Home improvement?

This house we bought about 3 years ago used to be 'home' to another family. I'd like to imagine they were a loving, happy family. There was a little girl who grew up here, she had a play den in the attic, where her mummy made little curtains for the little window, carpeted the floor and she hung disney pictures on the walls ( also found some newspapers and magazines from 1950s) and played there for hours with the wooden play kitchen that her daddy lovingly crafted for her. That girl is in her 50s now and lives in Canada as far as we know. The other day one of our neighbours rang the bell and brought us that little toy kitchen which they had inherited but now their kids are too old to play with it.

The mum who lived here, loved gardening and must have been proud to have created such a beautiful garden, which, even after all these years of neglect, happens to surprise us with lovely flowers every now and then.

We don't do gardening. I wouldn't know what to do and can't seem to find time to learn. I can't even manage to pull out the weeds correctly. Nick cuts the grass and that is pretty much it. So we kind of ruined the beautiful garden.

The play den is our storage room and full of our rubbish at the moment. Our girls have an Ikea play kitchen in the garden play house but they have so many other toys they hardly find time to go and play there.

Tomorrow the builders are coming into the house. They will knock some walls down, build some other walls, etc. We will get new kitchen, new bathroom, new flooring...The current kitchen has lasted 62 years! Our Ikea kitchen will probably last about 5. The faded carpets we have at the moment have also been here for 62 years. The laminate wood floors we are getting will probably last about 5 years also.

Dear Checkett family, I am sorry that we are not really improving your home. You would probably say that we are ruining your home. May be right. But we have to do it our way. Everything in the house are likely to change 10 times in the next 60 years. I have one question though; wallpapered ceilings throughout the house? carpet in the toilet and bathroom (which are separate rooms)? why why why?