who
nicole, 28 (grad student) and drew, 29 (grad student)
where
two-bedroom house in tucson, az
on renovating
One of major perks of home ownership versus renting: being able to make big changes. But how do you do a serious overhaul on your pad without going crazy from all the chaos? Drew and Nicole say: “When we purchased our house, we continued living in our apartment for a month. This way, we could get a good chunk of the improvements done without living in a construction zone. We layed visquine down over all the floors, broke out our squirt bottles and began the laborious peeling of the ceilings and bamboo wallpaper in the heat of june. There was also electrical, plastering, sanding and painting to be done, and there’s no way we could have finished it without the help of some good friends. With the experience we have now, we could have done so much more in that month than we actually got accomplished. But being our first home to improve, we underestimated our timelines. We studied up on our jobs, but even still, everything took longer than expected, and everything uncovered problems we hadn’t anticipated. Eventually, we had to move in without updating the bathrooms, kitchen or den. But having the bedrooms and living room completed allowed us enough living space to deal with the hassle of improving those rooms individually.”

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