Somerset Ridge – Before & After October 2024

We moved back into the house October 18th, 2024. It took 14 months from demo to move back in. It was quite a process to get here. I feel like I should probably document the good, the bad, the stupid, the truth and the lies I told myself. When we bought this house back in 2008, I knew this was “my house” the minute I walked up to the door: The HOME I’d been looking for, for 40 years, honestly. We paid more than we would have had we waited until everything crashed (I mean it was 2008 and B could see the writing on the wall)- but then again, maybe someone else would have bought it and we would not have got it. We got B diagnosis less than six months later. It was incredibly significant. It changed him. It changed me. And it changed us. Sometimes, I would just sit in the house after taking the kids to school and feel its warmth. I loved it. I’d never felt at home like I did here. It was warm, it was safe, it was big enough but not so big it was overwhelming, it had built in music speakers, it was nicer than I could ever have dreamed, the kids loved it, the waterfall was soothing, the pool was fun and I was proud of it. We made it our home. Most of our best memories are here. Growth happened here in all of the ways for everyone.

But after the kids all moved out, B started having trouble walking on the slate and it felt like a dark, out of style, in need of a serious update cave to us. The thought of remodeling while living in it was unthinkable for B and too much for us. I also (stupidly) thought “we need to downsize”. First we looked at homes for sale and couldn’t find anything in Draper that fit what we wanted (Duh, my first sign) We have a rental property in our old neighborhood that was a rambler with the bonus of being across from Cherie and backed up to the trail that ran behind Lelu’s house, so I thought I’d had a brilliant idea to kick out our renters (for the last 14 years – there’s more to that story too) and set about the remodeling with the idea to sell Somerset. In hindsight, I never felt peace about that decision. I never felt excited about it. I tried to, I really did. We also have very shizzzy nosy jerky neighbors (from UC Santa Barbara and UCLA – I’m rolling my eyes hard but that tells you something about their neighborly tolerance) behind us at Somerset, two pain in the A## dogs that kept getting us in trouble with them, so I felt we were being pushed out. I kept telling myself, it’d be awesome to be across the street from Cherie and closer to Lelu. Those two things were awesome, but once we moved in – I was so unsettled and it felt completely wrong. I couldn’t sleep, I was incredibly unhappy in there. We couldn’t fit our entire family in it and our family was only getting bigger. D moved back from CA and TT & Kenna were getting married soon. I love having enough room for Dave & Shel and now I didn’t. I felt so dumb not realizing these things before this massive effort and expensive decision was made. In the meantime, every time I’d go back over to Somerset to meet with someone to fix something or clean it out, I’d be depressed and drag my feet on getting it listed. Lelu and I took Elle and Reese, so itty bitty, in their car seats over one day, we sat on the floor in the empty house and she told me just how sad it made her that all her core memories of growing up were here and that the girls wouldn’t know it. She felt it too. I’ll never forget that moment. I think that was the straw that caused my mental breakdown, yet gave me the courage to shift into thinking I can still change it before it’s too late.

Thankfully, we’d also just sold our property in Park City, that we thought we’d build our cabin on before we discovered Montana and Flathead Lake. So I gathered my courage and put my tail between my legs. I then presented the idea of using that money to remodel Somerset and moving back to B. Somehow, he agreed. But now I was embarrassed to tell anyone since we’d just gone through the huge expense and pain of remodeling/moving and were going to do it all again. Over the years, I’d dreamed of putting in a nice butlers pantry, laundry upstairs, making it lighter and brighter with a giant sliding glass door out to the pool. But then I started seeing more and more of the upside of why it had to happen this way. 1. We never could have remodeled living there. 2. We didn’t have to be a burden to anyone, live in a rental or have to be in Arizona or Montana the whole time we were doing it. 3. We cleaned out 16 years of crap we’d been collecting. 4. We simplified. 5. We already made many mistakes and figured out what not to do. 6. Lelu really learned A LOT between remodeling Hackamore and Corner Ridge and really knew how to help us make it perfect. 7. We knew what we wanted, so there was no decision making delays. 8. We put in radiant heating in the driveway and walkways so we never have to shovel again. 9. We kept the beauty and timelessness of the outside, while updating it. 10. It’s light, it’s bright, it’s absolutely beautiful and everything I ever wanted in my home. 11. I don’t regret it for one minute. 12. The number one question I get from people is where is my favorite place to be and now I have an answer – Somerset is MY HOME.