Franglo

I am sitting on the train relaxing in business class on my way to Toronto for the weekend to spend some quality time with my girls.

I can’t believe another month has gone by since my last post. I think the last month has probably been one of the more challenging in our relationship but we managed to weather the storm.

Household renovation was the storm in our lives, and our relationship managed to survive the turbulent waters. When I moved to Montreal in the summer, we were trying to decide should we keep his house and buy something together . We needed something that works for a family with three kids, which meant another bedroom and shower.

During this exploratory stage, we found out Quebec laws are different than other parts of the country, since we are not legally married; even if we created a spousal agreement showing my contribution, I would never have any legal claim to the house. So naturally this did not sit well with me, I should get some return on investment if I pay into the mortgage for 20 years. You also have to think worst case scenario, what if something happened to my spouse – in this situation the kids could put me out on the street without anything to my name.

We went down the path of making this whole thing legal, which meant he sold me half the house so I would have legal ownership and then both of us co-funding the renovation. It’s been an expensive few months for me, every time I turned around I was transferring more money. In the end, this is the right decision but scary when you are the sole owner of one property and co-owner of another. Holy crap, I am responsible for two mortgages. Guess it’s time to put on my big girl pants.

We hired a contractor through a referral on someone that my spouse knows, and made the decision to gut the basement, and build another bedroom, bathroom with shower, storage area and family room section. He has to deal with he contractor as my french skills are not up to par to be able to explain what we wanted or needed. He also lived through most of it as I am away in Ottawa for 3 nights per week. The final product is amazing, I am always trying to reconcile that I essential just dropped a huge chunk of money for a space I am rarely going to get to use, the reality is this space will be for the kids. Yes, we will get the money back on re-sale for the house and I did also get a walk-in closet in the master bedroom but this is a huge commitment to the family.

Living through a renovation is hard, we have not really had any free time in the past month and half, even on the weekends with no kids. We were both tired, throw in the fact that my week was essentially a six day weeks when you take in the five hours of french class every Saturday. There were days, when we were snippy with each other and trying to come to an agreement on style was also a bit challenging.

Let’s not forget that we have teen and tween opinons on style. I get why he wanted to include them in the process, he wants them to feel like this house is their house as well. Some time the eye rolls, the drama and no regard for the price tag, test this anglos patience. I swear sometimes they purposely switch to french so I don’t understand and they can have a side conversation with their father. I will admit that this part was really hard for me, I felt excluded. I was supposed to be excited as this was the first time I was renovating something I owned but at times I just felt like the bank.

I think at some point he realized my unhappiness, and reassured me we would have final pick, but in the back of my mind I was worried about the comments when it was all complete. In the end, we have found a style we both love, there is compromise and enough storage so my neat-freak spouse will not see clutter. And the kids, love the final product, so no eye-rolls for now. If you are looking for me, I will be hiding in the new rain shower, yes this is part that I will use.