My best advice, which will be hard, is to have faith in yourself and the choices made during the process. Oddly enough, it is usually our first choices on things that end up being the best one. And, I think that's because going into the projects, we know what we want, but then when we start 2nd, 3rd, and double guessing ourselves, we become doubtful. We start seeing more choices all of a sudden, and it seems to get harder. I have gone through so many "I think I changed my mind," that my poor husband is about to lose HIS mind. I don't know if that helps you, but good luck.

Anyway, on you indecisiveness, I more that understand. In a nutshell, I think it's primarily because of the financial scope of the work and the long-term nature of the changes. The bare truth is there are a lot more decisions that go into a remodel than you probably anticipated when you started.

All I can suggest is try to get plenty of "think time" (and hopefully not while you're trying to sleep) for sorting out all of the options you have and the probable effect on your life when they're done. Making decisions while contractors are breathing down your neck is probably not the best way, although some of this is inevitable, of course ("we can't do it that way, how about this or this, which one will it be")

And keep in mind the most important decisions are those that are hardest to change later, e.g. where a wall goes versus the correct shade of "morning mist" to paint it.

Keep you head up and mind clear and just keep on ridin'!

I'm doing a bathroom upgrade and set out with a sample of floor tile (we're keeping it) to find shower tile for. I had addresses for a dozen tile retailers ... eleven of them were never visited because I saw a tile that fit the budget (heck, it was 1/2 the budgeted amount!) and blends very well with the existing floor tiles. On a scale of 1 to 10, it's easily a 9.376 .

Yes, it's possible that one of the eleven unvisited suppliers has a tile that is even better, one tiny scooch closer to absolute perfection, but it's not worth spending more time searching for the absolute perfect tile for the shower in the hall bath.

I went through a ton of books, which really helped, and decided on one style for the house... Clean white trim, dark hardwoods, white shaker style kitchen, marble & white subway tile in bathrooms. I think it helps me to have a general plan so that the house flows.

It is really hard to make so many decisions in a very short time but I think it is completely normal to second guess yourself. It sometimes helps to get a second opinion (my mom helps me and doesn't feel bad telling me when something looks terrible).

Good luck with your renovation!

Robin

I hate our kitchen floor and it's still there after 5 years. Someday I'll change it but in the scheme of things, the kitchen floor isn't making me happy or unhappy. Most of the time I don't even notice it. I work with a contractor friend sometimes and I see people agonize over things I know they'll never give a second thought to once the project is done. Happiness comes from elsewhere. At least I try to live by that - course, it doesn't always go that way.

Makes me think of the US government having to make decisions. Or CEO's. They just make them and if they turn out wrong, they try again.

Try to enjoy it. Deep breaths are good.

We were forced into a major remodel by a fire. While we knew we'd need to update when we bought our 1956 ranch five years ago, we were nowhere near ready to do it. In our last house we thought about the kitchen remodel for SEVEN YEARS before we finally got to work. Once it was done, we were very happy, and during the work it didn't seem so bad. I think that's because we'd thought so very hard about every detail.

In our current situation, I anticipate a lot of buyer's remorse. Remodeling an entire house is just too much to do all at once, at least for us. My take-home lesson from my experience is that I will never be able to build a dream home with my husband, unless I plan on using that to break up our marriage.

Here is just a brief glimpse into our daily life. Our house is currently gutted down to framing. The new roof is about 2/3 done. The new ceilings are about half framed. We have one interior room that is going to get an 11' ceiling (!!). The framer did it wrong and put it at 10'. He showed it my husband and said "what do you think?"

Instead of saying, no, that's not right, my husband told him "hmmm, looks pretty high! I'll talk to my wife and see what she says."

He reported this to me last night at 5. I was baffled as to how he could not just tell the framer to do it right. Changing the ceiling height dominoes into a bunch of other decisions, none of which my husband thought of.

sigh. So I went over to the house and looked at the new framing. 10' is high, but 11' is what we planned and what we wanted. So I thanked the framer for bringing it up and asked him to redo it. Which he gladly agreed to. ARGH!

Every day we go through something like this. It is not fun. I'm looking forward to June when I can break out the vodka in my new house and toast the end of this part of my life! It's great advice above to accept that some of your decisions won't be right, but you can always go back and change it.