For starters my wine cellar is framed, wired with power and voice and data. But I still need to insulate the walls and ceiling, do the ceiling, dry-wall, hang a door and build wine racks.
It’s been in this state for 3 years.
Next Stainz and I got brand new kitchen cabinets installed in June! They look awesome, but they need a back-splash. So we bought all the materials to install the back-splash (tiles, grout, adhesive, sealer, trim, etc.) but haven’t gotten around to installing it yet!
Finally, my old roommate left me a maple coffee table, but the finish is about 80% gone (worn off, chipped, etc.). So I have been meaning to finish it for 6 years now. I’ve gone from, I’ll just put a coat of black Tremclad on it, to stripping it to bare wood and varathaning it, to tiling the table top with some sort of tile.
In the end I think Stainz and I will probably just buy a new coffee table!
And finally, Stainz and I redid our bathroom 1 year and a half ago. Our walls are a deep burgundy, and our ceiling is a white-grey. We didn’t paint the ceiling edges very well, so there is white-grey paint on the burgundy walls. I said “no worries, I’ll just put up some crown molding!”. 18 months later, I still haven’t installed the 28 linear feet of crown molding!
retiling the guest bath
finishing the glass block window in the guest bath (It opens to the hall, not outside)
repairing the cracked ceiling and floor (which is waiting until the foundation is fixed)
resealing the front door
retiling the front hall
When I moved into my house 15-1/2 years ago, I pulled vinyl wallpaper and plastic tile off the bathroom walls and painted them. My BIL (in his role as contractor – he’s a carpenter) installed new baseboards.
I have put up a wood stud and sheet rock wall to separate the Shop portion of my basement from the Den, Pool Table and Train Table area. We are getting re-assessed for taxes sometime soon so I have held off on the taping and painting.
My driveway is gravel and I want to pave it to allow for much easier snow removal and less large puddles. I have put this off for 2 years so far. They are several very bad spots.
I have redone half the windows in my house and I plan to do the other half hopefully next year.
The Hallway & Family room need to be repainted and I have put this off for all 4 years we have been here so far. I keep finding an excuse not to start.
I have actually completed about 20 major home improvements however, so I don’t feel badly. April will mark our 5th year in this house.
Putting pictures up on the walls. If I want to sell my house, I’ll have to put some up so it looks like a real person lives here. Took this week off of work too with the intent of getting that done, but my picture-hanging partner and I wasted yesterday doing other stuff, so my walls are still bare. (And I can’t do it alone because I don’t have whatever you call all that stuff that you need to have in order to hang things on the walls. Or that’s my excuse, anyway.)
I’d like to redo the kitchen counters, replace the carpeting, install a new fireplace, knock out a few walls, add a closet, install new lighting … the list is almost endless.
Where do I start?
We moved in just over eleven years ago.
The basement. The summer after we moved in, we tore out a four-room basement apartment and ripped down hideous mildewed knotty pine paneling. We also ripped up two layers of awful linoleum (not vinyl, linoleum) flooring. We made a laundry/storage room, moved the furnace, sump pump and water heater, remodeled the bathroom halfway, and put up drywall for the family room/playroom side. That’s it. The drywall is up and spackled, but not painted. There’s no flooring but bare concrete. The bathroom is drywalled on two walls, the shower unit is in but not hooked up, the vanity counter is installed, but the sink is lying on the floor of the bathroom. The toilet works, though!
Our bedroom. When we moved in (just over eleven years ago), there were heating units in the wall, those old things that had coils that glowed red-hot. They seemed rather unsafe, so we pulled them out and patched the holes. We also made another hole in the wall above the light switch to find the wiring so we could install a ceiling fan, and subsequently had to patch that hole. There are still two large and one small drywall patched-but-not-painted places in the bedroom wall.
The bathroom. We remodeled the bathroom about 8 years ago. There were five places my husband went too deep with the drywall nails, and meant to patch up. They’re still there - holes in the drywall. The baseboards and door trim are still unpainted.
The closet doors. When we moved in (just over eleven years ago), we replaced all the closet doors. They were these awful metal sliding doors, and most of them were dented and didn’t slide properly. We replaced them with wooden louvered bi-fold doors that were ready to be painted. You guessed it - they’re still unpainted.
Are we lazy, or do we take on too many projects? I dunno. Now we’ve ripped off the back sunporch in hopes of adding on to the dining room and kitchen. I’ll report back in a few years and let you know how that’s going.
