Simular sort of thing happened to my wife, we now have an inland spousal app in recently however she is out of status so we are just hoping it goes through ok. We weren't too knowledgeable about the immigration processes at the time and missed the chance to restore her status, we got in bit of mess at what to do, we just don't want to be apart.
I think you get 90 days to apply for restoration but I'm not sure if this is from the date your existing visitor record expired or is from the date you got the refusal? If it's the latter this buys you quite a bit of time. I wonder would it be better to get the sponsorship app in first and then apply for restoration, or better to try to restore status first and then get the sponsorship app in?