Should I stay or should I go?? You might know this song from The Clash and while it’s a great song- it’s also a question Matt and I have asked ourselves over the years. Almost ten years ago we bought this house with plans to someday add on a big living room to the back. Throughout those ten years, we have gone back and forth on whether it’d be smarter to move into a bigger home or to add on. We’ve gone to open houses, looked regularly at realtor.com and have always had our eyes open when it came to available homes to buy. But this house is truly our home. We have done SO much work, put in a lot of time, money and energy and created so many memories here that I can’t imagine moving – which means we are adding on! WOOHOO!!

before

Here is a view of the back of our home. Those sliding doors lead into our dining room. We have never been a big fan of our patio area, probably more so because we haven’t ever done much to it because we’ve known we were more than likely going to be adding on.

One of the reasons we purchased this home was the larger backyard, or larger for our area anyways. It may not seem that big but for a new build (10 years ago anyways), it is actually a decent sized lot. We’ve had that swing set since Jayde was 3; sad to see it go but it was time.

construction begins

Literally a week before the construction started, we decided to add on to our basement too – both of our parents said we would regret it if we didn’t. I’m not a big basement person but Matt is, so he is very excited! While initially I was not for it, I do think we made the right decision and would’ve regretted not adding it. Now that it’s actually being done, I am excited for a new storage room and larger family room!

I was pretty amazed at how quickly they got all of this done up to this point. Last week they filled in all of the dirt around the basement and worked on creating the opening. This part took them many days and I felt bad for them- lots of sawing and a lot of noise! Jayde did not appreciate being woken up at 8 a.m. on one of the first days of summer! 🙂

We used to have a row of cabinets here and a sink where the opening is now; it is SO weird to see it opened up!

Next step is to pour the cement floor in the basement and then they can start framing. There’s so many little decisions to make along the way, things you don’t even think about which can be overwhelming at times. But we’ve wanted to do this for so long that I’m just more so excited and honestly not too stressed out at this point. Ask me again in a few weeks and maybe I’ll answer differently, lol.