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 should document the good and the bad. I should also record the stupid, the truth, and the lies I told myself. When we bought this house back in 2008, I knew this was mine. I knew it the minute I walked up to the door. It was the home I’d been looking for, for 40 years, honestly. We paid more than we would have if we had waited until everything crashed. (I mean it was 2008 and B saw the writing on the wall). But then again, maybe someone else would have bought it. We may 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 and safe. It was big enough but not overwhelming. It had built-in music speakers. The house was nicer than I dreamed. The kids loved it. The waterfall was soothing. The pool was fun. 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.

After the kids all moved out, B began having trouble walking on the slate. The slate felt dark and out of style. It seemed like a cave in serious need of an update 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.” We first looked at homes for sale. We couldn’t find anything in Draper that fit what we wanted. (Duh, my first sign.) We have a rental property in our old neighborhood. The property was a rambler. It had the bonus of being across from Cherie. It also backed up to the trail that ran behind Lelu’s house. I thought I’d had a brilliant idea. I planned to kick out our renters (for the last 14 years – there’s more to that story too). Then, I 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 have very nosy and unfriendly neighbors behind us at Somerset. They are from UC Santa Barbara and UCLA. I’m rolling my eyes hard, but that tells you something about their neighborly tolerance. We have two annoying dogs that kept getting us in trouble with them. 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 there. We couldn’t fit our entire family in it. 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, each visit I made to Somerset left me feeling depressed. I met with someone to fix something or clean it out and dragged my feet on getting it listed. Lelu and I took Elle and Reese in their car seats one day. They were so itty bitty. We sat on the floor in the empty house. She told me just how sad it made her that all her core memories of growing up were here. She lamented 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. It 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. We thought we’d build our cabin there 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. We had just gone through the huge expense and pain of remodeling and moving. We were going to do it all again. Over the years, I’d dreamed of putting in a nice butler’s pantry. I also wanted a laundry upstairs. Making it lighter and brighter with a giant sliding glass door out to the pool was another dream of mine. But then I started seeing more and more of the upside of why it had to happen this way.

We never would have remodeled living there.
We didn’t rely on anyone else. We didn’t have to live in a rental. We didn’t have to stay in Arizona or Montana the whole time.
We cleaned out 16 years of crap we’d been collecting.
We simplified
We already made many mistakes and figured out what not to do.
Lelu really learned a lot while remodeling Hackamore. She also learned on Corner Ridge. She knew exactly how to help us make it perfect.
We knew what we wanted, so there was no decision making delays.
We put in radiant heating in the driveway and walkways so we never have to shovel again.
We kept the beauty and timelessness of the outside, while updating it.
It’s light, it’s bright, it’s absolutely beautiful and everything I ever wanted in my home.
I don’t regret it for one minute
People often ask me about my favorite place to be. Now I have an answer. Somerset is MY HOME.

The upstairs powder bath

The backyard and our ginormous new hot tub.

The great room and fireplace

The kitchen

The pantry and old laundry room (I have no old photo) is now a butlers pantry and nicer mudroom

The office

The master bath

The basement guest suite and massage room (previously the guest room and Master D’s room)

The stairwell and entry

The basement wet bar and exercise area. We took the laundry/craft room space and turned it into an actual exercise room and a closet stackable washer dryer