We have Lift-off!

The renovations that we made last year have been making our home more accessible for Nickolas. But we still had bigger things for our wish list. The long discussed porch lift.

Last year we applied for, and received a grant from Easter Seals to cover $3000 of the cost of the porch lift, and another $1500 from For the Love of a Child. This made our cost for the lift only $700! So we ordered and got the lift in December.

This was such a big chunk of the $10 000 cost, but we still needed to figure out what we were going to do for the construction portion of it. And I thought about it every time I carried Nick in and out of the house!

Kyle hasn't been working, and as money is getting tighter and tighter $5000 was a lot of money.

So Kyle put his construction hat on this month and built a porch in the garage. Which meant that we could actually get the lift installed!

Kyle got to be the first one to try it out!

And when Nick got home from school we showed him his surprise!

He was a little bit nervous about trying it out

But was excited that this was all his!

He wasn't quite so sure when he pressed the UP button and it started to go...

But pretty sure he got the hand of it

And he made it all the way to the top!
But there still isn't a door, so it is a lift to nowhere at the moment

He didn't really want to go back down

 And back up

We decided to play a trick on Katheryn and hide when she got home from school

We had to wait a long time!

But as soon as she got home she was excited to try it out with Nick!

Until we have the door and use it more regularly, we were told to still run it up and down every couple of days. I don't think that is going to be a problem

Now our updated wish list:

• Open up the entry way into the family, taking down the half wall
• Make a ramp into the family room (needed some space to do this first)
• Make a ramp (or something) into the backyard
• Take out the front hall closet in the foyer. 
• Put handrails on the walls up the stairs 
• Put a doorway from our front hall into the garage
• Add a platform in the garage
• Get a porch lift and install it inside the garage

Hopefully we will get that door by the end of the summer