Who came up with this idea?

It started out innocently enough. My partner, Rebecca, and I wanted more living space. Ever since she moved in with me in 1995, Rebecca has not had enough space in the house to call her own. She wanted a place where she could work, do tai chi, think deep thoughts and do whatever she wanted unencumbered. I already have such a space, which is my home office.  Not that I do tai chi (or think deep thoughts), but you get the idea.

We figured we had three choices:
1.  Buy a new house.
2.  Build up, i.e., add a story on top of the house we live in.
3.  Remodel.

1.  Too expensive and I was too attached to the place we've lived in for 18+ years. Our garden alone is pretty fabulous.

2.  Too many stairs to climb. We are women of a certain age, if you get my drift.

3.  A grudging okay. I mean, who likes to remodel?  But, we figured, we'll spend our 2012 Hanukah vacation going to Ikea, getting some shelves, rearranging the junk in our basement 

and voila! We'd have a space that would be Rebecca-worthy in time for the new year. We were thinking New Year 2013.