The Crigler Crew is expanding...no not that kind of expanding...rather we are expanding our house! We began a huge construction project right after Memorial Day. We are adding about 650 square feet of living space to our main level and have dug out to create a two car garage. Can you believe it!?! A two car garage! I honest to God have never ever parked in a garage in my entire life. Literally never! I am a little nervous because I am not known for my excellence in spacial judgement, so I am affraid that the Accord might have an inappropriate meeting with the side of the garage. I guess we will just have to wait with baited breath and see.
I have the floorplan to post but its a PDF and I can't figure out how to convert it to a JPEG, so my description will have to do. We currently live in a four bedroom , 2 bath 1950s ranch. We will be taking it to a four bedroom, three bath house. We are techinically adding a bedroom a because we are turning our current fourth bedroom (which is stephen's office) into a Jack and Jill bathroom to connect the existing guest bedroom with the new bedroom. Perron is getting a big upgrade in space and is moving into a much larger bedroom. Stephen is getting a big down grade and is having to move his office into Perron's bedroom. He will survive though. :) Oh and did I mention that I am going to get a fabulous new laundry room that is big enough for a washer, dryer, full-size refrigerator, a utility sink and a mudroom area. Yipee! I know it is sad to get this excited about a laundry room, but seriously when does mommy ever get a space all to herself? We are also adding a new family room/playroom in the back of the house too. That means that I finally get a dining room in the room that is now Perron's playroom. Another yipee!
Of course, as with all construction projects, there have been some surprises along the way. The first one was a big surprise. We were supposed to begin the construction process on Monday May 2nd. As many of you know, the events of April 27th changed that start day slightly. While we were spared the damage seen in Tuscaloosa and parts of Birmingham, our neighborhood took a direct hit from an F2 tornado in the early morning hours of April 27th. We live in an area of very mature oak and pine trees and there was severe damage and one death in the neighborhood. We were blessed beyond measure because we did not have any damage to our house, but it definitely slowed things down. Especially because we needed to have six large tree removed from our yard before construction began.
The second surprise is that we apparently have an active spring that lives underneath our deck and wants to drain directly into the new addition. That was an exciting discovery. When they first hit it we assumed it might be an old field line and thought it would eventually drain dry. Well it has been six weeks and we are still draining water at a steady pace. Maybe we can start bottling it and selling it to help fund the addition. That would help a lot since we have been seem to be spending money like its water. No pun intended...unfortunately. :)
The third surprise isn't really a surprise per say, but I guess it is more the extent to which it has happened. Our yard is DESTROYED! I expected the back yard to be bad, but we have a mountain of dirt that takes up half of our back yard that is over 5 feet high in some places. It is going to take a lot of work to get grass back there again!
Stephen has been sweet enough to be taking pictures of the process. Unfortunately he was so focused on taking pictures of the house before we lost the trees, that he forgot to take any pictures of the back of the house pre-construction. Oh well, you will just have to use your imagination. The sweet hubby spent his lunch hour yesterday taking pictures of the interior framing so I will share that next time.
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