It occurred to me over the weekend that we are at a point with this house project that I felt comfortable blogging about it. There is still so much work to do so even though we've been working on it for ten weeks, it won't take me all that long to bring you up to speed. I've been taking pictures with my phone as we've worked, so over the next week or two I'll catch you up on 'how we spent our summer.'

First, I should give you a little background about the subject of this blog, Home Redo or Redux if I'm being fancy and quasi-French.

Fourteen years ago my husband and I bought a walk-out ranch home in a rural area of Southwest Michigan. We loved the location- walking distance to two lakes, rolling hills and trees. We'd hoped for more property but there was nothing on the market in our price range. I wasn't really interested in a ranch, but this one had a lot of potential: an unfinished walkout basement, cathedral pine-planked ceilings, open concept, attached garage, etc. Plus it seemed to be underpriced, relative to the other properties we'd looked at. We made a good offer quickly and it was ours.

We didn't realize until we'd basically bought it that the property was actually two lots. This became a great advantage a few years later.

Nine years ago we decided to split the lots and build a home next to ours for my husband's mom. After his dad passed away we felt that it was the right thing to do, to allow her to live completely independently but have her close enough that mowing the lawn and shoveling the driveway in the winter wouldn't be more difficult. We were able to give her the peace and quiet of the countryside, and she would be a daily part of our daughter's lives. The house took us a year to complete, we broke ground when my youngest daughter was only 3 months old. Building a house proved to be tougher than we predicted. Add a new baby and a lousy contractor and it made for a very difficult year. But once completed, my mother-in-law had a beautiful little cape cod.

We made a path between our houses. My kids came and went from grandma's just as easily as they slept and breathed. We knew this wouldn't last forever, but we expected 15-20 years that this arrangement would work out. We had this mental picture that the kids would at least be in high school or college before we'd have to think about assisted living for Mom. After all, she walked 2 miles a day. She was healthy and active. But surely you know where this is going. We only got 8 of those years.

Several months ago we had to decide what to do with the house. Over the course of the previous few months it had fallen in many ways into disrepair. Our focus was on the people, doing everything we could to try to bring her back to health and maintain some degree of normalcy for our kids. Extended family moved in because they like many in Michigan, they were out of work and couldn't afford to heat their home in the middle of winter. They provided wonderful care and companionship to Mom.

Their pets destroyed the place.

Yet, despite the odor and disarray, both of my daughters wanted to move there when we asked for their input on what they would like to see us do with grandma's house. To them, it was unbearable to think of strangers living in a place that many of their fondest memories were made. They saw the potential of bigger bedrooms, their own bathroom, and being just that much closer to the lake. Financially, there was no question that selling our home and moving there would be the best option. We'd put so much sweat equity into that house that from that stand point, it made sense.

I was very reluctant. I knew how much work there was to be done. When we built that house, we expected it's value to be very close to the home we currently live in. It should have appreciated right along with ours, right around $165k (taking into account the market slump). But if we had tried to sell it 'as is' I doubt we could have got more than $80k out of it. It smelled and looked that bad. We knew we'd have to invest at least $20k to bring it back up to living standards. To sell our house, we'd have to invest some serious time and effort into curb appeal, as we'd put all our previous energy into the inside. Selling our house meant the most work. I was very reluctant, but our family is made up of four voices and the other three were in favor of moving.

Of course, it was more complicated than this. We were all grieving. We didn't want to do anything with either house, but we couldn't afford to keep both. I suggested renting the cape cod but none of them wanted anything to do with that. So the decision to list ours was made and a summer full of work ensued. The first month we focused on getting our house ready to list. After that, we've been pretty much maintaining here and  throwing every spare minute into fixing up the other house, grandma's house, the house we now call H2.