This Old House

fyi this is an incredibly boring blog post so I gave you a cute picture of Jack to look at

You know, we originally bought this house because it was (as Christi described it) a cosmetic fixer to begin with - i.e. we just needed to do a lot of surfacy stuff before we could be established and flourishing in the new house. We knew we couldn't handle a real fixer upper which would imply changing or adding to the floorplan and such. No, with our house it was just plain butt ugly inside. And it's true - the worst of what we could SEE was gone and done within the three week clense and purge before we moved in (which included painting like insane people, getting rid of the carpets and refinishing the floors and most of all just getting all the CRAP left behind OUT - and I should point out that we couldn't have done this without our village of family and friends helping out).

Impressive though that was we knew we needed (or had an inkling) to replace the electrical system, the plumbing (eventually), the heat/air, the asbestos under the kitchen tiles, the possible mold in the garage, updating the bathrooms, replacing the windows, redoing the backyard, the sunroom, the stairs...probably the roof... AND we knew that that there was still a LOT of cosmetic work to do.

Every couple of years we save up enough to do a big project. On the off years we save up energy to do some of the cosmetic work.

Sometimes I look at this house and I'm so proud of how cool looking it is. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed with the cosmetics much less the other stuff.

Certainly one issue with a fixer of any kind is that as soon as something is checked off the list, there is no time to revel in it before the next thing on the list pops up to the top of the priorities and then THAT is all we concentrate on.

We have gotten a LOT done recently. The biggest is the plumbing. That has been a specter over our shoulder for a LONG time. And it felt so validating that the plumbers agreed that we were moments away from a break. Like for once we got something taken care of before it caused extra damage.

Next is the roof. These are the two things that have most plagued my mind because these are the things that aren't just cosmetic. These are the things that mean peace of mind or not. Not that I'm saying camping in the living room anytime it rains hasn't been fun. I've enjoyed it. But I am so very happy to be on the verge of being out from under the need for a new roof. *ha, get it, get it?

Still to do? fix our ceiling after roof done. Hang pictures in most rooms. Windows? I might let the new owners (* and my timeline for this house having new owners is in the double digit years) worry about those. Update the bathrooms? Still not sure we're going to do that either (counting on the original stuff making someone say - oh good, they didn't mess up the original stuff). Some minimal painting? Shower curtain or door for downstairs shower. Cleaning and organizing. Some electrical touchup...

Not much really... not comparitively... this is exciting.

I just felt the need to recap.