Things I have learned... the hard way!

As of lately I have been so crazy busy lately.  I would love to be able to craft my life away.  But there is more important things to do.  I have a little family and they need a lot of attention.  I have a lot of projects that I have finished and I just need to post.  Hopefully soon.

Another little know fact about me is that we are trying to sell our home.  This is stressful and exciting.  Also very bittersweet.  This is our first house and we have done tons of things to it to make it a lot nicer.  We knew that it would not be our final home.  Just one of many.  However, this is our first, so it is very special. We have had it up since September and it has been a very stressful journey.

That is why I can't do tons of crafts and leave all of my craft stuff out.  Your house needs to be ready at any time!  Just to find out that they never came.  It is really hard and I just want it to sell.  But there tons of fun things that my hubbie and I have done to our home to make it more of a home. Since this is our first time, we learned a lot of things and wasted a lot of money.  Which kills me to say since money is hard to come by now a days.  I thought that I would share a few things that we have learned the hard way.

First, buy only enough paint for the project.  Now this can have exceptions.  If you really like the color and know that you would use it in other places in your house or on furniture. We used the same color in our front room, and hall.  Which we bought more then others. But we did an accent wall and bought a full gallon.  Which is way too much.  Now we have been able to use it on other things so that turned out alright. Also check the mistinted section.  They have some really pretty colors and they are super cheap.

Second, think about how long you want to live there and how is the market. When we bought the house we thought that we would only live here 5 years.  We knew that it was not long term. At the time the market was awesome and we paid way too much for this house.  The only thing that has saved us is the fact that we bought it and fixed it up.  Now that we are trying to sell though, the Realtor fees and closing cost will take our profit.  At least we aren't upside down in our loan like so many great people are.  With that if I knew then how things we would change I would have been alot better with our money.  You live and you learn!  That is the great thing about life!

Third, buy everything to do the entire remolded.  For instance, if you are remolding a bathroom.  You think, I want to do tile in the shower and the floor, a new bath tub, a new toilet and a new vanity.  The tile alone needs more then just the tile.  You need to see how much tile you will need, finishing tile to go around the shower, grout, cement, all the tools, and towels  for clean up. Or the tub, you need to pull out the old tub, see if there is water damage, if there is take care of that (with that I am speaking for experience, we were going to just tile part of the shower, we opened up the wall and there was water damage.  But NO mold!  Hurray!)  Always plan for the unexpected.

Fourth, always, I mean always plan on more money, more work and more time them you think.  Rome was not built in a day!  I hate to say this, but it is the truth.  We thought our bathroom remold was going to be around a hundred dollars and take a few days.  Now we have a small bathroom and so we didn't think we need that stuff.  It cost us about triple that.  I know it was a sad day.  Then about a two full weeks with out a shower and three full days without a toilet! But we love it and it was worth every penny.

Fifth, make sure you are not doing things that you won't see a return in.  I am a prefect example of this!  I have a little boy and I wanted this super cute nursery!  I wanted it to have bright fun paint and bead board.  First off I bought way to much paint and now we have a gallon that hasn't even been touched.  We now need to paint it and that is more time and money.  Then the bead board is super cute.  But cost us about $250, and now we are moving.  I think that we could have done without this.  But I HAD to have it!  Be careful and put it into perspective.  You will save a lot of money.

I hope that these five suggestions will help you get your money's worth out of your remold and your house!  Thanks for stopping by and let me know what you think!