House Obsessions

About two months ago, Sugar Pop got the idea to try to find a house outside of town - some place quiet with a view. Now I have been perfectly content with our house. Yes, we are along side a pretty busy street and we can't enjoy siting in the back yard because we hear cars driving by (and the neighbor's dogs barking across the alley). Another downside of the back yard is it is on the west side of the house. We do have more trees up now to give us some shade, but it can still be pretty warm and at times the sun is shining in your face. As far as the house itself, there is not much I would change. It would be nice to have a bathtub in the master for the 2 or 3 times a year I want to take a bath. It would be nice to have a 1/2 bath close to the kitchen. The garage is a little small. Other than those things I love the floor plan and we have done lots of updates. We are very conveniently located (the upside of being next to a busy street).

Even though I really don't want to move, I have now become obsessed with looking at the MLS for houses in our price and size range. It is really a big time waster. It is a bad habit I have quickly developed during the past two months and I need to break it or seriously limit the time I spend on it.

Home Updates I would like to do

Here are a few updates that I would like to make to our home:

• Replace built-in desk top in my office with a counter top that matching the kitchen.
• Change pull-chain lights in closets to lights with switches.
• Update the hall bath, preferably putting in a deep tub (although I don't know how we would get a new tub through the door.)
• Replace light fixture in the entryway.
• Scrape off the popcorn ceiling in the living room and texture to match the walls.
• Re-paint the garage.
• Re-paint the shed.
• Replace the remaining six foot fence with 8 foot fence.
• Put new doors on the closet in the hall that used to contain the furnace (this is now in the attic)and removed the old return air vent.
• Paint the back door.
• Re-paint my closet.
• Re-paint the baseboards in my office.

Utility Closet

Here are the before and after pictures of my utility closet. I love the new green (even if Sugar Pop thinks I'm crazy for painting it that color). I also got rid of a bunch of cleaners that I didn't like (they are in a basket for Sugar Pop to take the next time he buys a house). You can also see that I switched to using Mrs. Meyes Clean Day products. I love these. They do a good job and don't smell like chemicals!

Painting

I painted my first room all by myself. Sugar Pop usually does the painting and I sometimes help. This time I painted - by myself. I even opened the paint cans and poured the paint myself. Of course the "room" I painted wasn't really a room. It is the closet for the washer and dryer. Once they get put back along with the cleaning supplies, towels, and lightbulbs, most of the paint job will be covered up. That made it a good room for me to start with because I didn't have to worry about everything being perfect.

In a few days, when everything is pu back in place, I will post a before and after picture.

Home Updates

I love our house.

Sugar Pop and I like to go look at open houses on Sunday afternoons. We particularly like going to open houses in our subdivision and the ones surrounding us. It is interesting to see what people have (or haven't) done to houses that were built about the same time (1966) as ours. I am always more grateful for my house when we do this. Our house is in great shape and there is no updating that would have to be done before someone could move in (if we had to put it on the market for some reason).

• The colors in our house are basically all neutral except for the master bedroom (it is a dark taupe) and the kitchen (that is sage green).
• The carpet is a light tan (the color is called antler).
• When we got the new carpet in 2006, we also had the old marble tile in the entry way removed and replaced it with something "slate" looking.
• We have laminate floors in the office, kitchen, dining, and sunroom.
• We added a sunroom in 2002 and did in very nicely - foundation poured to the same height as the rest of the house, it is bricked in and the roof was existing over the back patio so there is no weird flat roof thing happening that is so common with add-ons.
• At the time we did the sunroom, we added french doors from it to the master bedroom changing the entrance to the bedroom and creating a new walk-in closet where the original entrance had been.
• In 2004, we completed gutted the master bath. It is still a small bathroom but is updated and feels bigger because we put in a glass shower instead of the walled in shower.
• This year we updated the kitchen.
• We got new windows and siding in 2004.
• New front door in 2004.
• The air conditioner and furnace were replaced in 2005. The blower used to be in the hall closet, but at that time we had it moved to the attic - greatly reducing how much you could hear it running in the living room.
• The hot water heater was replaced in 2005.
• We had a lot of point-up work done on the brick in 2004, when we re-did the masterbath.
• We replaced the window in the garage with glass block in 2004.
• New toilet in hall bath in 2006.

Things I would still like to do:

• Replace the wooden top of the built-in desk in my office with a laminate top that matches the kitchen.
• Re-do the guest bathroom - remove wall paper, texture walls, remove furdown above mirror, new light fixture.
• Paint the inside of the laundry closet. (Done!)
• Take the popcorn of the ceiling in the living room and texture it.
• Replace interior doors and/or door knobs.
• Change entryway light fixture.