Recent Discoveries

This whole "home owner" thing has brought me to a whole new world of learning and fun, if you can call it fun...haha. Sure I think we all know a little about maintaining a home, either from watching our parents or grandparents or just being a TV addict and watching too much HGTV! We knew going into this deal it would be hard, and all of our free time would be consumed by the project.

Well here's what we've done so far:
1) Tore out the rotted shed
2) Painted the living room and most of the trim
3) Tore out everything in the basement (except the furnace) that was water damaged
4) Ripped up flooring in the "internet lounge" and mudroom
5) Tore out 4ft of drywall in the "internet lounge", downstairs bathroom and mudroom
6) Cleaned downstairs windows
7) Mowed yard (see below for why this was a "job")
8) Installed hot water heater
9) Repaired plumbing only to find more issues each time something was fixed
10) Converted to energy star light fixtures/CFB (compact florescent bulbs)
11) Installed new mailbox

The list of things yet to be done is awfully long, so I won't bore you.....but here is what I have learned:

• Push mowing a 1/2 acre lot, seems easy right?!?! NO, its a horrible amount of work....especially when said mower is not self-propelled
• When tearing down a shed, make sure to check for skunks living below, thankfully no one was sprayed by the skunk
• Make sure you load the paint roller properly to avoid doing 3 coats of paint when two could have done it
• Fixing one pipe usually means others will start leaking
• Toilets are not as complicated as they seem

I'm sure that I could go on, but I'm sure that it would only bore everyone who even reads this....I'll keep you all updated as things move forward. Now we just have to wait on the $8,000 tax credit to arrive and we can get some major things done....like have a working toilet and a non-molding counter top!