If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...

Everyone we talk to tells us the same thing “it will be more work, take longer and cost more than you ever imagined”. I am now convinced they are right. Honestly, I knew they were right from the beginning but I thought it would be better for my mental health to pretend like they weren’t.

 The first day we looked at the house we discussed renovating the kitchen and bathrooms and doing two small bump outs off the back of the house. The larger bump out was to expand the living room/kitchen and the other to add a master bathroom and closet.  We also talked about increasing the ceiling height from 8 feet to 9 or 10 feet in the living room/kitchen area.  Needless to say, it went from there and we ended up with a plan that is much greater than either of us originally imagined but one we both love.

The first issue was that the house needed a new roof. We came to the conclusion that if we were going to have to replace the roof then we should just go ahead and raise the ceiling height from 8 feet to 10 feet. Then it was the flexibility that would come with adding a second story to the house. From then on, each time Josh and I talked about the house one of us would inevitably say "well if we are going to do ____ then we should just go ahead and do _____while we are at it” or “we will never come back and do this later so we should just do it now” or my personal favorite “it will be good for resale”. Has anyone ever read the children’s book “IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie? Apparently if you give Josh and Kate a house they will probably ask for _______.