Makita's Soap opera: House Renovation Projects. Pilot episode

If you read my biographical blurb, you might have thought I was exagerating the carpenter and electrician parts of it. In a few posts, I'm about to provide some more detail. It all started about 5 years ago when we purchased the house.

The house was in decent livable shape when we bought. We liked the neighborhood, the backyard. Not so much the kitchen, and the fans weren't exactly to our taste either, but all that seemed minor. We got a few hundred dollars credit for the old range, and we moved in.

Before you knew I was changing fans. In almost every room. And adding track lights, because we wanted more lights. The previous owners had converted a 2-car garage into a large party room, with a large animal painted on the wall, the mascot of the local football team. We love parties and all, but were unlikely to use the room for that purpose. We sort of divided it up in two part using furniture. A couch, some bookcases, a child safety gate. That didn't work out so well, the kids were crawling over the couch, the bookcases were great fun to stand on, and the gate was a total joke. It also looked very messy, disorganized. Something had to be done.

Then a year later, my husband came up with the idea to put up a wall, and make a proper room at one end, the kids could continue to use the other half as play area. He then came up with the brilliant idea to make it into a bedroom for the oldest who was 11 at the time.

What to do? Hire a contractor? We couldn't afford that. Do it ourselves? I dunno, seemed like a really big job. A friend then volunteered help from her mother and father-in-law. Really, really nice of her. And her mother and father-in-law. I also went on the internet and googled: "how to build an interior wall".

So, one day, I stepped into the room, cleared the space in the center, drew a line down the middle on the carpet with a permanent marker, took out my trusty utility knife, and cut! This is the point of no return!