Ed’s letter: The truth about renovations – it’s not pretty, but the end result will be (we hope).

We seldom use exclamation marks in NZ House & Garden, but when we looked at the renos in this issue we put one smack bang on the front cover, because the transformation stories we’ve found are nothing short of spectacular. Six sow’s ear houses, with rotten timbers and unlikely leaks. Six tales of heroic hard work.

Six success stories and 54 pages of utterly lovely interiors. That’s a Wow.

With an exclamation mark.

I know you’ll love the houses, however I should warn you that, if I am honest, our stories are not really about renovation. They are about houses that have been renovated. And there’s all the difference in the world between those two things.

“Call us when you’re done,” we say to renovating homeowners, because at NZ House & Garden our stories dwell on the polished end result. We might gloss lightly over the process – there’s mention of “robust debates” over floor colour in the fun family reno on page 70, for example, and some “challenging” floor levels in the broody masculine makeover on page 80 – but mostly we leave out the nitty-gritty stuff to write a story you want to read.

Right now, though, I am stuck in the nitty-gritty of our own renovation, and I am compelled to talk about it at some length, just because it is really hard.

My weekends and evenings are one long to-do list. I’ve given up novels in favour of bathroom catalogues, and at night Nick and I discuss the benefits of rimless toilets. “You guys have got boring,” our son Ben tells us. We need to decide – quite urgently – what sort of taps and heat pump and light fittings and window catches we want, but the people we need to talk to are all too busy or sick or on the Gold Coast.

The hardest bit, though, is visiting the house itself. It is a broken shell draped in tarpaulins that were once billboard skins advertising Happy Meals and cheap liquor outlets. Weatherboards sag and drip, and levels refuse to align. It is hard not to think we should have ripped it all down and started again.

“Hold onto the vision,” Nick and I say to one another. It’s not getting easier, but the thing that’s helping me do that right now is this new issue.

Those six spectacular happy-ending reno stories may not tally with what I am going through now, but they emphatically prove that a beautiful renovated home is possible. And that’s something.