that brown house

eric and i are now officially homeowners!

i have keys!

i’m so excited! i’m so terrified!

now, the fun really begins…because my mom is going to be living with us (one of the primary reasons we started looking to buy a house right now) we can’t just move in and suffer the inconveniences of ongoing renovations. on the other hand, the “to do” list is just too long (and expensive) to do everything before we take residence.

before we move in:

• get a new electrical service with circuit breakers, replace the knob & tube wiring as required, add grounded outlets, a couple 220v. outlets, etc.
• have central forced-air heat installed. this would not make it onto the before-we-move-in list except that my mom is always cold and the house does not have working heat…otherwise, we’d probably tough it out without heat for awhile. it is almost spring, after all.
• remodel the bathroom. doing this right away is mostly for convenience, but there is some really funky stuff going on in there that needs to be addressed.
• remove the painted-over wallpaper in the kitchen and paint. i’m not very fond of the kitchen as it is…it is a reasonable size, has good light and i’m sure i will love it after we get around to remodeling it, but that’s going to be a few years down the road. in the meantime, paint is relatively cheap and i figure eric and i may as well accomplish a few smaller projects while the larger ones are underway.

summer projects (the big stuff):

• foundation work (partial) and having the house bolted to the foundation
• the big exterior overhaul: re-shingle all the cedar shakes, have the trim and windows painted, repair or rebuild the front stairs
• re-roof
• if we achieve the above without exceeding our budget (which is unlikely) then replace the back steps and build a deck…which also probably means building a small retaining wall in the back yard (we are on a small slope)
• remove all the cardboard from the garage (i’ll go into that later, but think overlapping sheets of cardboard in lieu of drywall) and turn the garage into a storage/work space
• start preparing for the small back yard to be a veggie garden next year, incl. figuring out how to set up a rainwater collection system for garden irrigation

okay, more later…wish us luck!