Making Improvements

We've been making a lot of improvements to our house lately. First let me say, improvements are not for the faint at heart. They take an amazing amount of effort. And that's even when you are hiring people to do the work. I've always been amazed at how difficult it is to find workers. Not even superb workers, just people willing to show up and do work. The Bible is right, the workers are few...It's a task just getting people to call you back to come give you an estimate to do work. But after quite a bit of effort and diligence, we've found people to come out. It always takes longer than expected, it's always more expensive, and there are always problems. But if you can make anything happen, I call it a victory.

Our major victory of the summer was adding a bedroom to our basement. This was huge. With Ellie moving into the nursery and Kate moving into what was the guest room, our 3 bedroom house no longer had a space to accommodate any visitors easily. At the great suggestion of friends, we realized that the space next to our basement family room would be a perfect place for a guest room. So, the previously unfinished space has become a bedroom. And for our house, it's a great location for guests because it's more separate and private. Also, we think we now technically go from 3 bedrooms to 4 since we have walkout access and 2 points of exit, so that's a huge improvement to our space. We are very pleased with the result. Doug Kraus did the work and he far exceeded our expectations. It turned out much better than we could have envisioned. We are very happy with the results - see below (or come over for a stay :)




We've got one more project in the works. Here's a little preview. I doubt it will be completed before Ellie gets here, but hopefully before the end of summer. The exterior of our house is going to look much different soon...