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Help make our home safe and sound

Multiple Sclerosis is an unpredictable disease, help make my home predictably safe and accessible.

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Help make our home safe and sound

Help make our home safe and sound

Help make our home safe and sound

Help make our home safe and sound

Help make our home safe and sound

Multiple Sclerosis is an unpredictable disease, help make my home predictably safe and accessible.

Multiple Sclerosis is an unpredictable disease, help make my home predictably safe and accessible.

Multiple Sclerosis is an unpredictable disease, help make my home predictably safe and accessible.

Multiple Sclerosis is an unpredictable disease, help make my home predictably safe and accessible.

Valarie Elaine Brunjes
Valarie Elaine Brunjes
Valarie Elaine Brunjes
Valarie Elaine Brunjes
1 Campaign |
St Charles, United States
$15,515 USD 223 backers
62% of $25,000 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal
Choose your Perk

 

Please follow this link to watch our video http://youtu.be/XDJ2CVX0hwA 

 

FINAL UPDATE 5/1/16**************

Here it is! The project that you helped fund is complete!! I've been living upstairs for a few weeks now, cleaning, organizing, and just getting used to being in my totally new old house.  So far everything is better than I expected. It's been a long tough road for the past year. I am so thankful to have had you all by my side making this necessary dream a reality. My house is safe and sound. You guys lifted a huge burden from my shoulders. Now I get to enjoy living in my home without fear and do basic things without danger. I have a bedroom for the first time in 9 years and a bathroom that doesn't try to kill me. I couldn't have done this without every single one of you. I am beyond thankful! I can't say enough good things about Chris Buck of Elina Construction. He exceeded all my expectations and was a good guy all around during this project.  Super quality and attention to detail. I wholeheartedly recommend his company, I'm happy to pass along his info to anyone who is interested. Jacob Wolf, at Wolf Plumbing, is super awesome and generous. He donated his time for all the plumbing work, which really helped me keep costs down. He's a really great guy and I'm looking forward to helping him grow his new business!
So now I'm trying to finish the updates to Maya's room and staircase, we're about 80% there. Thanks to my childhood friend Hadley Williams, there are new treads on all the steps and new drywall in the stairwell. Hadley has been extremely generous with his time and skills.  Maya is thrilled to have these things updated. I'm super happy for her even though she shot down nearly every creative idea I had for her space. I've run out of funds so I'm piecing this part together with the help of friends. Huge thanks to Danny Naber and Trevor Marburry for all the free friendly help! There's not much left to do, just some carpet, blinds, and furnishings. 
I'm hosting my annual Bluegrass and BBQ fundraiser on 5/14, this will double as a housewarming party. It will be a great chance for you to come celebrate and to see for yourself how I put your donation to use. Please join us if you can, it's guaranteed to be a great time! The party starts at 3pm, music and dinner around 5. This is a family friendly event and everyone is welcome. I'll be using any money we raise to help with these final costs. I'll go back to raising money for the MS Society next year :) 
I'm looking forward to deciding what to do with all my extra energy now that I'm not fighting for my life everyday. I love you all beyond measure, you've changed my life forever!
Here are the before and after pics. It's been one heck of a transformation!

 

 

 

 

 

UPDATE 3/30/16******************

im back upstairs! Right now the project is 90% finished. I'm waiting until they finish hanging the door to post photos. I've had a lot of help and things are beginning to feel like home :)

 

UPDATE 1/22/16***************************

Ladies and gentlemen! The rebuild is happening at full force. Every wall is framed and the kitchen counter is being built. The guys need to be in the basement today so I'm currently exiled from Frenchtown. I'm glad that I have a familiar place to stay during construction otherwise this time would be even more challenging. I'm comfy enough in the basement but it takes a lot of energy to live in a puzzle. They'll get my temporary home put back together for me by then end of the day.
Every time I go upstairs a new structure is framed or we take another measurement for the custom kitchen. I'm surprised by how many times I've won the linear foot lottery. For years my life upstairs has been a battle to find an extra 3" everywhere I turned but now I'm moving in places where I've gained an extra foot. The safety and ease of the design is already obvious to me, which is crazy because the house is a construction zone mess. 
Chris and Dan have exceeded my expectations as contractors. The work is going along at a consistent pace and I feel like they're paying a lot of attention to the details. I wholeheartedly recommend Elina Construction to all of you. I hope that I can be a help to his company through line of referrals.
I just payed the "halfway to complete" payment with the last of the money from our fundraiser.  Everything is on point with cost for the job but I am still needing to raise $4,500 for the final payment. Maya and I have been overjoyed by the support we've seen so far, we are closer to "normal" then we've ever been. 220 people have moved mountains in our life and I'm hoping that in the next couple weeks a few more will join the team. Can you guys can find a couple minutes to share our updated story? I feel great sharing the progress we've made,  you'll totally feel great too when you let everyone know that you're helping to build my house! It's all about how you've helped so far and finding a few more fine folks to get involved. The pictures and updates over the next 2 weeks will be even better as we all get to watch this dream become a reality. I'm starting to imagine an epic party for when the dust settles, but more on that later...

