Home Improvements

Adam and I recently refinanced the house in order to complete some much needed work on the house. When we bought the place 4 years ago (wow, has it been that long?!?) it was, let's just say, an absolute pit. We basically had to gut the place and start fresh. No small job, for sure. We made a lot of progress - new carpet and paint from top to bottom, rewired the breaker box (major fire hazards in there!), tore out a lot of (lousy) privacy fencing, took out a "sunken" above ground pool, killed A LOT of foliage growing on, in and near the house, completely rearranged the kitchen (not easy) and built a new wall, tore out a tile floor on the entire lower level, refurbished a bathroom... like I said, we gutted the place.

Once Adam started working full-time at the church, our level of progress began to wane. About a year later, we finally put ceramic tile down in the kitchen (grouted and RE-grouted - long story) and put up white beadboard on one wall, but that was about it for major jobs done around here.

Now, 3 years later, we're jumping back in with both feet (or all four, if you're counting both of us). Day One saw the replacement of the exterior light fixtures on the house - the last thunderstorm broke one of the globes, which inspired us to get rid of the old, ugly fixtures. Day Two led to the power washing of the exterior of the house in preparation for the application of shutters (which have to be ordered, but should go up maybe next week). We also bought and assembled a trampoline (complete with enclosure, to prevent serious injury - we expect superficial injuries of all sorts) for the kids - a good way to keep them busy while we work around the house!

Today is Day Three. I came home from work to find that Adam had torn out a random tree from the front yard and the fence from the entire East side of the back yard. HUGE improvement! It's SO exciting to see the difference each of these steps makes toward our goal. We've got a pretty lengthy list of things yet to go, but we're plugging away at it - and it will definitely be worth the work (most of it Adam's, but I help whenever I can!). Later this week we expect several loads of dirt to fill in the hole in the backyard left by the pool, and some extra to help level out the lawn a little. We need to shred the South border of the yard, pull out the remaining side of the fence and demolish an old shed. We've got trees, bushes, and other random greenery to tear out, and landscaping around the house to do. Inside the house, we've got holes to patch, leaks to fix, baseboards to put in (basically through the whole house), walls to patch and sand and paint, closet doors to hang... It's a little overwhelming to list it all out like that!

I'll add pictures as we go and keep you posted on our progress. In the meantime, if you have spare time and energy, you're welcome here! We can put that energy to good use! ;)