Remodeling Our Hut: Part 2

 Welcome back to the ongoing remodeling story, but first a little trip down Memory Lane: 

When we got engaged at age eighteen in 1976, we started discussing where we would live.  We weren't planning on marrying until we were twenty, so we had plenty of time to figure out our future home.   Carl drew up some rudimentary house plans and we spent a lot of Sunday afternoons driving around looking at houses for ideas.  The plan Carl came up with was what we have now, only about 15' wider and longer than what we ended up with. 

When my father saw the initial plans, he was not happy. He was adamant we not build a 'big' house.  (45 x 45 was big?  I still have to laugh, I wonder what he'd think of the huge homes being built nowadays?)

"Do you want to be in debt forever?  Don't be stupid," he advised. 

 Or I guess I should say, admonished.  Sternly.  Several times....but he had the right because he was our primary lender for the construction.  So at his insistence, we pared down the dimensions to 1 1/2 story,  28' x 30', roughly 1500 sq. ft., and sent off our rough draft to the lumber company's architect.

Below is the alfalfa field where our house is now.  This was taken in May of 1978 the day before basement excavation began.  Carl was always careful to take before and after pictures, even way back then.

 

Our driveway culvert (which we just replaced in Oct. 2018 is the light patch on the right.)

 The next step was digging and pouring the basement walls, circa May 1978.

 By September 1978, we were married and had a house, but no garage. 

 Carl and I built the garage together and finished shingling the roof on on our first wedding anniversary, September 9, 1979.

 

I had wanted a front porch, so the architect at the time came up with the recessed area on the right.  I love the porch, but on the inside, it cuts four feet into the dining room.  

We had the house paid for in less than fifteen years, and I have often bemoaned the fact that we could have indeed afforded the extra 15'  for the mudroom and kitchen we had wanted in the first place.  Sad to say, the remodel will cost us far more than the initial construction did.  

Be that as it may, as the years went by, we kept tossing around ideas but weren't any closer to a workable solution.  

Should we move the garage and attach it to the house?  Build a mudroom on the back or the side of the house?  Rip out the wall between the kitchen and the tiny 6' x 6' room we used as nursery for more kitchen space? We'd have to tear down the chimney, but we don't need a chimney any longer since we have a geothermal furnace.  Should we push the dining room wall out four feet to the edge of the fruit cellar foundation?  What about a breakfast nook?  How about a bigger front porch?  Why are the windows in such weird places?  Is that a bearing wall?  

 So many things to think about; over the years we'd measure rooms and discuss and debate all of the possibilities of moving walls and whatnot, but then a bunch of big ticket items with high price tags cropped up one after another--- we had to put in a new geothermal furnace, the septic tank failed in 2017 and needed replacement,  the culvert partially collapsed in 2018,  and all the other joys of home ownership too numerous to mention, plus my goofy health issues and caring for our elders, too, which takes a tremendous amount of time.

Oh, well, a bunch more time went by, my orange vinyl is looking worse every year and we still didn't have any real plans in place.  It is hard to visualize what a space will look like before it is done.  So many questions, and we were still baffled. 

What can we do with what we have to work with? 

What DO we want?


I could really use Joan Crawford's help. 

I wish Joan could make a house call.