Surprise Laundry Room Renovation

For a Christmas surprise, our family teamed up with Steve's sister (Bev) and her family to renovate Steve's parent's laundry room.  It was a really fun project to complete together and it turned out nice and bright and clean.  

4 kids...

4 adults...

1 laundry dungeon...

and 5 days.

We were really excited to do this secret project while Steve's parents were spending their holidays with Elinn's family in Maryland.  We had their house to ourselves, which allowed us to have a flexible schedule.  It also allowed us to paint and have the fumes disappate in time for their return.

We wanted to do something nice for Steve's parents because they have done so much for all of us.  They have always been so willing to open up their home to us as guests, but even more, they've let our family and many of their other kids and their families live with them when they've needed it.  We appreciate their sacrifices and willingness to always help us out, so we thought this was a prime opportunity to give a little back to the parents and their home that have given us so much.

In the process, we gained experience and memories to last forever.

Create your own quick print book

 After we finished, we packed up and went home and waited for the phone call for when his parents found their surprise.  Steve's parents didn't discover the  new laundry room until their return a week later.  The day after they got home, Steve's dad went downstairs to look for his snow shovel only to find it missing and a lot of other things missing too, like his old flooring, his old sheetrock scraps, his old carpet runner, his old hanging rod, his old board-make-shift shelf thing, his old wood paneling, etc..  It was all gone.  And in it's place, there was a bright new laundry room.  He said he was definitely surprised.  He then called his wife downstairs.  She was reluctant to come because she hadn't put her shoes on for the day, but he insisted she didn't need them, and that she should come down.  She got up, went down the stairs and the first thing she noticed was the new flooring.   We got a phone call shortly thereafter with happy, excited thank-yous.