It has been a long tough year since Mary Kay awoke, in the early morning hours of May 27, 2007, to the smoke alarms blaring, opened her bedroom door and saw the other end of the house on fire. She grabbed her phone and dialed 911 as she ran out the door:
Our wonderful Fairfax Firemen & Rescue arrived on the scene shortly and had the blaze under control in a short while. Several of the firemen were successful in rescuing Mary Kay's two cats, Jasmin & Maxine, who have since been living with us, however, her house was a total loss.
Over the course of this past year, there were many decisions she had to make as to just what she should do and how, and it would appear that she has done a good job of it.
Although there are still a few things left to complete, when she arrived home from work yesterday afternoon, Joey Pigeon from Pigeon Brothers, had brought in some crushed stone and graded the driveway up to her entranceway. This makes her entrance with a large door to go in the house completely handicapped accessible. She has egress doors on every side of the house and the upstairs bedroom has a large French Door that opens out on to the roof, where a platform is being installed.
The house sits on a slab and uses radiant heat to keep it warm. The large downstairs bathroom is also handicapped accessible and it has a wide open design for easy access for anyone needing to use a wheelchair.
It wasn't long after she got home from work that she came over to the house to ask her mother if she would like to go in and see her house, as during all of the construction, her mother had never been able to make it in to see what was going on. I tried to take photos of everything so she could see what it looked like, but yesterday afternoon was a great day for her to be able to go in the house and actually see the real thing.