 

 

 

Please follow this link to watch our video http://youtu.be/XDJ2CVX0hwA 

 

 

My Frenchtown home, a timeline: 1999 I rented my basement apartment, 2000 I bought the whole house, 2002 Maya was born here, and in 2003 I was diagnosed with MS, this starts us on the path to now. No one could predict the changes my family, this house, and I would go through in the last 12 years. There have been minor adjustments and major overhauls.  Being a single mom with MS makes it hard sometimes to come by the energy and money I need to keep our household running. Thankfully Maya and I have been supported by the hands and hard work of our crazy community. Together we've built ramps, moved furniture, cooked meals, planted raised bed gardens, become wheelchair and elevator mechanics, shared stories, mucked through hard times, thrown epic MS Society fundraisers, and forged friendships that will last forever. Maya and I love this house and the people who come through its doors, they piece together the foundation of my independence. But right now I'm relying on our community to help do things I'd be capable of in an accessible environment.
This year has been scary for me and Maya because of recent changes in my abilities. The things I used to accomplish with hard work have become dangerous and impossible. Overnight our house went from being a place filled with living to a place filled with struggling. Severe pain and weakness in my arm, aka my other legs, meant all I could do for a few months was take pain medicine and try to imagine how to make things better. I don't have wheelchair access to use my bathroom, so my neighbor and I put a plastic commode in my kitchen. Functional? Yes. Appetizing? No. Come on by sometime, I'll move the toilet and make us some tea. Some struggles will get easier as I recover and go through physical therapy, but the unpredictable challenges of MS will keep on existing. I'm a pretty resilient gal but this situation shook up the delicate balance of access in my home. I'm ready to stop using all my energy fighting my house and get back to the business of living an awesome life with my daughter. I have a plan that mixes up the space I have and turns it into everything I need.  Maya and I need your help to make this plan a reality.

We've designed a prototype bathroom in my empty basement apartment. Here's the result, barrier free access to safely enjoy the wonders of modern plumbing, expertly created in a tiny space.  In order to use this bathroom I wheel down the street next to my house and enter the basement. It's been good for working out any design kinks, but can't be my only accessible bathroom. Fixing this problem is the most important piece of the puzzle. 




Gutting and redesigning this, with a few tweaks to the basement prototype, will be the first job made possible by your support. We'll create a mainfloor bathroom I can easily use regardless of weather or time of day :)


 



 




 Next we'll demo my current kitchen/bathroom (cat not included), and turn it into a real bedroom with barrier free access to the renovated bathroom. 



 








 






Then we'll to turn my bed/laundry room(Cat included) into a kitchen with lowered counter tops, and a built in raised oven--because bending down to get stuff out of the oven in my wheelchair is crazy dangerous. This idea will turn the larger front room into a family room/kitchen. 

 


 


 






Here's the  basic idea for the kitchen.


 




 





 


 


 
While the construction is going on I hope to make some updates to Maya's room and to the stairs leading to her room. She has been a real trooper during these last few months and I'd love to surprise her with a room makeover.


 






I believe this unconventional plan will make my house accessible no matter what MS has to throw at me. My income is limited so getting a loan isn't an option.  I'm putting the fundraising I do annually for the MS Society into the bucket for this project and I'm asking for a little help from a lot of folks. Please give what you can, because every dollar helps and please enthusiastically share this campaign with everyone you know, because many hands make light work. I believe with all my heart that together we can make this home safe and sound. 

 











 
 






















 






















 






















 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

























 
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