The renovation and decluttering:

final lessons that you can benefit from

As I write this, it is Monday afternoon, three days before departure. All the paint is on the walls, this morning the built-in closet for my clothes was installed, I tested the brand new bathroom (it works! And it's so beautiful!) and I even spent my first night in my new house. Now I just need to clean the loan house, set up the new wardrobe and, very importantly, pick up my cat Disco from Jet and then everything will be as it was, but better. What was supposed to take a week and a half ended up taking exactly a month (and then I still have to start figuring out furniture after Brazil) and in that month I learned a lot.

Ask for help

I'm bad at asking for help and the type that does everything myself because I don't want to burden others with my troubles. It's nice that I want a new house, but my friends shouldn't have to sit under the paint splatters for that, right? But that's a misconception because doing it alone is almost always too much work. Jet came one evening to help paint and then we did almost my entire ground floor, except for a few meters, something that would have taken me twice as long to do myself. I also thought I could lift those more than 200 planks of demolition wood and disassembled Ikea cabinets three stories down by myself. Total madness, and in the end, I hired movers to do that, and they were busy with it for almost 4 hours with just the two of them and a hoist. Can you imagine? So, enlist help. Offer food and wine in return and line up all your friends for a painting session because trust me, it's quite a lot to do alone.

Plan and budget generously. And then even more generously

The golden rule is that, first of all, it is always worse than you thought, and secondly, it will always cost more and take longer. When they removed the old bathroom floor at my place, it turned out that the floor underneath was completely rotten, and that most of the floor of my entire upper floor had to be replaced. Breathe in, breathe out (see next point) and deal with the new situation.

Keep breathing

At times when you think it will NEVER BE OKAY AGAIN, remember that it will be okay, and if it doesn't turn out okay, it will still be okay, but in a different way. More expensive, and later, but it will be okay. Really.

Make it fun

Painting and renovating every evening after work until midnight for weeks is not necessarily fun, but make sure to have loud music that makes you happy, good food (I rarely ordered as much sushi as in the past weeks), and clothes that can get dirty so you don't have to worry about that.

Ensure good preparation

You can only plan a renovation to a certain extent because, as mentioned, everything goes wrong. But make sure that what you can prepare is also done. Tape everything off with painter's tape and plastic, ensure you have enough brushes and paint, and account for drying time.

Be flexible

Because you may have thought that the cabinet should be this way and that, but in practice, it turns out that it can't be done. Consult with the guys who are working on your house about how it can be done and adjust accordingly. What can't be done, can't be done. It's that simple.

But also be strict

If things are not finished when they should be, you can intervene. Don't forget that you are paying these people (a lot of) money to tackle the job, which puts you in a position to set certain demands. My builders are gems and they deliver beautiful work, but when I ask them when this or that will be finished, I get no answer. “Yeah, well, next week, sort of.” “But, WHEN next week then?” “Yeah, well, you should think about halfway through next week.” “BUT WHEN THEN?! GIVE ME A DAY!”

Enjoy the result

Take a moment to sit down, pour a glass of wine or grab a beer, and look around and admire the mountains of work you have accomplished.