Seeing a brighter future

At this stage, it can be hard to see what our new reality might be like except in our imagination. Today, our new kitchen windows were installed in the addition and even when tarped over to protect the unroofed and un-sided new area, we see what kind of light might flood the kitchen! Here are before and after shots:

You can’t quite see the perspective in these photos because we have to grab photos from around plastic protecting the room from the dog, and the dog from potential injury. I am much farther away from the second photo than the first, “before” photo. As a reminder, the photo below is what it looked like when the previous owners were selling. Our kitchen once we moved in was pretty similar because we didn’t make changes knowing we would renovate. The window wall is now five feet closer to the fence you can see in the photo through the windows. There will still be about eight to ten feet between the new addition and the fence. Without the (despised) soffits, we were able to install standard-sized windows. These windows are on the west side of the house, so we can anticipate being flooded with light from early in the afternoon to night.

Most of the framing for the new bathroom and kitchen is complete. Tomorrow, the power company removes the old 120 power box that had been on the outside of the house on the west side (to the right of the old windows in the first photo above) to the 240 box on the south side of the house. Here’s the lonely old power box floating in the newly framed kitchen:

We will be out of power for a good amount of time tomorrow, which will mean Dan and I will spend most of our time enjoying the patio on what looks to be a nice day. But a meandering, curious dog is likely a bad idea, so Saoirse is going to doggy-day care where she plays with other dogs and some fantastic human staff all day, returning exhausted.

After that, electrical work begins, which primes us for new walls! The teams are moving amazingly fast–and with incredible attention to detail–for such a big job and we are impressed and grateful.