The remodel is done. The house I once knew is now transformed into something I don’t recognize. It’s new, and big and fresh and clean. It’s another reminder that often times things need tearing apart and left in shambles to become something more and something better.

But what does that mean? It means that sometimes you need a little destruction before everything becomes ok. Not ok, more than ok. The kitchen and bathroom were down to its core. They had to bring it to its bones and make it over. That’s what we all have to do sometimes, just take a step back and make something new, no matter how bad it was before. Even when things seem hopeless, restarting your life always seems to answer your problems.

Besides learning that important lesson the phoenix taught us, setting fire to something, brings a new life. Though, there was no fire unless you count the many times things have been burned in that kitchen. We learned another lesson: remodeling is nothing like you see on television. You see a house in shambles, dirty and in need of help. Suddenly (insert HGTV designer here) comes in, and in a half hour to an hour, a new house appears on your screen. The people cry in joy of finally having their dreams come true. They hug, and it ends. Sounds happy right?

However, much like when you watch Baby Story and actually experience your first birth, you realize that television is really fiction and nothing ever occurs like it does on the reality shows. The realities of what actually happens makes me wonder if I’m happy the house is done because it looks millions of times better, or if I’m happy because it’s done and my life is no longer disrupted by this. Knowing what I know now, I would really opt not to ever do it again. Ever.

First, when you redo your only bathroom, you’re making a gigantic mistake. Living out of a Port-a-potty is more disgusting than you can even begin to imagine. Then you have to shower at someone else’s home, which wouldn’t be too bad if you didn’t have to do it for a month and feel like an inconvenience for it. Did I mention the port-a-potty thing and how disgusting it is? It stinks, and it stinks worse when you get two weeks of muggy disaster. Oh and you get that one week in between the two muggy weeks of “freezing your butt off” because you live in Massachusetts and just because you have a muggy week, doesn’t mean the next week won’t require a winter coat for an early morning bathroom break.

Then you have the kitchen. Sure, it sounds fine and easy to adapt to. Just microwave everything, live off deli meats and take out. Of course, it doesn’t work out that easily either. The microwave just shorts a few every ten minutes of usage, taking out half the house with it. And the meals generally ranged from awful to tolerable enough to stomach out of hunger. When you cooked them, you when often times burn them as a result of the microwave blowing a fuse and you forgot how long it was in there before it went out. Best diet ever?

Now I can sit back and enjoy this. By this, I mean I get to pretend to sit back and enjoy it but really I now have to unpack everything and put it back in its place. We’re at the point of putting everything back together in hopes to forget the process and just enjoy the result. And the fact we have a bathroom that’s inside, a shower that’s ours, and a kitchen to cook something that isn’t Tyson or Hormel’s version of “home-style cooking”. We can enjoy our fresh new start.