I may have moved in all my personal belongings, but the idea that anyone arriving on the doorstep has free rein to tour the house, as I once did, remains. Friends want to see every nook and cranny, even the parts I still cringe to show (namely, the upstairs bathroom). They get full descriptions of the six-month history of each room—and every dime I’ve spent on it. It won’t be long before I’m providing media packets with color photo spreads.

I still remember being a little nervous about letting a plumber into my old apartment, slightly skeeved at being alone with a strange, burly dude in my living quarters. Now it’s just part of the game. I throw my door open to whomever, take them through the house, and have no compunction about bringing them to the master bedroom or giving them a key so they can come and go as they please, sometimes for months.

There's no Diary of a Fixer-Upper today, but good news! Heather Goss, who writes Open House's weekly Diary of a Fixer-Upper column, will host a chat tomorrow, Wednesday, June 25 about her renovation. Heather bought a crumbling rowhouse in Columbia Heights in the fall and has spent the last six months gutting and remodeling the home herself. Ask her anything—from how she got financing to what mistakes she's made to where she found her sleek European fridge.  

Submit your questions now and Heather will answer them on Wednesday from Noon to 1.

I know you’re waiting patiently for more photographic evidence that I’m actually doing this renovation I write so much about.  Unfortunately, at the moment I’m in a holding pattern, waiting for some things I’ve ordered and for my bank account to get a little padding before I begin new projects.

In the meantime, I’ve been able to have a little vacation from the stresses of home renovation.  Ha, just kidding!  There is no such thing. Sometimes I don’t even realize how much this renovation is affecting my life. Perhaps most disconcerting, I’ve gotten “Renovation Tummy.”  While attempting unsuccessfully to put on my “good” jeans this weekend—I nearly tried the lay-on-the-bed-zip-up maneuver before giving up—I realized that my typical five-to-ten winter pounds had converted themselves into “The New Cabinets Are Going to Cost What” pounds.  Also known as “Oh God My Upstairs Window is Leaking And That Was Not in the Renovation Budget” pounds.  I worry that “Your Entire Electrical System Needs Upgrading” elastic-waist pants are in my future.

I hope you’re all enjoying this heat wave as much as I am. The suddenly soaring temps have taught me yet another valuable lesson. While most of Washington is huddling near air conditioners for some blessedly cool air, I’ve been sleeping on my couch on the first floor with my new oscillating fan (from my emergency Target run on Saturday), trying to find any air that isn’t scorching. What was that lesson, you ask?  Making sure my brand new $14,000 air conditioning system works BEFORE the first heat wave strikes.

Yeah. Luckily my HVAC guys are pretty reliable and I have a ten year warranty, so—cross your fingers—they should be fixing the unit as we speak. I’m not a big fan of A/C generally, so it never even occurred to me to turn it on until the sweltering weather this weekend. Very sweaty lesson learned.

As far as the rest of the house, I’m about halfway done with the renovation work.  It’ll still be about a year until I’m totally done, but that’s only because I plan to spend the next six months saving up for the bathroom redo—a gut job that will set me back about ten grand.

So I’ve done enough work now that I can look back with a little perspective. Have I done a good job? Have I budgeted properly? Am I making good choices?

Regardless, a little OCD comes with the territory: obsessive online appliance shopping; obsessive worrying about dents and scratches in all the new stuff you just purchased; obsessive checking of your account balances.

A terrible secret: Cleaning isn’t one of them. Try mopping the entire house—around all your still unpacked piles of junk—only to find another layer of drywall dust appear an hour later. With dirty dishes in your hands, you longingly gaze at your fancy new dishwasher, which you are unable to hook up until the counters and sink are installed. I’ve mostly given up on trying to keep my fixer-upper clean, and have set aside a stash for a professional house-cleaning when this is over.

One obsession creeps outside the confines of my front door: The need to know what everyone else is doing. I eagerly search the Internet for blogs and photos of sweet renovations, but what I really want to know is: What does the inside of my neighbor’s house look like? Even though I don’t plan on selling for a few years, knowing the comparable listings in my neighborhood has become an intense hobby.

For the wall cabinets, I had asked my contractors to space out the shelves evenly, but I didn’t realize there were way too many shelves.  They were barely five inches apart, and I spent a day removing and rearranging them. (Is there a shelf high enough for the big olive oil jar?  Will this one fit my glasses comfortably?)

The pantry was installed last, since it is a stand-alone piece. I knew how many shelves it came with and it seemed alright, but I came home to find it all jumbled. I spent another day removing and testing heights of cereal boxes and whiskey bottles. I wore out the heads on a couple screws and scratched the cabinet door and two of the shelves, then kicked myself for putting all this unnecessary wear on brand new units. Eventually, I got everything customized...except for the missing piece that would require another trip to IKEA, naturally.

The real interesting experience, and one I do not wish to repeat, was flipping the refrigerator doors after I moved the appliance to the other side of the room. I inspected the screws. The door seemed connected in just a few places, and easy enough to unhook and turn around. But I underestimated the complicated work put into appliance hinges.

Heather's kitchen after the floor was fixed and the fridge and cabinets were installed.

As you may remember, I tore the drywall off the chimney in my kitchen, which meant I had to patch the four-inch border of wood flooring that surrounded it. Luckily, I thought, the company I used to refloor my entire house was great with tiny repairs and patches.

I was used to calling my project manager’s cell phone, but kept getting his voice mail, so eventually I called the main office. The secretary took my information and said she’d call me back to schedule an estimate. After a week passed, I called again, and was able to get an appointment. That Saturday the PM came over, took a look at the job, and said it would be pretty easy because they could manufacture the patch in their shop. He said he’d call me later that day with the exact cost.

Days passed with no word, so I finally called him. He gave me an estimate of $175 and said he could come on Friday. I took the morning off work, waited hours for him to show up, and finally got a call around noon from his secretary canceling the appointment.

I was annoyed by the phone-tag—not to mention wasting precious vacation days —but we rescheduled the appointment for two weeks later, the soonest they could come. Because the base cabinets could not be attached to the wall until the floor was patched, my entire kitchen renovation was being held up for this project.