June 4, 2008

Our fourth child, Timothy, has a plethora of special needs. At nearly 12 years old, he is non-verbal, non-walking, and tube fed, with a lot of autistic features and severe developmental delays. Despite that, he is mostly a very happy person with his own sense of mischief, and well loved within this family and his church community.

 We reached the point - a year or more ago - of realizing that he was only getting bigger and we were only getting older, and carrying him up and down the stairs to his bedroom and bathroom, and lifting him in and out of the tub just can't continue indefinitely.

We spent a fair amount of time with wonderfully patient real estate agents (Eden and Chris Hampson - ReMax) over the last year, looking for homes we could move to in a somewhat inflated local market. On a parallel path, we started talking with a barrier free design architect, Ron Wickman, about ways we could modify or add to the house we live in.

In the end we have gone with staying put and building a barrier free addition - a Timothy bedroom, fully accessible bathroom, and guest room on the main floor, and full basement underneathe (not barrier free in the basement).

The purpose of this blog is to document, episodically, the renovation process - frustrations, fascinations, and, if I can figure out how, pictures and the occasional video clip. (I have a great video of a tree moving service moving  a young elm from one side of the yard to the other to be out of the way of the hole that will be dug soon...I hope. I'll try to post that next week, once I've sorted out some of my video software.)

Right now, we are waiting for final permits, but the pre-construction phase (destruction of the back deck and hole digging) may begin as soon as next week.

(nancy)