Empty Nest Downsizing Update: Our Remodel Takes Shape

It’s been a few months since I last updated you on our empty-nest downsizing remodel, and although I haven’t been writing about it, a lot has been happening behind the scenes!

When I last shared an update, we had bought our new home and were just beginning what turned out to be a much bigger remodeling project than we originally anticipated. Since then, our contractor and his team have been hard at work, and my designer Tatum (pictured above) and I have made what feels like approximately 47,392 design decisions (haha!). Bob and I have started planning the landscaping, and things are finally taking shape. Now it’s really getting exciting!

Before I go any further, I have to say that I wouldn’t be where I am without Tatum and her team at Park Interiors. They have been amazing partners throughout this process, and having Tatum by my side at every turn has helped ensure our new home will feel updated and elegant while still fully reflecting our tastes and aesthetic.

This may sound silly, but I didn’t want our empty-nester home to look too “old person!” 😂 I wanted it to feel joyful, warm, fresh, and full of the color we love. A good designer can take your personality, words, ideas, and inspiration photos and translate them into a home that still feels completely like YOU, and Tatum and her team have done exactly that. I interviewed multiple design firms before choosing one, and I’m here to tell you, if you live in the Dallas area, Park Interiors is absolutely worth considering!

Our Empty Nest Downsizing Remodel: A Quick Recap

If you’re new here, let me catch you up!

Last November, we sold the family home we built in 2004 and raised our kids in, after spending about a year decluttering and preparing for the move. I’ve shared that entire journey in my Downsizing, Decluttering, Detaching, and Dreaming Ahead series.

Rather than rushing to buy another house, we moved into a light-filled apartment we absolutely love and decided to wait until the right home came along.

A few months later, it did!

We bought a smaller, zero-lot-line home in the area we wanted, with lots of natural light and a pretty backyard. At 2,338 square feet, though, it wasn’t quite large enough for our needs, and the layout needed some significant changes.

Okay, maybe “some significant changes” is putting it mildly. 😂

As I shared in my last downsizing update, we decided to expand and remodel it. Between expanding the downstairs footprint in the primary bedroom and bathroom area and enclosing an upstairs porch, we’ll add about 500 square feet of living space. We’re also reworking much of the interior, so the house functions well for the way Bob and I live NOW.

That has really been the point of this whole downsizing process. We weren’t looking to recreate the family home we needed when our three kids were growing up. We wanted to think carefully about what works for the life we’re living now and what we want this next chapter to look like.

That idea is also woven throughout my book, Empty Nest Blessed: 60 Days to Finding Joy in the Empty Nest. I think the empty nest gives us a wonderful opportunity to look at our lives with fresh eyes, and where and how we live is certainly part of that!

Permits, Approvals, and Finally… Demo!

A lot of the work happening this summer has been VERY important, but not particularly photogenic! Our contractor, Edinburgh Custom Homes, and our architect, K. Dunham Design, have been working through permitting and approvals with both the City and our HOA. We had to remove trees and landscaping that were in the way of the expansion, and the concrete foundation company has been laying out the areas where we’re expanding the primary bedroom and bathroom. The big news is that ALL of that has now been approved, and as I’m writing this, we expect the concrete for the new foundation to be poured and framing on the expansion to begin within the next week. (Update: it was poured at the end of last week and is currently drying. Next up: framing those spaces.)

There’s been plenty happening inside the house, too! Some of the walls that are being relocated have come down, drywall has been removed from the dining room wall where we’re adding more windows, and, best of all, the bar and part of the wall between the kitchen, family room, and dining room are GONE! Next up, they’ll add a support beam in the ceiling to reinforce the area where the load-bearing wall was removed.

I know these demo photos aren’t exactly beautiful, and honestly, you may not even be able to tell what you’re looking at in some of them! 😂 But once that bar and wall came out, everything changed for us. For the first time, we could really picture how open that main part of the house is going to feel, and with every wall that moves and every change that takes place, it feels a little less like the house we bought and a little more like OUR house.

We’re Adding Space… Including One Very Important Closet

Part of the downstairs expansion involves enlarging the primary bedroom and bathroom area, including adding a closet for Bob. Here’s a little-known fact about my husband: Bob loves clothes, and he has A LOT of them. And lately, he keeps asking me, “Do you think my closet is going to be big enough?” Apparently, closet square footage has become one of our major construction concerns around here. 😂

Upstairs, we’re also enclosing an existing outdoor porch and turning it into Bob’s study, which will add more conditioned living space to the house. Once framing begins, I think it’ll be much easier for us to understand the actual size and shape of these new spaces. Drawings are helpful, but seeing walls go up and being able to stand inside those new spaces will make everything feel much more real.

Now for the Really Fun Part!

While our construction team has been dealing with permits, concrete, walls, beams, and all those necessary things, Tatum and I have been working through what feels like an endless list of design decisions. We’ve selected or discussed everything from cabinetry styles and lighting to plumbing fixtures, appliances, paint, wallpaper, tile, and more. There are SO many individual choices in a remodel, but I also really enjoy this part because you start to see how all those little decisions will come together to create the overall look and feel of the house.

