Remodel

We've been remodeling our house. Until recently, we've never really had the time or money to do anything major, but in the past couple of months, we've embarked on a fairly large project, i.e. new wood floors in the living area and hallway, new carpet in the master bedroom, and new paint throughout the house.

Still on the list is new trim and baseboards throughout (I'm making most of that), refacing the kitchen cabinets-including replacing the existing cabinet doors, replacement doors throughout the house (the builder's used a cheap hollow-core door; we're upgrading to a craftsman style 5-panel door), new appliances in the kitchen, and replace the tile in the entry and one of the bathrooms. I'm still deciding on what I may or may not do to the master bathroom. Now, don't get the wrong idea--we're not loaded and we're not spending near the money on these projects we could, mainly because I'm doing a lot of the work myself. And, we're pretty simple people; none of the changes/additions we're making are extravagant.

We live in an older neighborhood, the houses are all close to 20 years old or older. When we moved into our house, the neighborhood looked pretty good. Now, there are several rent houses on the block and people haven't kept their homes up like they could, so it looks a little worn in places. We stay because we like the layout of our house and it's CHEAP. You'd die if I told you how low my mortgage payment is. I'm pretty sure that we've over-built for the neighborhood, but we're not doing any of this to sell the house in hopes of getting more money for it. We just want to fix it up the way we like.

So, this past week we've been confined to the house because of that huge snowstorm that has hit the Midwest United States. Our town received 21 INCHES of snow in 24 hours! We sat in the house for several days...thankful we had heat, plenty of groceries, and a dry roof over our heads. During that time, we watched a bit of television, especially DIY, HGTV and A&E--all of those channels that show the "How-To" shows, and people flipping houses, etc. What really gets me about those shows is the amount of money people spend on some of their remodels. "We've got a budget of $75,000 to renovate the kitchen." Geezo-PETE! That's more than I paid for my entire house!

When the TV remodelers are asked about their projects, they say things like: "We entertain a lot, so we really needed a large area for friends...because we entertain a lot!" What does that mean, we entertain? Do they juggle? Have a trapeze act? Do a little standup comedy? It must be something like that because they just added 5000 square feet to their 4500 square foot house! And just how many people do they entertain that they need so much space? Since moving into our house 19 years ago, I can safely say that there's NEVER been a time we needed that kind of space. In fact, I can't remember there ever being a time we've had more than 10 other people in our house at a time!

Maybe we're just not very entertaining people...but we do have a nice, new floor.