The lighter side of life – staying in touch with friends and family by celebrating the ordinary.
Emily’s remodel
In case you’re bored with the slow, dragging pace of my remodel, here’s a remodel we can all watch in awe.
Emily started after I did, but she is passing me up and heading toward a strong finish in her Boston remodel marathon before I’m even halfway through my leisurely stroll in the southwest desert.
Emily started with an actual architect, who drew up real honest-to-goodness architectural plans. (John and I just talk and point and sketch and change things up until the last minute.)
Then she hired a real honest-to-goodness general contractor who has an actual dedicated crew. John and I have a reasonably competent and experienced carpenter who is capable of hiring a plumber or electrician when he needs one (actually, a week or three after he needs one). And he hired a tile guy who shows up a few times a week most weeks, for part of the day…for nearly two months!
Nothing like having a full crew! Wow, look at that!
Emily’s remodel is going a mile a minute and what a disruption it is! She is under no illusion that her house is occupiable.
Her family of 5 spent the first week with a friend. Then they discovered they needed to completely redo all the electrical in the entire house (it’s a beautiful, historic home). So at the last minute they got a hotel room, but it was “leaf peeping” season in New England, so all they could find was one small, cramped, miserable room. I have no idea how they managed to survive with all three little girls and Emily working until midnight every night…it must have been a nightmare. They were all jammed together in that little room for nine days.
Then they flew out to Ann Arbor to visit our family out there. Now they are in a larger hotel suite – that includes laundry facilities, yay for laundry!
She doesn’t have pictures of the interior but you can imagine it’s fully gutted. They’re building an addition, completely redoing the kitchen, moving various walls around and rewiring the whole house.
These photos were courtesy of her neighbor. Emily is wisely staying out of the way. Unlike mine, her remodel will be done in time for the holidays!
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