We're undertaking a new project this summer. If you think I'm talking about prepping for the arrival of our first child, you aren't far off, but I'm talking about something else. We're adding a room to our house. Well, two rooms, really.
Even back when we had just decided that we wanted to start trying to get pregnant, we realized that we would need more (or different) room than our house currently provides. The first, most obvious place to put a baby is in what is now my office. That's all fine and dandy, but I work from home, so need a place to do so. I could set up a desk in what is now our dining room, but it is not really separate from the kitchen or even the living room. If my desk were there, I can't imagine how I would get much work done.
So we investigated adding on to our house. (We did consider moving, too, but felt we wanted to do that even less than building out.) We could add a small office, or a new bedroom and bathroom. The initial cost estimates were actually not all that far off, so we figured if we're going to do it, let's do the one that might actually add some value to the house.
We've been working with the architect since January (we met once in November, but we began in earnest in January). Today we signed an agreement with a general contractor. I'm calling this Day 1, for this purposes of this blog. I'll try to post updates throughout the process. The current estimate is that the job will take around 4 months. Obviously we'd love it if it got done before the baby comes, but we expect there to be a month or more of overlap.
So that's the story up to this point. Stay tuned for further adventures....