A Girl and Her Home: Wall-Done

One of my most favorite projects thus far would have to be the hole we put into our wall. This is likely due in part to the fact that I didn't have to do anything, it was handled completely by professionals (Jon's amazing uncles). I also love it because it made a huge difference in our house. We have a "cozy" (my favorite word for very, very small) 1100 square foot home, so needless to say there isn't a lot of room for entertaining. From the day I bought this house I had the idea that I needed to open it up to help with the flow when entertaining. And isn't opening things up all the rage these days?

El problemo with my plan was that I wanted to open the space up between the family room and kitchen, and that my friends, is a load bearing wall. Not to be discouraged, because I have the motto you can do whatever the eff you want as long as you're willing to pay for it, I forged on with the plan. Well sort of. Jon and I are what you might call indecisive procrastinators. Real projects terrify us and even though we have been together for something like 10-15 years (I mean it's somewhere in there who keeps count at this point anyway?) we are afraid of commitment. Lucky for us, we had someone nudging us... aka saying, "Are you going to do this stupid project or what??"

Because I was smart enough to know that I shouldn't touch a load bearing wall lest the house should collapse, I think the project really started when I asked Jon's uncle at a family party how much it could cost to brace a load bearing wall for a pass-through. He didn't really give me a direct answer and I thought that the question had sort of died. However, I think that either at another party or via a phone call the project was brought up again and the next thing I know his uncle is at our house assessing it. He gave us a quote and Jon and I, the procrastinators and non-committers that we are, didn't call him back. That's when we finally got the call essentially saying are you doing this or not? So we said... ok, completely terrified of what we were starting.

One thing about this plan was that it had originally begun as a fairly simple rectangular opening, I had no grand plans. I'm a pretty simple, modern style-ish person so I was cool with that. Then one day my mother threw this giant wrench in the plan. She said, "Why don't you consider doing something fun like columns?" I was thinking that's kind of gaudy for my taste. I'm not really into a Grecian style (I mean who is under the age of 75 or really rich people with poor taste?). I said no way. The subject came up again at a later time and I said, "Mom, do you really think a Greek column would go in my little 1960s house?" She said, "I was not talking about Greek columns! Google some photos of Crafstman style home columns." Oh goodness, did I fall in love. I loved the column style and the built-ins that typically accompanied them. How in the hell do moms always know everything? It's not cool.

The process began, and moved along pretty quickly. Although, this was not without a major fight where I got mad at Jon for not communicating the measurements correctly. The pillars were supposed to be sitting on top of the built-ins but I could tell partially through the project that this was not going to happen. However, it all worked out in the end and I am really happy with the result.

Some photos for your enjoyment...

This is what I came home to the first day they began the work. I was soooo excited and scared.

The same day I went down to the creepy room in the basement where we were keeping our sweet little Lola. I think she was a little stressed and took it out on Jon's parents' old couch...