House Update

I think it is time for an update on our house. We have not completed a lot since we stained our front porch, but what we have completed, we are really proud of. Why are we so proud? Because this is our first house we have owned and we are not "fix-it-uppers". Or at least not yet. We will be. We are learning new things and we are having fun along the way, as well as a few groans of course. Mostly fun though, especially after a project is finished!

A little background information about our house. The home we purchased was a foreclosure. It was built in 2000, so it is in good shape, but over the past 8 years it has had a few different owners, and each has left its own stamp on the house. Now we are trying to make the house our own. The work is moving slowly, but seriously, who has the time to fix up a house quickly?!

To begin, we finished staining the second of our three decks. We have now completed our front porch and the side deck that is off of the kitchen. We have left to tackle our backyard deck, which is a beast, but is in desparate need of stain. We are just waiting for a break in the rain so the deck can dry out enough to stain it.

Next we painted our front door. We painted it the same red as before, but now it looks brand new. It was pretty dirty and scuffed. We also replaced the hardware on each of the doors, with new, brushed nickle door locks and handles. They look great.

Next Mark fixed our downstairs toilet. The entire flushing system stopped working and so he replaced it with a new system. This was a big project for Mark and he was pretty excited when he was finished because the toilet flushed properly and there was no water leaking anywhere. I think he was a little nervous from having to take the entire toilet apart and put it back together again. But it is working perfectly, so he is smiling happy.

This past weekend we completed another project and our biggest project to date. We installed a garage door opener. I am not sure why no one before us installed one. It seemed like an obvious thing to do. It took half of our Saturday, but it was worth it. When we got to the testing part of the installation instructions, we ran it through all of the tests and it passed everyone. It works perfectly! Yay! It is so nice to be able to finally park our car in the garage!

We have also done a few small, minor projects. We replaced the air vents in our kitchen and downstairs bathroom. They were brown vents that had rusted. Yuck. Now they are new white ones that look much better with the white floors. We have also changed out all of the lights in our house, replacing them with energy efficient lights. We are trying to be green like the rest of the world. Why not, right?!

So, that's the update on our house. We have so many more plans of course, and have only just begun. Next, I am tackling the paint. The entire house needs new paint, including the ceilings. I just need to pick out my colors and get started. Easy, right?! I wish. This weekend I am starting by buying the ceiling paint. It makes me tired just thinking about painting the ceilings, but I can't wait for the finish!