house projects

Moving into this house has me itching to actually own my own place. This house has so much potential, but some of the projects are just too big or too expensive to do to a rental. Like we have the most beautiful, but horribly beat up wood floors. If you walk on them in socks the socks catch on all the places the finish is scratched and peeled off. It would be a huge and dusty project to refinish them, but if I owned the place I totally would because the wood really is beautiful. The cabinets in the kitchen have good bones, but the doors are total junk. It wouldn't be that big of a deal to replace the doors and paint them a nicer color. Again, if we owned the place. The whole place could use new paint, new trim, new doors. It would make a huge difference on how old it feels.

There are some things we are able to do though without spending a lot that really improve daily life. We've replaced blinds and cleaned out corners and fixed doors so they don't stick when they close and little things like that. We are working on improving the yard. The driveway floods horribly whenever it rains and it takes days and days to dry off due to the trees. We're going to dig a french drain down the side of it. For the cost of some gravel we won't have perpetual puddles. It rains often here, so that's a big deal.

We're clearing out some of the tiny trees that are trying to take over the yard. A friend of ours has a chainsaw that we're going to put to good use on that project. Bill raked a good chunk of our yard the other day and it's good to see that there is green grass under all the leaves and pine needles.

So it's a step towards permanence. Bill and I celebrated six years of marriage a couple weeks ago. We've wanted a house for a good long while now, but it just isn't part of our financial plan yet. It's getting to where it's not too far away though and that's cool to see. I may be eating my words in two years, but we think Bill will be finished with his degree in that time. I can keep hoping! For now we do little things to make this place better and keep dreaming.