[p]After 9 years of living in our 3-bedroom/1-bath home, my family of three was feeling more and more cramped, especially  since our child insisted on getting bigger with each passing day.  We were particularly challenged each morning as we literally tripped over one other in our only, very narrow bathroom!  So, at the beginning of last year, we finally decided to tackle our own remodel project.[/p]

[p]Once we started thinking about redoing the bathroom, we realized we couldn’t really address it’s restrictive size unless we took back the space the adjoining room’s closet took up, which would necessitate creating a new closet for that room where the exterior window was situated.  And really, didn’t we need a second bathroom, more than anything?  On and on our planning went, and after many rounds of planning and revising, I designed a whole new addition, consisting of a new “Master Suite” (with a new Bedroom, a 2nd Bathroom, and a spacious walk-in Closet), as well as a new Dining Room (connected to the existing Kitchen with a breakfast bar).  We also managed to free up space to make a dedicated TV room, and a mini-library area in the Living Room.[/p]

[p]After completing our plans, we hired a contractor and work started in May.  Little did we know what kind of “surprises” were in store for us (oh, the joys of older houses!).  We had to do significant rehabbing of the internal roof structure, as well some major re-plumbing in the front & back yards to ensure that all our Oregon rain made its way into the storm system (and no longer runs into our garage!).[/p]

[p]Throughout the process, I kept my Facebook followers abreast of our progress with postings and photos.   I will be posting a summary of those updates in subsequent blogs, which I titled “What I’ve Learned So Far from My Remodel”.[/p]