Hey, HGTV Fans. Take a Look at Our Remodel — It’s Finally Done. Sheltering in Place Week 14

Sheltering in Place (While Remodeling Our House) June 17, 2020. Week 14

Take a look at our remodel. It’s done. It’s finally finished. After months and months of  living in a construction zone, we’ve finally got our house back.

We didn’t have HGTV’s Property Brothers guiding us through this project. We

didn’t have Karen and Mina of “Good Bones” or Ben and Erin of “Home Town” to finish it up for us in 7 1/2 weeks flat.

Instead, we had the coronavirus shut-down, and the scheduling delays normal to real-world remodeling projects. Our project took 7 1/2 months.

It’s a fantastic new space, a beautiful, livable space. It doesn’t look like something the Property Brothers would design for a Las Vegas nouveau

craftsman. It’s not a bungalow in downtown Indianapolis or a house with a southern-style front porch in cheery Laurel, Mississippi. There’s no subway tile, no flashy feature wall, no navy blue kitchen cabinetry. It’s a spiffed up 1950s ranch in the hills of Oakland, California, and thanks to our designer, Jill Loman, it looks like Jon and me.

New hardwood floors. Big new windows and sliding doors. Abundant

can lights (enough to read a book by). Soft, dancing paint colors. A new skylight. And a stunning new redwood deck.

And best of all — the wall between the kitchen and dining room is gone, gone, gone. Which gives Jon and me a clear view of all this bright newness from that spot on earth where the two of us spend so much of our waking hours — the kitchen sink.

Work began on this relatively modest remodel on Nov. 1. It came to an abrupt

halt in March with the coronavirus shut-down. Work resumed six weeks ago. And the carpenters at W.A. Rose (we’ll miss them!) finally took down the protective plastic walls on Friday.

We weren’t sure we wanted to remove that kitchen wall — popular as the open-concept concept seems to be with HGTV viewers. We weren’t sure

when we signed the contract. And we still weren’t sure when the carpenters started tearing down the wall.

But now we are super happy with the new, spacious layout and the expanded, woodsy views onto our deck and cypress tree.

With the help of my trusty point and shoot, I’ve recorded the results for friends and family — and for any HGTV kindred spirits I might have out there.

Here’s why we wanted this remodel: “Too Many Walls — and Not Enough Bathrooms — at Our House.”  Here’s what life was like during construction: “Dining in a Construction Zone.” The garden is my next project. I’ll admit to having some dark gardening thoughts in the past: “I Want to Kill My Snapdragons.”