At the beginning of the summer, my boyfriend and I made a big step and bought a house. A real "fixer-upper" as people like to call them. I took one look at the place and cringed. Immediately I knew we would have to rip out all of the carpeting. There was terrible wallpaper in every room in the house. Our entry way was painted Pepto Bismol pink (I think that's actually a Crayola color).

The whole thing seemed like a giant undertaking, and one that I am in no way qualified for. You give me a piece of furniture from IKEA, and I can follow the directions to put it together. But, renovating an entire house? There isn't a nice little sheet of paper with instructions in both Swedish and English that tells you what to do! You can't renovate an entire house using only an allen wrench!

So far, one of the biggest things I have learned is how important a bathroom door is. Basically, we took out the wall between the existing kitchen and bathroom and moved the bathroom back into a small bedroom. That part was fairly easy (at least I think it was, I had no part it in, but it seems like it was done pretty quickly). My biggest thing was that I didn't want to be without a working toilet in the house for too long.

So, now we have a functioning bathroom. Well, kind of. We have a functioning toilet, no sink, and a bathtub that's currently full of insulation. But hey, at least the toilet works (and we have hand sanitizer)!

One small problem. We took out all of the interior doors and haven't purchased replacements yet. So, I have a functioning toilet in a room with no door. And on any given night there are four to five people in he house working on it.

I mean, I'm all for openness and sharing, but I don't really enjoy yelling "I'm peeing!" every time I have to use the bathroom. But, that's what we do. We have to send up a warning anytime someone is going to be in the bathroom. There should be some sort of flagging system. Maybe we should just hang a sheet in front of the door just in case?

Or, perhaps the bathroom door should have been one of our first purchases. Which it would have been. If we were smart.

Oh well, we live and learn. And this has definitely been a learning experience for me. Stay tuned for more home improvement updates.

I'm thinking my next rant may chronicle my hatred for wallpaper. Seriously. Wallpaper is the devil.

More From Mix 95.7