OMG! It's finally happening!

For the last 6.5 years, DH and I have schemed, planned and saved for today.  We've daydreamed and wished.  We've said, "If I had the money then I'd....." before running off a wish list.  Finally, the great day is here - the builders started work this morning.  The downstairs of our house is being renovated!

Sadly, I don't currently have any "before" photos to show you.  I attempted to take some yesterday morning, before I left for Site, only to discover that the camera's battery was flat and the backup battery was also flat.  DH has taken some photos of the empty/almost empty rooms, but I won't get those until I get home on Friday.

I think I've mentioned before that ours is a typical 1930's semi-detached house, which was renovated in the 1970's.  Although it is orientated on the opposite side, the original floor plan was similar to this one.

It's not exact, but I couldn't find anything closer on-line tonight. The front is at the bottom of the screen.  The previous owners knocked the front reception room through into the back reception room, then took out the wall between that and the kitchen, before building a kitchen extension on the back.  They moved the lounge door to next to the front wall and closed off the back of the hall, inserting a laundry area into it which is accessed via the lounge and the old kitchen doorway.  The other doorways were blocked off.  We think they used the old kitchen area into a bar.  (Think "Abigail's Party".) The floor is covered with a platform, brick feature walls covered the two sides with mirror tiles on the third.  Their final "innovation" is a suspended ceiling, containing 9 huge spot-lights.

When we purchased the house, we said we'd started a 25 year project. We knew it needed a lot of work done - the kitchen's flat roof was gradually deteriorating, the wiring was not up to current building codes, the aging boiler was on it's way out.  Oh, and it has the most God-awful avocado bathroom suite.  But we didn't have the money to do anything except live in the house and learn it's ways.  There was never any storage.  Most of the kitchen cupboards were falling apart.  We couldn't unpack our wedding presents because there was nowhere to put them, and we didn't want to buy more furniture when we knew we'd have to move it out in order to do the building work.  (We've spent the last two weeks clearing everything out and putting it into storage: moving furniture, packing up all the books, boxing up the stash, etc.  It's amazing how stuff breeds!)

Everything is changing.   Gone is the suspended ceiling. The brick feature walls are partially dismantled and DH is happy to report that none of them were load bearing; they ended at the suspended ceiling.   The platform will be removed shortly.  The laundry area will be converted into a downstairs toilet, with access from the hall instead of the lounge.  New lights and new power-points will be installed throughout the house.  The central heating will be replaced, with a new "combi" boiler installed in the kitchen (just as well, some of the old radiators have stopped working).  Sometime next month, when the weather is better, the kitchen roof will be removed and replaced with a pitched, tile roof (goodbye leaking roof!  Goodbye buckets!).  At the same time, a new kitchen will be installed., including a wall of floor to ceiling cupboards.  After nearly 7 years, it's finally happening.

Apparently, the old kitchen had red tiles.  I can't wait to see them.

- Pam