Home Projects

You know that movie "Money Pit" from the 80s or 90s???  Well that has been our house.  I've gotten better as each problem occurs and I just have learned to roll with it.  Paul and I have learned A LOT about homes and what to look for next time we are ready to purchase one.

Here's a list of some repairs we've made in the last few months:

1)  New AC/Heating Unit
2) New Roof (this was a nightmare with our insurance company and we ended up footing most of the bill :( )
3) New mail box (our postal worker broke ours...)
4) New door handles on the whole main floor
5) A YARD!!!!   Here is a progression of pictures of where we started and how far we have come.  Since moving in about 2 1/2 years ago we have taken down over 40 trees throughout our yard to clear a space and free me from the burden of racking pine needles the rest of my life!

Where we began:

They removed their nasty hot tub but didn't remove all the fencing and deck around it so we also removed all that.

We removed about half of the trees on our own and cleared them, no simple task.  The ones that were too tall and close to our house were taken down by professionals.  We then hired a landscaper to come in and kill everything, add top soil and level the backyard.  Here is everything dying:

I know this sounds cheesy, but I seriously dreamed about how this would look one night and woke up so happy.  Imagine this area all covered in trees and weeds.  Look how beautiful it is now :)  We added a sprinkler system at this stage.

Then they seeded and put hay over the top to help the seeds grow

And about a week later we are seeing grass already sprouting through the hay!  It will be so nice to have a yard by spring time for Hayden and baby brother to play :)

4) Plumbing problems:  We were feeling so proud of ourselves and everything we had accomplished with our house.  We need to replace our driveway in the near future because it is collapsing so we were thinking that this would be our next project until this:

Yeah, so our master bathroom started having issues with the shower and toilet.  So we stopped using it, a guy in our ward does plumbing on the side and hasn't had time to come look at it but he believes it is just a pressure issue.  So anyway, while waiting for him to come we started using Hayden's tub to shower in.  We've never used this shower much because I just use the big tub in our bathroom to bathe Hayden.  But shortly after making the switch we noticed our ceiling problem :(  It started to get worse so our friend Seth came over and cut a whole in the ceiling.  It was not a leaky pipe like with thought and has something to do with the tub drain seal or something like that.  Hopefully we can just replace that, but if not, we'll need a new tub :(  The other problem is we have those ugly popcorn ceilings which isn't easy to patch and match, so now we're thinking it's time to scrape it all off and paint the whole main floor...

Here's to more projects that will never end!