It’s been 18 months already?
lisa March 1st, 2007
Amazing that 18 months have passed since my last update. I’ve got quite a lot of news!
- Winter heating and the woodstove. I mentioned in the last entry that we were regretting having switched to natural gas. Well, we switched back to oil last year, with the help of our pal from the oil company (our neighbor to the rear). Then a couple of months ago the boiler broke, and we replaced that, too. Mark would like to replace the entire heating system with a geothermal radiant floor system, but that’s a project for after we win the lottery, I think. We upgraded our woodstove last year, too, and it seems to be doing its job well. This winter was very mild until January, but I think the stove has saved us some money on heating bills. Mark worked out a deal to get free uncut lumber from a landscaping guy he knows, and he and a friend spent much of the fall chopping up and splitting logs. We probably had 4 cords of wood starting out this winter, and we’ve gone through at least a cord. I get tired of constantly tending the stove, but it’s really nice to have it when the weather gets nasty.
- The upstairs hallway. We finally got all the trim back up in December! Woo-hoo!
- The outdoor projects… last summer I was away for the entire month of July and part of August, so I didn’t plant anything or enjoy the garden much. This year, I’m going nuts with new vegetables: spinach, sugar snap peas, edamame soybeans, cilantro, and peppers — and, of course, tomatoes. I got a bunch (60+) of old canning jars for free from a neighbor last weekend, and have plans to make and can lots of tomatoes and salsa this year. We also picked up a used chest freezer earlier this year, so I have lots of room to store my garden goodies.
- The workshop. The driveway to the workshop is finished, and the workshop itself is mostly finished. You can see pictures of the building process here.
- The front porch. We still have to finish the steps! But the rest of the porch is pretty much done.
We sat down a few weekends ago and actually made a list of just about every single remaining project. We have 16 remaining high-level priority projects. Here they are in order from highest to lowest priority:
- Kitchen cabinets - all the drawers and doors and shelves, plus an additional wall cabinet, floor cabinet, and spice rack/corner cabinet.
- Mudroom - the room needs to be painted and the sliding glass door needs to be installed.
- Fence yard - we have the chain-link fence materials — we just need to install it. We have to do this before we can get a dog/dogs, and Mark wants to get it done this spring.
- Back deck - build it!
- Second floor cosmetics - two bedrooms left to fix up (strip the wallpaper, repair the plaster, then paint).
- Workshop exterior - siding
- Workshop interior - insulation, electrical work, etc.
- Porch carpentry - those darned stairs.
- Refinishing rest of floors - need some spare cash for this!
- Exterior paint - would love to do this now, but we need to save our pennies.
- Tree work - both planting new (fruit trees) and taking down old (catalpa and weed maples).
- Heating system - completely redo (see above).
- Basement refinish - demolish floors, excavate and install new concrete floor, repoint foundation, maybe put up some drywall, replace windows, etc.
- Roof - we need a new one… and maybe we’ll install solar panels!
- Replacement windows - would be great to replace all our double-hung, inefficient, warped old windows. Probably not going to happen for a while, if ever.
- Master suite - my dream is to demolish the wall between our two remaining bedrooms, build a connecting walk-through closet, and install a full master bath. Probably not going to happen unless we win the lottery.
So I guess that’s enough for now.
- Narrative , Renovations
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