Some time in 2015 my husband and I decided to refinance our house and get some money to do some minor updates to the place.  Our house was built around 1965, and while the previous owners had done some much needed wall paper removal, painting, floor refinishing, etc., and we had done a master bathroom remodel prior to moving in,  it still felt dated.

We shared our plans with some friends of ours who had come over for dinner one  night. We explained all about how we were going to get rid of the gross, chipping, asbestos laden faux brick linoleum in our family room, talked about how we thought reconfiguring some cabinets in our (tiny) kitchen might allow us to find space for a proper pantry, and debated whether or not to tear down   the fireplace that at the time housed ALL of our large kitchen pots because it every time it rained we collected   about 3-4 gallons of water INSIDE the house.

After about 20-30 minutes of laying out our plans, our friends looked out at our (admittedly) large back porch and said, “why don’t you pull in your back porch and just make this one big kitchen/living area.”

Great question. We had never even thought of that possibility.

Fast forward to about a year  later and the scope creep to our “minor updates” has turned into a 1,700 square foot addition  and complete remodel of our existing home.

We’re about 2 months in to a 6 month remodel at this point. It was very exciting   when we first started.

The process as a whole has definitely lost its luster at this point. I keep telling myself we’re getting closer to the “fun” stuff though, and  this will all be a distant memory 12 months from now. Until then, there’s always beer lemonade.