It has now been a year since the contractors were in the middle of renovating our house. At the end of it, we found ourselves in a bit of debt, having exhausted our cash resources, and there were still some finishing touches for us to complete. Our cash crunch was responsible for two things. First, I would have liked for everything to be finished, so we would not have any work to do ourselves. Obviously, that did not happen. Once the bleeding started, we tried to wrap things up quickly to minimize the debt load. The finishing touches are things that I am perfectly capable of completing myself, if I can find the time. The second effect of the cash crunch was a self-imposed limit on our spending. Having been in significant consumer debt in the past, we did not want to go down that road again. The finishing touches would have to wait until our debt was cleared and we could afford to pay cash for materials.
Time crunch replaces cash crunch
Climbing out of debt is much harder than accumulating debt. Little by little, we knocked down the low-rate credit card balances while keeping up with all the surprise expenses along the way. And it seems that this year was full of surprises. We are now a few weeks away from that magical zero balance, so I have no more excuses for procrastinating. And with our summer house guests (mom and dad-in-law) expected to arrive in July there aren’t a lot of weekends to work through our punch list.
The one room that the contractors did not touch was the living room, except for installing a new picture window. It is going to require a bit of work and money to bring up to the standard of the rest of the house:
- Remove wallpaper border.
- Repair any holes and cracks in the walls.
- Run new circuit to repace the one that was abandoned during the renovations.
- Paint.
- Refinish hardwood floor.
- Install new trim.
The final piece of the puzzle is the stairway from the first to second floor. I had removed the carpeting from the treads and risers a couple of years ago. The stringers had been finished with some one inch wide tongue and groove wood strips and some pretty ugly moldings which I stripped off several months ago. My plans call for beadboard paneling on the stringers and new carpet on the stairs. But before that, I have to paint the balusters, and there are a lot of them. That will be a very time consuming task to do it right.
Looking ahead
My dream of a garage/workshop remains elusive. But after seven years, I am tired of storing outdoor equipment and bikes in the basement. At some point this summer, I intend to lay down a concrete slab and build a shed. Our existing steel shed saw its better days about thirty years ago. It just sits on dirt with a mostly patio stone and dirt floor and it is just a matter of time before the rust completely eats through the metal. A strong wood framed and vinyl sided outbuilding will be welcome replacement.
All this and yard work, too
It’s always fun juggling home improvement projects with general home maintenance projects. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many days in the week. And as far as I know, it is impossible to be in two places at the same time, so the two or three hours I spend cutting the grass is two or three hours that I can’t spend painting…