The Big Lesson Smackdown (as inspired by my kitchen renovation, but that can be applied to any project)

The Big Lesson Smackdown (as inspired by my kitchen renovation, but that can be applied to any project) chalkboard no 48 by chalkboard wisdom Did ya catch us on Renovation Realities this weekend?! If not, no worries it airs 5 more times in May, and I promise to let ya know as soon as its posted online! Anyway, while we were in Renovation Hell I mean, um, while we were in the thick of our renovation I started getting a Big Lesson Smackdown. Like, the type of Big Lessons that are so obvious yet so lightbulb-inducing you feel kinda dumb not putting it together in that before.but thats OK. Ive a-ha!ed it now so you dont hafta. Here! I jotted em down before it left my brain for good: It doesnt have to be perfect it just needs to go with the rest of the place. Perfect doesnt work in our apartment it would stick out in an odd, un-perfect way. Our walls have waves em em, the corners arent square and the ceiling isnt smooth. To have those things (yknow, perfect things) in any part of our apartment and not throughoutit would make it less-than-perfect. It was nice to take the pressure off of perfect and to instead aim for matching. When I would get frustrated or wanna throw the towel in, Id go back to why we started this project in the first place. I would sometimes caress our inanimate objects with whispers of, We love you, cabinets, Were going to take care of you, home and Youre going to be so pretty and cared for, kitchen. It gave me some zen and brought me back to the love and attention we were giving our home which we know hasnt gotten any in such a long time. We made it fun as much as we could. Whether by blasting our favorite tush-shakin tunes (off-camera, as Renovation Realities cant be shellin out the rights for Justin Timberlake tunes) or yelling at the wall for being a jerk (its way funner than it sounds), we made sure to make the most of our project time together and keep laughing through the miles/tons of 80-year-old plaster, chicken wire, and floor-to-ceiling metal studs every 2 feet. Assign yourself some dirty clothes. As gross as it sounds, I spent every renovation-makin minute in the same pair of blue jeans, only switching shirts twice (when the first one got too smelly). By taking these clothes on and off, I knew that (a) it was time to get renovatin or stop renovatin (b) I didnt ruin all my damn clothes (c) I could get as dirty as I wanted, because I was basically throwin em out when I was done. Sometimes its best to start new. Not everythings  salvageable, nor should it be. Know when its worth spending time/money/brain cell bringing the old into the new, and when its best to cut your losses. Assume youre gonna screw up, and use the tools that already exist to help prevent that. Instead of assuming you wont lose an eye using the hacksaw, wear goggles. Instead of assuming youll be able to paint around the new marble countertops, use painters tape. Et cetera, et cetera. Sometimes the best choices are the easy ones. While I had my heart set on a certain backsplash, we (thankfully!) learned that it would be near impossible to cut the natural stone without a wet saw, which we would soooo not be able to bring into our apartment because of the lack of space big messiness factor. While it wasnt our dream backsplash, we went with glass tiles, since we could cut them with a small $15 cutter thats the size of a cutting board. And ya know what? It looks beautiful, goshdarnit! Whadda great side effect. Its gonna take longer and be tougher! than ya think. Originally, the show expected us to not only finish renovating our entire kitchen (spoiler alert!: we didnt), but also had on our 4-day agenda to put up a new door and an entire wall to separate our living room from the office space. What happened instead? Spoiler alert again!: Our 1-day demo took the entire 4 days, as we were met not with dry wall like we thought, but walls made out of chicken wire, floor-to-ceiling metal studs, and 80 year old plaster (some in sand-like form, others in huge concrete chunks). Although thinking about it now, some projects Ive taken on took less time/effort than I thought. So I guess the overall lesson: youre gonna underestimate/overestimate yourself, and/or expect the unexpected. Whether youre working on an art piece, a novel, a knitted sweater or yes a kitchen renovation, the Big Lesson Smackdown remains the same. Feel free to take the lessons I already got smacked with to keep your own smacking to a minimum. **********************************************************************************************