Think Before You Downsize

In 2015, my husband and I retired, sold our house in Georgia, packed up everything we owned and moved to Alabama.  We wanted to be closer to our grandchildren. There was one request to our realtor; the new house had to be on water.  We had previously owned a little weekend place on Lake Sinclair but this time we wanted to live full time on the water.  We were perfectly content with "downsizing" too.  We looked at so many brand new beautiful homes but each had the same problem:  Bad water!  Shallow water off the dock and in some cases not even navigable during the winter months. It seemed that the best lots with good deep water were already occupied by older homes. This is why we bought a "fixer upper". 

Now after downsizing and living in our "new" house for 18 months, we have decided that we need more room!  Yes, you are reading this correctly.  We need more room! After promising that I would never ever again live in a house while remodeling, (drumroll) we are at it again. 

Here is the plan: We are adding a new garage with plenty of storage for my husband's tools and converting the current garage to a family room. 

This is a computer generated picture of how the new family room will look.  Kudos to my son for designing this using TapGlance.

This will be the view from the kitchen. 

The work has begun and I cringed when I saw the driveway being broken apart.

Seeing the chain saw attack the brick sidewalk hurt too!

I wish we had done this during the original remodel so my piece of advice is:  Think before you downsize!