At this point in the year, my husband and I have agreed, we just need to finish all of the projects we already started back in January.
Each January, we sit down with the household budget and decide together through a long and tedious negotiation process (sigh!) what work we'll do on the house. Since my hubby thinks of a house as an investment and not a home (bigger sigh!) this is not a fun process. However, once I get something on the list and approved, I know I can pursue getting the work done.
Our list this year included only outside type of projects since my MIL is living here and her health is much too precarious to allow dust, debris and work to happen, so my dream kitchen and bathrooms are on hold until....well...until until.
This year our list included:
New garage door. Ours was the original wooden one from when the house was built in the 50's. It worked but we were the ONLY people in the entire neighborhood that still had a wood garage door, so I decided my neighbors would like me better if I cared just a tad about the appearance of my house.
New house paint. When we bought this bank repo two years ago it had a brand new paint job, lucky us, right! Wrongo! It was painted ORANGE, what shade you say, ORANGE, straight ORANGE! It was horrid but being such a nice paint job, it was at the bottom of our list of important household projects.
New windows. The old owners replaced most of the windows but not all. The windows that haven't been replaced are scary. The first night I was here during a wind storm I was convinced someone was breaking into the house because of the specific way the doors rattle. Plus, they're single pane and the rooms they are in need every insulating process they can get.
Of those 3 things we've completed, drumroll please.... 1. We had a new garage door installed and it looks great, and I love it. My husband has been doing the house painting himself, which is a huge savings over a contractor but he's been working on it for 5 months in his spare time. He just needs to finish under the eaves and we'll be done, so I think we'll have that done by the end of the year. Windows, he still hasn't found someone with a good enough price or with a good enough personality and with my husband, he has to like the person and their price before he'll allow them to work on our home. I'm hoping the windows get done before winter to help with heating costs.
However, mid-year I got the itch to replace our living room furniture, so I sold off a bunch of furniture and used the money from the sale to purchase a new sofa and revamp our decor, that was awesome! I'll finish the living room redo next year sometime, my ottoman was a good start and I made a floor rug, I'll show you all that in another post.
What do you have left to do on your list. Do you make a yearly list like we do?
Our list still has some things that need done. We moved into our in January 09 and I replaced about 1/2 the electrical outlets when we moved in, I still need to get those done this year (I put it on my list). Touch up some of the paint inside the house. Get the grass tore out for the new vegetable garden and install the fence for it. And possibly paint the front door (although we have talked about getting a new door.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah I forgot also put in a patio. We have already been talking about next years projects, new kitchen floor, get our awesome stove cleaned up and working (an old Wedgewood), and paint the house.
I'm planning to relocate my veg beds next year too, that's a huge job to rip out grass. Have you seen the lasagna gardening method? If you started it now, your beds would be ready in the spring, I'm thinking of trying it if I can get my hands on enough cardboard and newspaper.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is I have to get a fence in first before I do much more, because the dogs need to be excluded from that area. And then I can get things right. It's just a lot of work! :)
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