I need a shirt that reads, “My house is holier than yours.”
Now that the lake house is finally ours, I plan to introduce it more intimately to those interested; including all that we need to do, big and small.
Since this is not an extreme makeover television show, these renovations will occur over the next few years, not the next hour. The upside to the budgetary necessity of an extended timeline is just that–time. Time to plan, change our minds, plan again, and finally, implement. Oh, and time for Jeff and I to peacefully prioritize “needs” as we do not necessarily agree on some of the order of events. We TOTALLY need electricity on the back porch BEFORE gutters, right?
What we DO know is there are high dollar and low dollar projects, and the first high dollar project is to have this pier and beam house leveled. Apparently, it was leveled ten years ago. The simple fact that we walk down into the kitchen, bathroom and mine and Jeff’s “bedroom” is all the evidence we need that it is time to do this again. Ya think?
Based on quotes from one neighbor working on the same thing, this sounds like it’ll run around $2000 if there are no surprises. And we all know we are likely to run into a few surprises. Anyway…more on that as we have the cash to do it.
Next up on the big ticket items will be the windows spanning the front and side of the house–all thirteen of them. Hopefully, we’ll have that completed before next winter. Don’t hold your breath. Or, y’know, do. It might be interesting.
For now, we are sticking with relatively small ticket items, like felling a pine that is about twenty feet from our front door and leaning toward the house. We are catching a break on the cost since we have piggy-backed on our neighbors’ who are having three trees felled, so it will only cost us $500. It is no puny pine either. I think it might be in a race with the Tower of Babel to puncture the heavens; seriously. It makes me so nervous to see men shimmying up these tall pines, but not nervous enough that I won’t be outside taking photos to document it all.
You’re welcome.
On my immediate list is dealing with the holey walls in the house; most specifically, the bathroom because I want to paint in there. What paint color? Glad you asked. I plan to use Sherwin-Williams’ Olympus White (SW 6253). In other words, it will be a very light gray.
Back to the holes. There are some holes we do not understand. For instance, we know the hole in the photo above was from a light fixture, but we do not understand why it did not get fixed previous to the addition of the custom cabinets.
Things that make you go hmm…
We also aren’t sure how exactly to fix it without taking down the cabinets, which will be a considerable affair. *sigh*
There are other holes too. There is one to the right of our bathroom’s one and only plug.
There is also one to the left of the bathroom’s light switch. Both of those will be easy enough fixes, we hope.
Then, there is the missing trim atop the doorframe. We aren’t sure if it was left off or taken off; regardless, we need to get it back up there.
Once we finish the bathroom, we’ll tackle the two holes in the wall behind the hutch. One is visible, and the other one hides out a bit lower. They may not be an issue based on what we decide to do when we divvy up the back area to provide more private spaces for everyone.
These holes may be here for a loooooong time.
And yes, that is An Echo in the Bone, Book 7 in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. I love historical fiction with a bit of romance, but fair warning, it can be a bit racy; definitely an adult read.
And finally, there are holes in the sheetrock in the closet. We know why they are there–before the previous owners did extensive roof work there was a terrible leak. There is not an attic, so these holes gave the necessary access to find the leak and “air” it out.
Because these holes are in a closet, they aren’t much of a concern, and the sheetrock work may wait until we have the front interior of the house painted.
So, there you have it. Project #1 of many.
Let the fun begin!