Remodeling For Life

Sometimes we make a change to our home with a specific thing in mind.  We don't realize sometimes how much it may affect us later.  Life has a way of reminding us of things we might have forgotten.  I did almost all of this before I damaged my neck, which would make most of this stuff impossible in my current condition.

I started remodeling our house right after we bought it.  It started with removing 6' tall Rhodies in front of my kids bedroom windows and dropping the sill height to bring in more natural light.  It spread to bigger things from there.  These windows were cut into a wall where there weren't any.  This really opened up the living room.

Later we bought a fridge that didn't quite fit into our galley style kitchen.















I moved the end of a wall to accommodate the fridge, not knowing what was coming next!









Neither the galley style or storage space fit our needs. So major reconstruction started!  This pushed our family to the limits of sanity.  Our lives were drastically changed for months on end!

My kids got first hand experience, REAL life experience.

They both got to get in there and do the work!

I can only hope it gave them both an appreciation for what we now have.









It wasn't all slave labor, there was time to explore and goof around!

Walls came down, new walls went up, it was a major ordeal trying to leave some stuff in place so we could still cook and provide for our family while everything was a war zone!  Electrical hanging from the ceiling, plastic covering furniture and TV.

The further along the project came, the realization set in that sooner or later everything was going to have to be gone!

For a while we had no kitchen, dining or living room!  That was a lot of fun!

I sure am glad I had some help...?  My father and son working together is well worth it!

Slowly things started coming together.

Which was nice, compared to coming apart.  At least now there was a light at the end of the tunnel!

All of a sudden, just when things were almost back together, demolition started again!  What is wrong with me!

Now when you entered, instead of having the galley kitchen in front of you, there was a wall.  The already small entry shrank even more.  So i took some space out of my garage to widen the entry!

The ugly front door opened the wrong way now too!  More demolition!

Much better, don't you think?

7 years later it is so nice to cook in here!  At this point in my life cooking is as therapeutic as it is necessary! 

At the end of it all, I couldn't be happier.  Glad it's over, but the rough life through the process definitely makes it even more worthwhile!







We had a party here recently and it was nice to hear compliments on the kitchen.  It has almost become a forgotten memory.  Almost.  It is still the gathering place we hoped it to be when building it.  

This group of people spent a lot of the night in the kitchen hanging out.  We didn't even cook anything.  It's just where everyone decided to kick back!

 Today this remodel still provides what was only a dream 7 years ago!  A place to cook, entertain, hang out and enjoy life.
Anyway, enough rambling for today, tomorrow is just a short sleep away...