Winter Wrap Up

 After the excitement of the remodel and vacation we had a fun Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

The twins costumes cracked me up! 

Dads birthday.

The boys watched a lot of Lou City Soccer. 

The boys also went to their first Bills game! Well, not Todd, he's been to a few. 

The game was on Thanksgiving, so they missed out on turkey. I don't think they minded to much after the Bills win. 

We only got one halfway decent snow all winter. It was fun for about a day. 

My birthday! 

I loved having the extra space in the house for Christmas. And I loved my porch! 

 

I just realize she hasn't worn these yet because she said "she doesn't want to mess them up". I might have to steal them from her since we are now the same size!

So after Christmas we rang in 2023 which should be an awesome year.

But so far this year it's been soccer, soccer and more soccer. Wes started with two different Futsol teams and his travel team started back up with winter training. He also had a basketball mini league that was 6 weeks long. So our Saturdays have been all Wesley here for a minute. 

His travel team started games back up last weekend and Evan is playing as well so if you need me for the next couple of months I'll be on the pitch!

Oh! And Evan got braces! 

And he's just getting taller and taller. 

The Remodel

 It was so daunting to start this post I put it off for like 6 months, haha. But here it is, the big reveal! 

We started the conversation about adding a master bath probably in the fall of 2020. By spring of 2021 we decided to go ahead and get pricing on adding the master bath. Since it would mean an addition we thought, while we are at it, I’ve never liked the front porch’s flat roof, I’ve always pictured a gable there so it didn’t look quite so much like a shack. So that turned into well if we’re going to have to tear the roof down on the front porch anyway we might as well get a whole new roof. And then that turned into well since they’re tearing down the roof on the front porch let’s see if we can add some square footage onto the living room. And then that turned into well we’re adding square footage onto the living room so will need new flooring, let’s go ahead and get new flooring for the whole house. And then that turned into well since we’re adding four new windows on the addition and I want black exterior trim windows let’s go ahead and get new windows for the whole house. And then that turned into, well since they’re redoing the front porch they will be adding a new soffit so we might as well get new soffit around the whole house. And then that turned into well I’ve never like the color of the house, so let’s paint the house white. And then that turned into well we can’t have brown gutters with a white house, so let’s go ahead and get all new black gutters. And of course, while we are at it I want the most fabulous front door that I can find.

So we got a quote in the summer of 2021 and it was fairly reasonable considering what we would be doing but we didn’t want to start construction until spring of 2022, to give me time to make selections on all the things that I needed to pick out and also work on tweaking the budget. So by the time spring of 2022 rolled around and we were ready to go we had to have everything re-quoted because of the time that had passed. Well of course thanks a lot 2022 inflation the price nearly doubled! Doubled! After a lot of research, looking at the housing market, trends in construction cost and ultimately deciding whether or not we wanted to stay at this house for quite a bit longer or just go ahead and sell it and move into something bigger that would probably be well more than the construction cost would be we decided to move forward with the remodel. Construction started on May 28, 2022 and finished up on October 21, 2022. Lots of delays including windows, concrete, a few minor construction errors, a termite scare. We lived with no flooring, no walls, no ceiling, etc. for a little longer than we would have liked but in the end it was all worth it. Our sweet little shack now looks almost brand new and I couldn’t be happier with the results, and I can’t recommend Elliss Construction enough for helping us get there. They put up with my constant questions, critiques, indecisiveness and fretting for over a year and I appreciate their kindness and professionalism. I wish Clint, our original project manager was here to see the finished product, he would be so proud of the work that everyone put in to make this possible. I will say, Ricky and the team did a great job filling his shoes.

Extra special thanks to Todd who trusted me and all my “well, while we’re at its”.

With landscaping and grass it will look even nicer And we plan on getting new couches…and hanging curtains and getting rugs… but I can’t wait for all that, so just imagine them in these pictures!

Here are some progress photos. It was such a mess for so long but I'm so glad we did it! 

Oh this was fun! Because I purchased all the flooring I got to carry it all in the house by myself. Good times!