There is light at the end of the tunnel!

After months of LONG hours and LONG work weeks we have finally moved into our new home.  This massive remodel has taken every ounce of perseverance that I (we) have.  There were a few moments when I lost sight of the big picture and sat out on the back steps sobbing! Which mostly made Robert feel worse and responsible for his wife having a breakdown!

The good part about doing a project for ourselves is it puts us back into the shoes of our clients, the excitement of progress, frustration, the disappointments when something doesn't work and then the feelings of "I just want it done, yesterday!".  We have always tried to be empathetic to the stress that remodeling or building brings into our clients lives, so it's not necessarily a bad thing to be reminded up close and personally how it feels to live through a remodel.

There were times when we had to look hard at what we had taken on and what we were going to accomplish by doing this.  I lost sight of that more than once.  I just kept singing the song - There's a Light at the End of This Tunnel by Third Day as we slogged through weekend after weekend of work.  

Here are the floor plans of what we bought and what we did. 

floor plan when we bought it.

Where we took this project.  Made a couple of tweaks
along the way, but this is very close.

I wanted to post some quick photos of what we have done so far.  These are fairly quickly taken pics so don't be too critical.  There are better ones to come.

BEFORE: looking at the end of the living room towards the kitchen.  You must be asking
Yourself, why did they get rid of the wagon wheel? It's a good thing trends come
and go. That was definitely a GO AWAY.

AFTER:  same view but now it is completely open!
When I see it like this even I can't believe the changes.

BEFORE: Old kitchen. Totally boxed in and horrid!

AFTER:  New kitchen, from just about the same angle!
  Note, I chose the single bowl stainless sink! I love it!

BEFORE: Original laundry room space.  We kept the rock wall,
I thought it added character, Robert is not such a fan!
So far the pro rock wall people outweigh the haters!

AFTER:  Love the new laundry room. 

BEFORE:  OLD HALLWAY

AFTER:  new bright and cheery hall way.  The hallway to the left
is going to a new bedroom we added on. We closed off access to the
old kitchen and added a linen closet and an extra deep coat closet.

BEFORE:  Original dining room space

AFTER: New dining room space.  We put the new master bathroom
in the window end of the room and vaulted the ceiling.  Big difference.

A shot of my pantry just because it makes me happy!
Sometimes I just go stand inside it because I can!

There are more rooms to photograph, the master shower is lovely.  I think you can agree that we have truly done an amazing makeover of this tired house that was asking for some love. Robert worked so hard making this happen.  His skill and talent are just incredible.  Now we are working on the outside and hope to have a patio and some landscaping before summer passes us by.