It was just another typical day, sitting around not much to do. So I started thinking……..first mistake! Let me see what the house would look like if a certain wall didn’t exist, let me surprise the boyfriend. And THAT is when it started.

The hole in the wall, the “pass-through”, was not the issue. It was the chimney that lived within the wall. Who would have thought? A house, built in the 1920’s, would have a hidden chimney.

I was at the point of no return. Once the chimney was exposed, and the efforts to remove it began, the ceiling started to cave. Oh no…..here we go!

As luck would have it, my brother was visiting. I recruited him to help me. (Remember, this was supposed to be a surprise. A surprise to my boyfriend who was gone out of town for the weekend).   This simple weekend project had now officially turned into a nightmare.

It didn’t end up being so bad, once the chimney was removed that is. Old plaster was replaced with new drywall, carpet was removed, floors were stripped, a trip to the Home Depot, a few thousand dollars, new doors hung, and a brand new kitchen! A simple project, a weekend surprise project, which turned into months of agonizing disarray, just because I didn’t have much to do.