Make Room For Children!

Like many people living in Los Angeles, my husband and I got in on the real estate market just before home prices exploded.

We live just outside of Los Angeles in a modest two story, four bedroom 1.25 bathroom home. I know you're thinking "modest" and "four bedroom" don't quite go together, but with 1100 square feet, 4.25 children who eat everything in site and two dogs who would pretty much do the same if you let them, there is barely enough room for my husband and I. We decided it was time to expand before we kill each other. We refinanced the house, took out a huge loan and got started.

The Nightmare Begins
With full time jobs and very little time during the day to accomplish pretty much anything, my husband and I set out to find someone to draft the blueprints for our dream home. Well - not really our "dream home," (that would be someplace entirely different and free) but a "comfy home." After interviewing a couple of candidates, we settle on one. We pay him to start and he gets started. It was going pretty good at first, but as the weeks progressed, we heard little from him. After many phone calls and two months later, we finally approve the plans, he gets the plans approved with the city, etc., and we get started.

We find the perfect contractor and guess what? He lives just across the street. My husband and I have seen his work, he's licensed and close. No avoiding our calls. The only slight drawback is he doesn't speak very good English, and my husband and I don't speak a lick of Spanish, but it's okay. The conversations are quite amusing. Things get moving along quite nicely.

The Drawbacks
Construction is going nicely, but the drawbacks, well for me that is, is I am getting no sleep. I can't seem to turn my mind off at night. Having a long commute to and from work doesn't help either. My husband seems to be handling it okay, except for when my evil, exhausted twin rears her ugly head. The stress level is at an all time high.

With a husband who loves to spend money and with so much money going out, I had to create a spreadsheet for him to give him a realistic view of how much these types of things cost. Now I'm no expert, but I did always live in a house. I watched my father go around fixing different things here and there. He had our family home completely remodeled at one point. I remember there being lots of workers around. My husband is from New York. He grew up in a tenament buiding all his life. When something breaks - you call the landlord to come fix it.

So with the spreadsheet tallying all costs, including labor my husband was amazed at how much we've spent. Pheewww! Maybe this will curb his spending habits. Right? Wrong! I'll save that story for another day.

The wait is almost unbearable. I have to know what's going on. I want to see the progress that's being made. I can't wait till I get off work, because the drive is just too long and it might be dark when I get home, so I have my 16 year old daughter going around with her camera phone snapping pictures and emailing them to me.

We are adding to our pre-existing home, a laundry closet, a large family room, a master bedroom with master bath and a guest/computer room. Oh yeah and a dining room.

With a perfectly functioning kitchen, we decide that the new kitchen will be last on the list to complete because I want to focus on the family room and our master bedroom and bath that will have a really good lock!

Our Children
We love our children to death, but those little boogers can drive you crazy from time to time. We have two teenage daughters, ages 19 and 16 (need I say more), a teenage son, age 17 who lives back East, but spends the summers with us, and two little boys, ages 8 and 6. They all seem to love our bedroom the most. After coming home from an exhausting day at work and a long commute home, the one thing I want to do is just got to my bed and fall out! That proves to be challenging because our room is either crowded or its been visited by UFOs (Unknown Funky Objects) that drop crumbs in the bed, leave soda cans here and there, lose the remote control, throw blankets on the floor, leave shoes that don't appear to belong to anybody or take shoes that don't belong to them. After clearing away all debris I go to lie down in my comfy new bed only to end up with a crayon up my butt. Boy oh boy I can't wait for our new room! I can't decide wether I'll go with a standard bedroom door lock or a high tech device with retina scan capabilities.

To be continued . . .