what I’m going to blog about next, or what recipe we’re going to shoot for our cooking show. It made me feel pressured and cornered like I was supposed to be some kind of fortune teller or prophet. But after I calmed down, I realized he was right. By planning things a month in advance, we could have real deadlines and weekly goals, like a legit operation.
So I begrudgingly took on the challenge. It took a lot of hair pulling and pacing around in my room to get it done. But I did it. As much as I hated doing it, I admit that pushing myself to plan our schedule way ahead of time really helps us function better. It gives us realistic goals to shoot for, and makes us more organized. We’ve been WAAAAY more productive, unified, efficient, and happy as a result.
For both our condo and our business, we had to assess the problems, fix what was wrong, and start over to build something better. It took some time and effort to build good foundation, but once we got over the bumpy parts, things started to make more sense. And now I can honestly say that it was well worth the investment.
