Home Improvement

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I've been busy.....cutting holes in my house.

Daleen and I bought a home that was what we would call a fixer-upper. But one that we could live in while we did it. What we didn't realize at the time was that our ideas of what we wanted our home to be like would require a substantial amount of work, and money. Take our kitchen for example. I live with a woman who can cook. Yet we have a kitchen from the early 80's that has original appliances (except for the refrigerator which we had to buy). It pains me to see her trying to work her magic in this space with these tools.

In addition to the kitchen, there are the floors. You can't sneak up on anybody in this house. Our sneaky 5 pound cat can't even walk around without making a racket. I went under the house and checked out the subfloor and it is thinner than the floor in my toolshed. So now someday I have to fix the flooring. And then there is the siding that has vinyl replacement written all over it... again, someday.

We have done a lot so far though to our home. In the past four years we have:
- Rewired the upstairs and installed ceiling fans in all the bedrooms
- Installed gutters
- Ran electricity to the shed
- Completely renovated two bathrooms
- Renovated two bedrooms and the dining room (except for the floors)
- Painted the living room
- Painted all the windows (those are also slated for vinyl replacement)
- Installed a dry well and drainage system for our lawn and downspouts
- Installed a french drain in the backyard
- Added two dump truck loads of dirt and regraded the yard
- Installed a lawn sprinkler system
- Installed several brick-enclosed flower beds and tree rings
- Renovated our front and side porches (new railings, paint, lighting, etc)

So we've been busy. Now we have started with our new fall project, the mud room.

I started in earnest last Wednesday with the first part of the project, which is the wiring upgrade. I am one of those people who, when doing a project, will go into total overkill mode. We are installing new cabinets and a deep sink on one side of the room and I noticed that one of the outlets was going to be covered up. I was concerned about losing the outlet, so I decided to put a new outlet in over where the new countertop would be. Simple, right? Well, then I remembered that I was thinking about how nice it would look to have some small recessed lights over the deep sink, with a dimmer. You know, mood lighting.... So after cutting several holes in my drywall and doing some work with my drill, the new outlet is in and man, do those new lights look great!

Then I turned my attention to the other side of the room. Daleen's pantry had a cheesy, cheap light fixture which is really just a lightbulb with a pull string. I have always hated this and decided she deserved a proper light fixture with a switch to operate it. Then of course I expanded on this and realized that the new cabinets that are going over the washer and dryer needed one of those cool xenon light fixtures under it. Those fixtures run off a plug which means I needed another outlet with a switch to operate that. All this work involved cutting even more holes in the drywall and doing some more drilling.

Daleen was out of town Friday night and Saturday at a women's retreat for our church. So I was at home alone with Colin during a lot of this work. I will say that he is quite the helper (for a 2 1/2 year-old). After he got over being scared of the drill noise, he was more than happy to fetch me some screws, throw away small bits of drywall, and he even helped pull some wire I was trying to fish through the wall. He really likes to help with projects and I know it will not always be this way. Someday it won't be cool anymore for him to hang out with his daddy and help, so I'm taking advantage if this while I can.

Needless to say, I think Daleen was a bit surprised by all the holes in the mudroom walls when she got home. I don't think she was as impressed as me with the new mood lighting. She is not always riding the same wave as me when it comes to projects and usually there are a few details of the project that don't come out as she had "envisioned". This often leads to some arguing and hurt feelings (usually mine). However, this time she said it looked nice and wasn't going to say anything else. I found out one of the focus points of the retreat she went on was to cut back on being negative and I'm pretty sure this worked in my favor!

The next phase is going to be fixing the drywall to prepare to paint. My little helper buddy has already shown an interest in the mesh drywall tape, although I'm going to have to schedule a day where he will be gone to do the sanding so he won't be around all that dust. Daleen has a job too. She has to pick out the paint colors and verify the cabinets, countertop, and deep sink are what she wants. Daleen and Colin are going to visit her parents soon, so I am hoping we can get to painting before they leave. Daleen is great with doing the room painting.

I'll keep you posted on our progress with the mudroom. I have to say that I really like turning off my phone, putting on the radio, and just working on my house. It's very therapeutic. This time I am going to get my family more involved as well. It's another thing we can do together, have some fun with, and get one step closer to the house we want. Plus we can enjoy the new mood lighting as we work.......