I thought it would be fun to show you some of the actual design boards and selections we’ve been working from, because they tell the story much better than I ever could with words alone!

The kitchen probably involved some of the biggest decisions because there are so many elements to coordinate, from cabinetry and countertops to lighting, hardware, plumbing fixtures, and appliances. On top of that, the whole space has to flow naturally into the family room and dining room.

One of the things I’ve loved about working with Tatum is that she understands that I want this home to feel updated and elegant, but still warm, colorful, and very much like us. I don’t want everything to be white, beige, and gray! You know me better than that. 😂 There will be plenty of blue, some pink, beautiful wallpaper, brass finishes, and lots of details that make the house feel joyful.

And YES, there is pink coming! My laundry room is getting some personality of its own, and the bathrooms are each developing their own look as well. I love that the rooms coordinate without feeling like we simply repeated the exact same finishes throughout the entire house.

The primary bathroom has required a LOT of decisions because we’re changing both the layout and the size of the space. Once you start choosing plumbing fixtures, tile, cabinetry, mirrors, hardware, and all of the little details that go along with them, you quickly realize how many decisions are hiding inside the words “remodel the bathroom!”

From there, we head upstairs, where we’re updating the guest bath and creating Bob’s new study by enclosing the existing outdoor porch. Tatum has designed custom cabinetry and a desk area to make the study work well for him, and both upstairs spaces have their own personality, which has made the design selections especially fun.

Most of what you’re seeing here came directly from Tatum and Park Interiors, so I won’t have brands or shopping links. I still wanted to share these boards and selections because I know so many of you enjoy the design part of a remodel as much as I do. After months of permits, architectural drawings, demo, and foundation work, wallpaper, tile, lighting, paint (see below), and pretty finishes are a VERY welcome change of scenery!

Flowers for Me, a Putting Green for Bob!

We’ve also been meeting with Scott from Garden Design Landscaping to plan the front and back yards. The front of our home is almost entirely shaded, while the backyard gets lots of sun, so the two areas have completely different needs, which has made the landscaping especially interesting to plan. One of our biggest priorities is keeping everything relatively low-maintenance. None of our kids live nearby, and because we also have places in Waco and Sanibel Island, Florida, we’re on the go quite a bit! We want plants that can handle our brutal Texas summers and mild winters without requiring us to structure our lives around keeping them alive!

Of course, Bob and I have very different landscaping priorities. Our conversations with poor Scott tend to involve Bob asking, “Can we have two holes in the putting green or just one?” while I’m saying, “I’m going to need more color. And by color, I mean flowers. LOTS more flowers!” Bless Scott. He has been so open to all of our ideas and so kind about trying to make both of us happy. And yes, you read that correctly. After dreaming about one for years, Bob is finally getting his putting green! Between the putting green and his new closet, I’d say he’s doing pretty well in this remodel. 😂

The Question Everyone Asks: When Will It Be Finished?

This is BY FAR the question I get asked most often, and our contractor’s current estimate is “late first quarter of 2027.” Bob and I keep telling him the same thing: “No rush! Do it WELL, not quickly!” We’re really happy in our apartment, so we don’t feel any pressure to rush the process, and knowing we’ll be there through the holidays, the winter, and into the spring has made planning much easier.

Another thing that has made this whole process easier is that our apartment is only about seven or eight minutes from the new house! We pop over a couple of times a week to see what’s happening, which lets us stay involved and watch the progress without having to live in the middle of the construction mess. If you want to see the most current updates, be sure you’re following me on Instagram and Facebook, because I regularly share construction progress in Stories. That’s usually where you’ll see what’s happening first!

What’s Next?

Now that the approvals are behind us, I think the next phase will be especially fun to watch because we’re finally getting into the parts of construction that make a house start to look like a house again. Foundation, framing, windows, walls, actual ROOMS! We’ve also started working through another big piece of the downsizing puzzle, deciding which furniture and rugs from our old house might work in this one.

Recently, Tatum and I went out to the warehouse where we’ve been storing some of our things so she could see them in person. Because she and the Park Interiors team hadn’t worked with us before, they had only seen the pieces we brought with us to the apartment. When we downsized, one of the best pieces of advice I received was not to get rid of too much before we knew where we were going next. The thinking was simple: You can always get rid of more later, but if you get rid of too much before you know what your next home will be, you may regret it, and you can’t get it back! I’m SO glad we listened.

Now we’re beginning to decide what will work in the new house and what we have in storage that we’re finally ready to donate, consign, or pass along. I have a feeling there may be a whole other downsizing post in THAT topic! For now, though, I’m just excited that after months of plans, drawings, meetings, approvals, and decisions, we’re reaching the point where we can actually watch our new home take shape.

This downsizing series has been so much fun to share because so many of you are somewhere in this process too. Some of you are downsizing, some are remodeling, some are staying exactly where you are, and others are simply beginning to think about what kind of home might make sense for your own empty nest. I’d love to know where YOU are right now. Are you staying put, downsizing, remodeling, or still dreaming about what might come next? Tell me in the comments!