Monday, 10 September 2012
Today marks one year since we moved into our house. Six months ago, I posted a list of the improvements (or changes, if you prefer) we made to our home since purchasing it. Today I will follow suit by listing improvements made from that day (March 10th) to now…
OWEN’S ROOM
-Nothing, since his room is already just the way we like it.
ISLA’S ROOM
-Removed 2/3 of the built-in closets. Sold them on Craig’s List for a wheelbarrow full of money.
ADULTS’ ROOM
-Painted all the walls
-Painted closet walls, installed shelving and two clothing rods
-Removed cheap plastic blinds from all three windows and replaced them with nicer, wider, wood blinds.
-Replaced stupid on/off switch on wall with a variable speed switch. This switch operates the ceiling fan and the on/off switch only allowed the fan to be either off, or so fast that it could dice vegetables. And, no, there is no speed adjustment knob or chain on the fan itself. The new variable-speed dial allows us to have a gentle flow of air now.
UPSTAIRS BATHROOM
-Removed spare slats from miniblind.
UPPER STAIRWELL
-Nothing. Though my wife hung lots of photos.
LIVING ROOM
-Replaced bent, broke, diry miniblind on easternmost window with a better looking miniblind (one that I absconded from our bedrooom; see above)
KITCHEN
-Painted back door
LOWER STAIR WELL
-Removed dried, cracked linoleum and carpeted stairs.
See what I mean? Details about this project, including the rock-bottom price I paid for the parpet, can be found HERE.
BASEMENT COMMONS AREA
-Removed most of the shelving. I’m sorry, but there are just too many cabinets in this house. I took this shelving out and put it in my garage, where it houses some of the kids’ toys and our lawn and garden supplies.
-Removed rickety, cheap-looking, crooked towel rack from above the dryer. And tossed that sad sucker into the trash.
-Carpeted majority of area 
Ta da! Look at that nice carpet! No more walking on cement for us.
DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM
-Installed a new, mold-free shower head
-Removed bent, cheap-looking door knob and swapped out with a classy silver number.
-Sheetrocked and mudded area above the toilet.
This is a slow but steadily improving task. Here’s what the area above the toilet looked like six months ago (and I hasten to add that this is an improvement):
And here’s what it looks like now:
Much better, right?
-Removed, spray-painted, and reinstalled light fixture. yeah, now it’s silver instead of gold.
SPARE ROOM
-Removed sheetrock from ceiling.
-Removed pointless wood frame from floor in NE corner.
YARD
-Removed center planter from yard
-Removed sprinkling system from planters
-Removed numerous bushes and flowers from yar (and even sold some)
-Removed dozens of bricks from landscaping
-Removed mulch from mulchy areas
-Installed some sod
-Removed flag pole holder
-Reconstructed retaining wall in NW corner of the yard
See what I’m talking about? The bricks used to just go off to the left and taper off into the yard. Now I’ve wrapped them around to meet up with the house. This also required picking up lots of rocks scattered in the soil and tossing them into the new circular area around the tree. This has left us, as you can see, with a dirt patch. We’ll put something there. Just give us some time.
GARAGE
-Removed old garage door opener (and sold it!) and installed new opener. (If you read the post from six months ago, you’ll see I mentioned swapping out an opener there, too. That’s ’cause I have two garage doors; one for each stall. )
-Installed shelving that I stole from the basement.
See the cabinet? Yeah, it doesn’t close correctly, ’cause I didn’t cut the wood right (the wood that it sits on). I’ll fix it soon. Oh – and, yes, that is a charicature of my parents hanging above my workbench.
Okay, that’s pretty much it. As you can see by comparing this with the post from six months ago, this baby’s a lot shorter. I think this is because now that we live here, and have it the way went it (for the most part), there isn’t as much incentive to go full-throttle at fixing things. Also, warmer months gave us more opportunities to work outside (notice the increase in yard improvements). And we’ve been busy with other stuff. And money.
Stay tuned.