Remodeling an entire house is rarely on anyone’s bingo card, and it was not on mine for 2024. However, my fiancé, Ryan Lynch, and I are tackling this project head-on and would like to take you on the journey with us.

We have been clearing out and cleaning up our future home since the end of last summer, and to be honest, we thought we were going to have everything wrapped up with a shiny bow by the end of 2023. Boy, were we naive!

Instead, life happened. Before we knew it, we were at planting season with a long list of house projects left. Between me graduating and starting this job, and Ryan working full time on his family’s farm, we found little time to work our way through that list of projects. I’m certain you can relate.

Where we are now

We’ve arrived at the point where this house is a blank slate, following several months of clearing out furniture and ripping up carpet. So far, we’ve painted a couple of rooms and started nailing down some solid ideas for how we want this to look.

BEFORE: Here’s a peek at the “before” of this bedroom. This was the first room we cleared out and painted.

Ryan has taken the lead on installing vinyl flooring and nearly wrapped up an entire room in just a few hours. I have started the process of staining the kitchen cabinets. Ryan does not think that change is necessary, so I’ve had to show him my research, which consists of scrolling through videos on social media and getting these ideas. I think he is finally convinced that it will be a nice update to the kitchen. Again, I bet a lot of farm couples have had similar — ahem — differences of opinion.

Other big pending projects include painting, cleaning and eventually selecting furniture. That last item won’t happen for quite some time yet.

AFTER: This is the “after” of that bedroom. A year ago, I would have never considered this color, but lately this specific shade of green has been one of my favorite colors. I’m glad we covered a whole room with it.

A glimpse into a workday

To give you an idea of what these house workdays look like, I’ll share the latest challenge that we’ve tackled. Ryan began installing the vinyl flooring a couple of weeks ago, and after fighting with the flooring saw for about an hour, he had a third of the room done in no time.

“What do you think, Allison?” he asked.

“It looks great!” I replied. “I know that I couldn’t do that. I think you’re doing a fantastic job.”

“I’m going to tear it up and start over again,” he declared. It turns out, Ryan thought the seams between the flooring planks were too big, and he wanted them to close tighter. I insisted that this is a project where we learn as we go, but he was not having any of that. Let me remind you — we are not professionals.

So, the next time we had a chance to go work at the house, he ripped out all the flooring, reversing any progress. In a couple of hours, he doubled the progress he made last time. However, he still doubted his work.

After 15 minutes of me insisting that it looks like the work of a professional — which it does — he finally believed me, and we decided to call it a day. That was where we left off on our last workday, and I hope he doesn’t change his mind the next time we head over to continue our progress.

If you have tackled some DIY projects around the house, or even completed an entire house remodel with your spouse, please feel free to send any tips, advice or what not to do to me at [email protected].

We’re excited to have you join us on this journey.