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Thursday, May 05, 2011

Ambitions NOT for this Summer

In addition to all the things I want to do this summer,  there are some much bigger projects on my wish-list that are going to have to wait, probably for years or longer; and my ideal wish for these spaces will probably never happen:

Re-do the bathroom:  At the very least, I'd like to remove the sliding door on the tub/shower, re-tile everything, and add storage above the toilet.  But since the half-bath off the master bedroom is right behind the main bathroom, the main bathroom doesn't have a window; in fact, some of the other ranches in the neighborhood that are otherwise identically laid out to ours have only one bathroom that is the size of both of ours...so I think it might be awesome to totally demo both bathrooms and the adjoining wall, and make it into one bigger bathroom.  It might even work to keep the door from the master bedroom as well as the door from the hallway, and furthermore might make room for a stall shower AND a bathtub/shower, plus 2 sink/vanities, so there would be plenty of room for a growing family.  But that would require hiring a contractor, whereas re-tiling we could do ourselves, so it's probably not in the cards.

Update the kitchen:  Our kitchen has plenty of floor space, and very high-quality hardwood, hand-made cabinets.  I'd prefer a less-reddish wood tone, but my Dad says that God will strike me down if I paint over the gorgeous oak, so they're staying as-is for now.  The countertop is pretty ugly laminant, so I really want to do something about that.  But aside from those possible updates, there isn't much counter space; there's an entire blank wall that could easy have base and wall cabinets for added storage; the oven and dishwasher are both half-sized; and there's a totally supurfluous wall creating a smaller opening between the kitchen and dining room.  So again, if I had the means, I'd love to update the cabinets, knock out the wall between the kitchen and dining room, and just kind of extend the kitchen to make it more seamless with the dining room, including adding more cabinets and counters.

Build a patio:  Our carport has a door out to the backyard, and the shed off the back of the carport has a garage door facing the backyard.  I would love to add a cobblestone patio that starts outside the shed's garage door and extends, with a gently curved edge, across about half the back of the house, with possibly some built-in benchs and a cuppola covered with vining plants for some light shade.  We might actually do this eventually; we'd really love to have an outdoor seating and eating area other than our carport, which is nice but still feels too dark and inside-ish.

Add direct access to the backyard:  I doubt this will ever happen, but if by some miracle we did update the kitchen as extensively as I'd love to with the knocking down of walls, I think it would be fabulous to add a sliding door to the backyard in place of the dining room windows.  But for this reason, if we ever do build that patio, I want it to extend to just beyond these windows so that if we ever have the means, we could put in this sliding door.

Some days, I just hate our main bathroom so much that I feel the urge to take a sledge hammer to it the first week Paul is away at camp, so that I have no choice but to re-tile the bathtub and remove the sliding doors.  A girl can dream...

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