The Joys of Rehab..Not!

Okay, first let me say that my husband and I did reno's when they weren't popular, when there were absolutely no tv shows about them, no DIY shows, let alone magazines, and when there wasn't such a thing as Lowes or Home Depot.  Yep!  I'm that old.  Our first home was built in 1918 and we were the second owners. We bought it from the woman whose father built it. Then when we moved to a little town on the Mississippi River, we bought a 1920's brick bungalo; two bedrooms and one bathroom.  We turned it into a four bedroom two bath home.  When we moved to a suburb of Kansas City, the house was totally move in ready, dated, but move in ready.


Still, we pulled up carpeting, laid floors, knocked out a couple of supporting walls,



and turned the basement into a livable space.








By the time we sold it, it was nothing like the house we originally bought. That was a twenty year project. Soooo.....we moved to the land of the sun and lots of dust.  Yep, Phoenix.  We wanted to find a home that would house our rather large, heavy antique dining table.  It is a library table that was in an historic church in Kansas City.  We were doing a church clean up day and the young pastor put it out on the curb and said something like, "Someone will take this."  My husband said, "You bet someone will; it's me!" Thus began our relationship with the beautiful table.


On our 'must have' list, we wanted a mountain view, possibly a lot that backed up to a preserve, maybe a pool,



and a huge selling factor for us would be that it have a casita.  (Just in case you don't know, a casita is a small guest house.)


We had looked for months and the few homes we wanted were either already sold, or our home in Kansas City wasn't sold.  Oh the journey of a move.

Finally we found this home.


It had a beautiful mountain view, a very private back yard, it was across the street from a fantastic park, with a lake, with a fountain in the middle.



 It was also right across from the community pool.  It was is in walking distance to everything we would want, and last but for sure not least, it had a casita...a small casita, but comfortable.


One problem, it was pretty small, and the dining room was smallest. No, our beloved table didn't fit...well, not totally.  It was able to sort of fit, but not very comfortably.


The good news is that we had a covered back patio that we could convert into livable space as part of the dining room.  That was almost three years ago, and alas, after lots of estimates on the cost, and lots of work changing ugly carpeting to tile, ugly carpeted steps to shiny wood steps, orange, builder grade cabinets into sleek dark cabinets, we found the right contractor.  (So far so good!)

Almost three weeks ago reno began.  Yes, I knew what I was getting myself into and no, it didn't matter, about now I'm fed up, really, really fed up with coming home to dirty building site. I feel the only remnant of a home I have is my bedroom, which it too, was transformed with beautiful dark wood floors and calming blue walls. As a matter of fact, I am there now, looking out at the mountains.

Still, I'm wondering if there will be an end to all of this.




Even my poor babies (dogs) are affected.  They can't be in the house when the workers are here so they have to be in the front courtyard all day while we both are working.  Today I came home to progress; a roof line.  It looked beautiful!, Yesterday I was discouraged because they did things that couldn't be seen, like move the plumbing pipes they unexpectedly found in the outside wall they knocked out.  And our gorgeous back yard?  The grass is dying and I can tell the flowers are crying and very upset with us that we would allow such men to throw things all over and sometimes hit them. UG!


Thanksgiving is close.  They said they would be done by Thanksgiving. I really hope they didn't mean the day before.  Our part (my husband and myself)  is to do the tiling and painting.  We will also have a whole lot of cleaning to do, I don't want anyone to have drywall dust in their sweet potatoes.

Today I came home to nothing new inside, but outside they have created a roofline that matches the roof of the house.  This will make our new addition seem like it always was part of the main house.


So, I'm writing to vent!  You would think I would be used to this given my life of renovations, but I'm tired of it!  Annoyingly tired of it!  All I can think is that someday soon it will be complete and I will be returning my treasured area rugs to their rightful places, and hanging my carefully selected art work back on the walls.

I will definitely post "after" pics.  I will certainly be rejoicing!!! Until then, have a good life!