The new improved look of my home!

Getting a house renovated and repainted while staying in the house is a nightmarish experience. I have gone through the experience several times while building my dream home which was designed by Shiela Sriprakash ,  architect wife of my good friend Tabler/Rotarian Sri Prakash. In  1982 I was probably one of her earliest customer. Today she is an  internationally well known architect. It was just a two bedroom, 1100 sq ft independent home with the main bedroom one foot below the level of the rest of the house making it more spacious to look at. It was the first architect designed home in my family circles admired by every one.

My family moved into the house in December 1982. Over the next 10 years I kept adding an extra floor with additional rooms, brick by brick,  to make it a five bedroom home with six toilets with a 2400 sq ft area. Yes, I built one extra toilet outside the home for service providers who used to frequent my home. The worst nightmare was when I was converting the sit out abetting the main drawing room with  French doors into a multipurpose room which could be used as a study, a family room, small party room ( with a mini bar attached ) and if necessary could be used a stand by bedroom. Fortunately I had my father alive at that time to keep a hawk`s eye on the workers moving in and out of the house and generally supervising the activity. But we had to live with the inconvenienced caused by the activity for over a month.

 When I was being pushed by my children to do something about the run down condition of the home after nearly 40 years, I was hesitant. Because at 80 ,without  my life partner to help, I was not willing to take on the onerous task. But the recent heavy rains in Chennai in November when my main drawing room and the portion outside the guest toilet got flooded twice  creating a health hazard made me think seriously about the need. Besides, the main drawing room built at a lower level was also making me accident prone every time I had  to step down and step up to visit my study. With god`s grace I have survived many falls in the recent past with minimum collateral damage. The main job, therefore , was to raise the depressed floor to the same level as the rest of the house ( see accompanying pics). I also took the opportunity to clear a lot of junk accumulated over the years and paint the entire interior portion of the house.

 My daughter Sowmya offering  to stay with me to supervise the repair and repainting work helped me to decide on going ahead with the project. My elder daughter Kavitha helped with her creative inputs and my son Balaji with his useful comments from time to time. With the help of an  experienced contractor the job was completed in 15 days. The final nail was hammered on last Sunday evening.

Oof! I can now heave a huge sigh of relief. Though it was the workers who were working hard in the sweltering heat, when the job was completed I felt as if I had finished running a marathon. The appreciation for the new improved look of the house that I am getting from  near and dear ones is an ample reward for the efforts put in.  Thank God it is all over!