You do what you need to do...

     ​When it comes to our home renovations my husband and I do all the work ourselves except for electrical & plumbing (we let the experts handle those). I'm ridiculously lucky that he goes along with whatever plan or DIY I have cooked up and that he's able to speak Pinterest. After we closed on the house we tore it apart. We had to remove anything that was rotten or could make us sick which was 90% of what was in the house. We started demo (Tuckers favorite) it took three adults two weeks and four 40 yard dumpsters and we were left with a shell(no insulation just framing and siding ) From there I created a plan (#1 thing I tell everyone before they start a project-MAKE A PLAN) you need to know the flow of your house. What are you looking for? What rooms do you use for what? What kind of storage do you need? What kind of furniture are you working with? We didn't we had to work with we had sold our previous home fully furnished and only had daily necessities. Since we were living in the shell of the house while we were renovating it we had to do everything in stages. So we "cleaned up" the second floor for our sleeping area while we worked on the first floor. The most important thing to us was after a day of hard and disgusting work was to be able to have a hot shower and relax in a clean area with the kids. Every night when the kids got to bed I would get to work planning the next days' to-do list. Tucker at the time owned his own construction company in between projects for other people this was his full-time job. I bar-tended nights, a typical day for us would be waking up with kids 6:30, breakfast 7 AM, attack a project, stop to feed kids a million snacks, lunch 12 PM, finish up project & clean up 3 PM, shower and get ready for work, make dinner, leave 3:45 PM, get home from work 2-3 AM.....next day starts all over again. 
Did we enjoy this? Not every single day. Were we exhausted? Absolutely. But when I look back I think to myself I was incredibly lucky to work next to my husband while he taught me something new every single day, I was able to stay home each day with my kids and not worry about them missing me while they slept while still providing a great income for my family. I was also super lucky that the people I worked for and with were so understanding. If I was late because of feeding my kids dinner, if one of them were sick or had a birthday they never questioned it always just supportive. 
  The house was a mess and we knew how far we had to go. When you take an entire house renovation on yourself it's important to not look at the whole picture. Break down each step, each project. When you complete them...CELEBRATE! I still do this. I'll stand back and talk about it, and how beautiful it came out or what a pain in the ass it was and acknowledge the hard work that was put into it.  

UP NEXT some of my favorite before and after projects along the way stay tuned!