Hmm. Casa d’ Cats has had four rooms get a quasi makeover. My office won’t happen because I’m not hauling out all of these books, lateral files, and other stuff until I move or die. Bathroom, kitchen, and living room are badly dated, but after spending all week fixing and updating other people’s homes, I’m not in the mood.
I put a closet in our family room last July to turn it into our new master bedroom; mr.stretch is supposed to install the trim (I hung the drywall, taped, mudded and painted), but he hasn’t yet.
I repainted the downstairs bath in August; mr.stretch is supposed to put up the new vinyl cove, but he hasn’t yet.
I painted the master bedroom and spare/cat room floors in July; mr.stretch was supposed to paint the hall floor that connects the two rooms, but he hasn’t yet.
I re-seeded a portion of the “dog yard” in the late summer; mr.stretch was supposed to fence it off so the dogs could use the rest of their yard, but he hasn’t yet.
mr.stretch really needs to start following through on his part of these projects.
We installed new french doors downstairs three years ago, they still aren’t painted.
We bought paint for the exterior 3 years ago, but we only got the back of the house painted and that’s because we paid our boy to do it. Maybe this spring we’ll finish that. The trim on the back of the house is dark green now, the trim on the rest of the house is still the hideous purple-brown that it was when we moved in eight years ago–our neighbors commented on the differnt trim colors when they moved in two years ago.
Not too bad, considering all the projects we’ve actually done.
We’ve got one of those unfinished attic spaces over the garage. You know, the kind with the pull down ladder that’s up on the garage ceiling. We’ve been meaning to put plywood down over the ceiling ribs for 6 years now, so we wouldn’t have to hop around and precariously balance like a gymnast every time we put something in the attic.
I can happily say that one major project in is in process. Replacing the ratty 17 year old carpet in the family room with Pergo has mushroomed into “might as paint the walls and not care if any spills on the carpet” and “Let’s get different curtains” and “sneak a new phone line around the room before the new floor goes in.”
Old curtain rods are removed and holes patched, walls are painted, phone lines are run. Tomorrow we yank out the carpet and start laying the floor.
I just know deep in my heart that the baseboard molding (which we haven’t bought yet) will remain unbought and undone probably for three or four months, and that’s if I’m paying attention.
Meanwhile… In the back yard, removing a slightly rotted and wood-boring bee infested pergola is mostly done. There’s still one post standing and the brackets that held it to the concrete patio still need to be excised. And then, it all needs to be hauled to the dump.
In the front yard, we still have tumbleweeds and ivy to eradicate and stumps to pull/grind before we can lay sod or plant seed.
Three brand-new toilets are lounging in the garage since September, waiting to be done as part of bathroom redecorating. In October, we bought paint and floor tile for one of them.
A little key rack thing is still waiting to be screwed to the wall by the mudroom door.
Oh, merde, what isn’t there? Bought a house last year for the first time, and have years’ worth of work to do (the house is in great shape but there is a lot I want to do).
Replace downstairs toilet.
Cut down railing on back deck (for some reason it’s over 5 ft high)
Replace all the windows with double-pane glass windows.
Replace all interior doors and handles
Do something wonderful with the back 3rd of the back yard
Do something serious to discourage or eliminate the gophers in the middle 3rd of the back yard
Replace plants in front planter
Replace disgusting foo-foo white plaster mantel arrangement with something in wood
Fix front door, which hangs a little crooked and so won’t engage the deadbolt (fortunately we also have a security gate).
Get rid of security gate (maybe not practical in this neighborhood, but I can dream)
Replace downstairs doors to garage with exterior grade, and weatherstrip them thoroughly
Make something like a workshop out of part of the sub-basement
That should keep me busy and broke. Last spring I put in a patio in the front 3rd of the back yard, almost by myself, and I was so proud of that that I vegged out the rest of the year. I guess I can’t ride that float any more.
Took off the doors to my closet two years ago - painted them and fitted them with new hardware. The closet remains open… which, really, is most convenient!
Install a new ceiling fan. It’s been sitting there for a while now. I tried taking the old one down, but it’s real heavy and it takes 3 arms, and I only have 2. Most of my friends are lazy and incompetant, so they are of no use. One of these days…
You would think that the home of a remodler would be a fantastic example of what could be accomplished by a skilled craftsman. And you would wrong in my case. Shucks, I haven’t even finished cleaning one of the rooms, just threw boxes of my crap in there to get them out of the way.
I am actually going to do some things this weekend tho. Promise!
Trying to finish a 2 story addition I started 3.5 years ago. Had to get the main breaker panel moved to do it. I hired that out. Though my Wife and I dug up the main incoming power line to do it. Had to because of the new footings.
