This summer, PART ONE

So, that showed up a lot smaller than I'd hoped it would. Ah well, what can ya do, right?

The picture above is what will HOPEFULLY be happening to our house this summer. The plan right now is to tear down the existing house, possibly pull up the existing slab, and start fresh. Sounds expensive doesn't it? Yep. It will be. And time consuming, and a pain in the ass. But we need to do something. We're living in a house that's essentially falling apart around us. Its TERRIBLE all the number of things wrong with this place. The plan originally started out as putting on an addition. But then morphed into this new plan, because of everything that would need to be done.

An addition would require tearing down 95% of the house anyway because of the ceiling height in the back 3/4 of the house. You can seriously reach up and touch it with your hands. So they would have to tear down all the walls that have short ceilings, and re build them up to normal height before we could move on with things. So, rather than mess with all that, we're just going to do the smart thing, and start from scratch.

The above plan looks NOTHING like our house right now. About the only thing that's staying the same is where the laundry room is. Everything else will be changing. EVERYTHING. In addition to that, we'll be adding on a second story (not pictured yet) where we can put our kids' bedrooms, and a bath or two. There will hopefully be enough space for all the kids to eventually have their own room. We don't plan on splitting them immediately, instead opting to use a room as a guest room for a while, maybe a play room, until they're old enough to warrant their own bedroom space.

Now, the reason we have so many questions is because we can't physically afford all this ourselves. We've had family offer to give us money (in kind of a loan, but not really, for as much sense as that makes!) There have been some hold up there, because it looked like if we took this money this family member would make our lives a living hell, having their nose in every aspect of our financial lives. Well, it turns out we've put that fire out, though we're still leery. There have been hold ups and questions because the man who will be not only designing, but building the house, is a family friend. He's currently living with my in laws. And we just can't seem to get the fire far enough up under his rear end to realize that this NEEDS to get moving, and it NEEDS to happen SOON.

Its been a really hard roller coaster ride thus far. All of this was supposed to happen LAST summer, but never did. So I of course am wondering if it will even happen this summer. I almost feel like I can't get my hopes up quite yet because it really isn't a 100% guarantee. Not until its happening.

We'll see.


So there's the brief intro to whats going to happen this summer. And a picture of what Todd and i have come up with for a floor plan. I'm sure it will change, and be tweaked some, but its a place to start, and I really am liking the lay out!! Nice and open!


I wanted to add, if you click on the picture, you can see it bigger!!!