Considering my slight obsession with HGTV's "Fixer Upper," when my family decided to take on our own, I was pretty ecstatic.

Three months to remodel, move in and go back to college. It honestly sounded pretty good.

But then it lasted six months.

I packed away my most important things about a month before we actually got the house. We were only remodeling upstairs (and knocking down a few walls in the basement), so once we got the keys, we brought some of my stuff over and put it in the garage. As it got closer to August, I was getting ready to move back to school and I was super anxious, as we were nowhere close to being finished with demo, let alone a full remodel. I was still living out of boxes - everything felt so scattered. It stressed me out beyond belief, but there was nothing I could do about it. I basically lived in three places: our condo (we lived there during the remodel), the new house and college.

Despite my anxieties throughout the process, I have to admit, I wouldn't change it for the world. It was such a cool experience and I will never forget it. I have so much more appreciation for everything in our house because I know I played a part in it, and I know my parents and my favorite contractor in the entire world (Hi Jon!) worked their butts off to quickly make it our home.

If you could not have figured it out already, I promise you, television makes fixer uppers waaaay easier than they actually are.

In order to balance my stress (and just because I love photography) I was very much a photographer during my family's fixer upper, appropriately deemed #PretzerFixerUpper on Twitter.

Welcome to our journey!

One of my favorite memories of our "Fixer Upper" was one of our trips between our condo and our house. We had so many boxes in the back, I had to sit on my mom's lap the entire car ride!

The weekend we got the keys to the house, I was in Cincinnati at Selena Gomez' Revival Tour! (I actually wrote about that experience here). This was our first family picture in our new house!

My first demo day! I helped my dad knock out kitchen cabinets and then forced him to take a picture for my Instagram. He wasn't too amused, but he complied.

I majorly geeked out when Chip tweeted me back about my family's fixer upper. It might have been a couple months before we actually started demo, but the fact that he responded was pretty cool. Throughout the entire summer, I told my dad that I was done being Chip; I was ready to be Joanna and design my room.

One of many pictures of me literally inside of a giant dumpster. The sign clearly says do not climb in or on top of the dumpster, but there I was, posing. While this was a pretty original Instagram picture, I actually did have a purpose for constantly climbing in the dumpster. In order for the dumpster to be picked up, everything inside of it had to lay flat and nothing could fly out of the top. So, whenever we threw stuff inside of the dumpster, I backed the golf cart up to the side, climbed on top of the golf cart and started crawling on the edges of the dumpster in order to shift the contents inside around.

Honestly, climbing on top of the dumpster was way better than bringing the wheelbarrow inside to dump the garbage into it. The second time I brought garbage into the dumpster, I lost my footing and hold of the wheelbarrow. I fell backwards down our makeshift ramp, scratched the back of my arm up on some random piece of metal, landed on a dead/dying cicada family and got run over by the wheelbarrow.

"If you could take my pulse right now it would feel just like a sledgehammer!"

The sledgehammer was my absolute favorite tool I used throughout demo. I loved breaking things apart and it was a great stress reliever. At one point, I think my dad asked me to tear down a wall just so I would stop complaining for an hour. It worked.

...Like I said before, I was constantly climbing in the dumpster. I would like to consider myself to be somewhat of a badass, especially since one wrong move could have easily resulted in a tetanus shot and a dirty, rusty nail stabbing me.

On the left, my Instagram picture. On the right, how I actually felt.

I absolutely hated when my dad rented the moving truck. It was cool at first and driving it was awesome.

However, moving boxes from a dirty storage unit always left me as a sweaty mess.

My favorite experience with the moving truck though was the day that we went to pick up our golf cart.

The golf cart fit on the tailgate of the truck, but it easily rolled when we tried to lower it down. So, my dad had me literally sit on the golf cart with my foot slammed on the brake while he lowered the tailgate down. Mind you, the wheels were centimeters from the edge of the tailgate. A new toy, (or tool, as my dad calls it) calls for dangerous measures?

I went from living in the suburbs to basically living in the country. The sunsets cannot even compare.

With 17 acres of land, there are definitely places to explore with my best friends. Behind us is what I believe used to be a storage shed. The foundation is shifted and glass is everywhere, but it has some special treasures and has been super fun to explore.

But, I definitely thought a clown was living in it when there were all those clown sightings in the middle of the summer. I refuse to go near it at night unless my dad is with me!

Anywhere I could find a place to nap, I would. The golf cart doubled as my bed and one of my escapes throughout the summer. When I would get annoyed with my dad (because no offense, I never thought I would be so needed at the house while I was taking a summer class and working part-time), I would take the golf cart and speed around the driveway. My mom said she always heard the wicked witch music in her head when I would speed around. At least I didn't crash our golf cart into a tree (you will understand this statement later).

One of my most proud moments of our demolition. I knocked out an entire wall in our basement by myself. As much as I wanted to just take a sledgehammer to it, I took it out using a sledgehammer and a bar, which resulted in larger chunks of drywall coming off of the wall versus bits and pieces. The sledgehammer was a blast, but cleaning up little chunks of drywall truly was not worth it.

We are all pretty sure the previous owners of the house were preparing for some kind of apocalypse. If you were curious, the nail is nine inches long and was part of a basement closet. However, we found nine inch nails and sheet metal almost everywhere.

I don't know whether my dad was more proud because he captured this action shot, or because I knocked down an entire door frame that was basically nailed into the cement floor all by myself.

Here's a photo of another section of drywall knocked out by yours truly. These two closets were back to back and we decided to knock the walls down in order to make my bedroom closet larger. Eventually, we found out that my closet wall is load-bearing, so our contractor worked his magic in our attic.

I tried to help paint but after the second coat and a decent amount of bubbles, I decided my mom was the best.

Once my room was painted, it somewhat started to feel like home. I was (and still am) so excited about my desk and gallery wall!

I truly have no idea how I ended up with four band-aids all over my body, but I didn't let it stop me. I did give my mom heart palpitations every time I got injured though... oops.

Remember how I said "at least I didn't crash our golf cart into a tree?"

Well, I crashed a four-wheeler into one. If my best friend and I were not wearing helmets, our situation could have been way worse. Thankfully, I walked away with a misdiagnosed concussion and she walked away with scratches and bruises (and something to hold against me until the day we die).

I did not go to the E.R. immediately after I hit the tree. I was shaken up and I had a headache but that made sense, I was in an accident. I rammed into a tree and slammed my head into it.

After resting for a few, we continued to help my dad move. We rented the truck that weekend and we were moving a decent amount of boxes and furniture. I just wanted it to be over with, so I dealt with the headache. We truly did not think I had a mild concussion.

If you know me at all, you know my pain tolerance is extremely low and my hypochondria is pretty high. This house and experience has changed me in so, so many ways.

You gotta do what you gotta do, right?

Six extremely long months later, we have new windows and floors, I have a homemade desk and I finally can call the new house, home.

-Queue JOHNNYSWIM "Home"here-