Why Remodel?

She Said:

There are a lot of shows on TV where the couple buys a perfectly nice house and then tears everything out to remodel. What these shows are programing us to believe, is that your house is never good enough and you have to have the newest things in order to be happy. This is why I don't watch those shows. Understandably though, we've been getting a lot of sideways glances and questions about our reasons for remodeling. Our house is fairly new, built in 2002, and by the looks of the listing photos it seems to be completely livable. So WHY are we tearing it all out and basically rebuilding it?!

When we toured our house, there was a dehumidifier running. It was in the late summer during a particularly wet season. We asked the listing realtor about it and she told us that someone had been looking at the house and turned the heat all the way up, which caused the house to become extremely humid. This seemed like a reasonable enough explanation. We had decided against a home inspection, because we knew that the roof needed work; but everything else seemed to be in good working order. Besides, we had enough home remodeling experience to know how to fix something if it came up later.

Shortly after moving in, it became very clear that something much bigger was the reason behind the mysterious dehumidifier. Each time we vacuumed the carpet, we were getting full canisters of drywall dust. We quickly realized there was a roof leak that had been repaired. A short time later, the roof started leaking again. After assessing the situation, Shawn was fairly confident that it could be fixed by patching the leaky screw holes. I wasn't so convinced. I felt the roof needed to be replaced. Since Shawn's idea was cheaper, we decided to run with it. And it worked....for a little while.

Fast forward four years and that leaky roof sprung several more leaks until it was ultimately screaming, "Replace me!!" By this point, our problems were bigger than just a leaky roof. The roof had been leaking for so long that we now had a mold problem on top of a leaky roof problem. So bad, in fact, that it meant removing all the sheetrock and insulation to remove and treat for the mold. Our family was also starting to have some pretty serious health problems because of it (headaches, swollen glands, and asthma-like symptoms). Since we knew everything had to come down to the studs, we decided we would make some other (much needed) changes as well. What started out as a new roof has now become what amounts to a total house remodel.

We're excited to share our journey with you as we go down to the studs, and maybe pass along a little wisdom as well. So let's jump right in...

-Tiffany

He Said:

I regrettably inform the reading audience, I should have listened to my wife years ago. I don't know if there was already a mold problem when we first bought the house, but it would have been nice to have a dry roof. On the bright side, we get to take everything down to the studs and make it the way we want it to be. This means we can get it all done at once!

-Shawn