Deflated...

My project list is overwhelming and never ending. To some this would be discouraging and totally not worth it, but I live for it.

You can imagine the project list I've created for a home that is 26 years old. There were a couple larger projects that we put on the list the day we put on offer in on the home. We knew in order for it to function for our family there were need to be some changes. One such project was to knock down the wall between our entry way and our office. Currently our office is a bedroom, so you have to meander down a long hallway to enter it. I especially spend a lot of time on the computer, so we wanted easier access to office. The wall had to come down, we planned on it from the beginning. We decided it was time. The wall had to go this week.

This evening Steve and I pulled out the measuring tape to determine where we wanted our opening. From the entry way, we measured it out just where we wanted it. We walked around to the office and laid out the same measurements. But it didn't work like we had imagined. We clearly measured wrong. We walked back to the entry way and measured it out. For the second time, we made the same measurements in the office. My heart sank - I realized immediately what I had envisioned for so long, was not going to work out the way I had planned. I hate when that happens.

I envisioned a hole in the center of the wall from the office, like so: What I didn't realize was how far our entry door was recessed from the front of the house. By placing the hole where I thought it should be, I would be opening the wall to the front door. Yikes! That really won't work.

I was so deflated and Steve could see it. Projects never go as planned, but usually they can still be carried out with minor alterations. This however required more than a little alteration. But we didn't give up and Steve was by my side the whole time trying to work out a good solution. We measured and re-measured, walking from the entry way to the office and back again. I used painters tape to mark off potential doorways which was a great visualization to see some of our alternate ideas were just plain bad. Aside from moving the front door out 4 feet (which I considered) the only thing we could do was move the doorway to the office. And although this eliminates some of the "wow" factor we were originally going for, it's still functional. So as of tonight, this will be the new plan: We will have to eliminate the closet in the office in order to carry this plan out, but we figure that's cheaper than moving the front door! :) Right now the office has a doorway, which we had planned on keeping but that might need to change. I hate the idea of having this large opening off our our entryway only to have it open up to another door. We're still in discussion about that - we'll cut the hole and visualize the space and make a decision about the extra door later.

I'm still a little bummed, but I'm feeling a whole lot better than four hours ago when my little dream bubble was deflated. We'll make it work, just like we do any project and at the end of the day few will ever realize there was a previous plan we had to scrap...I have to keep telling myself that!