Designed it, permitted it. Rented a mini track hoe for the excavation (they’re fun for about an hour, then it turns into work). Contracted out the footers and concrete.
My brother and I framed it, my Wife and I roofed it. I hung the windows and doors.
I plumbed it including the infloor heat, new hot water heater for the house, pressure tank for the well lots of new copper to move the old mechanical room. Washer/Dryer hookups.
The plumbing was a puzzle. My old incoming water line actually fed the house in two directions. The incoming water fed the house before it hit the pressure tank. Turn on the shower and get pressure from the pressure tank, when that got low, the well would kick in and feed the pressure tank AND the rest of the house. Depending on demand. It sucked.
As soon as the well kicked in, water temp would drop about 10 degrees in the shower, and there was no way to put a filter on it.
I had to pull the drywall down in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom but I got it fixed. It took about 60 feet of copper, but I fixed it. Herrrumphhh. Works great now.
I wanted to move the pressure tank and hot water heater anyway, so it’s a win/win all around.
It’s dried in now.
And just sitting there.
I am not going to drywall this thing myself. Vaulted ceiling upstairs, 9 foot ceilings downstairs. I’m going to hire that out. I’m not sure what it’s going to cost to do. And I’m not going to start to get bids until I can pay for it. I’m thinking 3 grand. The house fund is a bit low right now. And it’s winter. Drywall would have to come up the driveway in 4x4 pick ups. No way in the world a larger delivery truck is getting up here.
Well, the list of things we’ve started and not finished is a lot shorter than the list of things we want to do but have never started.
Right now, we have one room (my office) that’s not had the painting finished. We’ve got the white base coat down, and have two of the walls done with the colors - the design is floating circles in four colors that look like bubbles. One large wall has been sketched out, but that was in August. Also, we bought the perfect curtains for this room, but have yet to hang them.
What we’d like to do:
Paint the baby’s room (we have until the end of April or so)
Paint our room and re-paint the wood furniture to match the new color scheme. Also, hubby plans on building an upholstered headboard for the bed
Paint the kitchen (only 2 walls need done)
Install a backsplash in the kitchen
Replace all of the vinyl flooring with tile - entry, kitchen, and two baths
Decorate the 2nd bathroom with wainscoting or tile and paint it
Rip off the front porch posts and replace them with something that looks nice
Rip out the “landscaping” at the front of the house and re-do that
Replace the cracked concrete patio in the back
Eventually, the carpet will need to be replaced, but not for a while (see #1)
Add moldings around the windows
Replace the front porch light and add lights to either side of the garage
We would love to remove the sod in the backyard and have the whole thing professionally graded and have drainage added, but that’ll never happen (we get puddles in our backyard when it rains - the dog loves 'em!)
When we moved in five years ago, the landlady asked us to paint all the rooms except the kitchen and bathrooms, which she wanted us to wallpaper. I painted all the other rooms, and we got 2 1/2 walls of the kitchen papered. But we stopped when we realized that it would take more skill than we possess to cut out the paper and match the pattern to go underneath the cupboards, behind the stove and on the wall with the sink. Those two walls remain unpapered. The bathrooms have a decorative wooden thingie that holds a light fixture, but it’s on 2 x 8 boards that are nailed vertically into the front and back walls. (picture an elongated letter P, reversed and laid down on its front side.) I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to get wallpaper around those boards without it looking like a train wreck. So the bathrooms are unpapered, too.
The little bush out front by the corner of the house was little when we moved here, but now it’s taller than the house, and sprawling. I have no pruning skills, or tools, so it’s gonna stay that way until the owner wants to call a landscaping company. About four years ago, they had somebody come and rip down the rotted eavestroughs, and never had any new ones put up. So the stucco on parts of the back of the house is all discolored from rain and mildew. It needs to be ripped off and replaced by siding, but it’s not our house, so we aren’t even contemplating doing it ourselves. That’s why there is no CAT-5 cable inside the walls, it’s laid across the hallway floor from the modem, and stapled to the rug down the length of the hall.
Lest you think we have an uncaring, absentee landlord, she has bought us a new heat pump (heat/AC), water heater, locking garage door and most recently, a toilet. We are the world’s least troublesome tenants, and she’s never been here in all the time we’ve lived in her house. We’ll be here until she says they want to sell the house. It might be to us, if we can get a mortgage. But if we can get a mortgage, we will probably look at other houses in the same area for the same price. I like this place, but not enough to go into the hole fixing it up. If they aren’t going to do it, we might want to live someplace else instead that doesn’t require extensive renovation.
