Renovation Woes
- Laina Collins
- Jan 2, 2017
- 2 min read
It has already started and we haven't even begun. We have decided to stay in our little cottage for another year and with that comes the discussion of taking out a completely unnecessary wall between our living room and kitchen. You see, our home has that awful 90's "flow" (if you can call it that). Our kitchen is where our dining room should be and vise versa; so with that, there is of course a wall with a pass through in our kitchen so cabinets could be hung. The layout just drives me up a wall (I would rather drive through that wall).
The Dilemma
We are growing out of our little cottage. We are low on closet space, the garage is way too small for my husband, parking is a nightmare, and Scout needs a bigger yard (with privacy). We have already decided to expand the driveway, but now I am itching to remove some walls; however, that comes with some questions and "what if's." You see we have those God awful popcorn ceilings (I wanted to scrape them prior to moving in and now my husband is wishing he would have listened to me in the first place) so "what if" we change the walls around, whats the best fix? Also, can we match the floors so we don't have to replace them all? This isn't a home where you will get a big return on renovations. It's a small neighborhood made up of mostly first time buyers, renters, and retirees meaning you can easily over do it for the neighborhood and lose money if you aren't smart about the updates. Since we want to sell it soon, I think it would be smart to have a different floor plan that is more appealing than the other homes in the area, but my husband thinks suck it up buttercup and keep it the way it is because the home is updated. So, what do we do?
The Plan
In order to make the living space more functional the wall should be removed. Honestly, the kitchen would stay the way it is, we would just move one cabinet to the opposite wall and bring the bar down to a standard height instead of so high. We would move the position of the closet and essentially make a double entrance to the kitchen giving the living space a complete open concept. It would make our quaint little home feel 3x larger. With this will come many arguments, pondering, questioning if it was the right choice, and I am sure unexpected costs; however, the end product would be spectacular! So, the real question is can I make it happen?