Building Back Our Lives

By Author: unknownmem
Total Articles: 497
Comment this article

I love my husband and our three sons. I love my home; we live in a nice area and have good neighbours. I love my garden, and sometimes I even love my work. Occasionally, I love my Mother-in-law!

We live in a three bedroom house, on a nice estate, not far from the shops, schools. It takes my husband twenty minutes by car to get to work, and I work from home. Ideal, you may say. Yes until just over a year ago, we thought so.

I think it started when my Mother and Father-in-law had a small Insurance Policy mature. They told us they were going on a long cruise and would treat us all to something special for Christmas. Did I mention that they visited us once a month? They have a three and a hour journey, so would arrive Friday night, and leave Sunday afternoon. Christmas came and she bought my eldest sons (twins, nearly twelve years old) a full-sized snooker table. My younger son received an enormous train set (he's only eight). What on earth were they thinking of!!! What was wrong with a small mobile phone, they boys had dropped enough hints! I got some rather nice gold earrings and my husband got a fancy ...
... set of digital bathroom scales! I think my husband took the hint, afterall he was nearly forty, and his waist size had gone up - just a little bit!

The twins decided that if they got rid of their wardrobe (clothes to be left in the corner on the floor - nothing new), pushed their beds together, and put the chest of drawers on the landing, they could get the snooker table in their room. The younger son took over our small dining room with the train set, meaning we had to take it in turns to sit at our small breakfast bar to have our meals.

Something had to be done - fast. When my husband's parents stayed, we gave them our king-size bed, and shoved all the furniture in the lounge to walls and had to blow up an air bed for us to sleep on.

My husband and I talked and talked about our situation, neither of us really wanted to move away, especially as the boys were settled at school. We looked at ways of extending our existing home, and decided that it was the only answer.

Did I mention I worked in IT? I knew the power of the internet and visited many sites for comparison. I eventually settled on a local firm, whose credentials could be verified.

Thanks to their good advice and planning, our garage is now a big games room, and above is a bedroom with an en-suite. We never have to give up our comfortable bed anymore, and the boys are really happy. I've even become fonder of my mother-in-law especially as she is going on a three month cruise next week!
Carolyn is the webmaster of Building Solutions (Midlands) Ltd who offer Property Renovations including Garage conversions and Green Building.