To Dos

The first time Aaron and I went house hunting with our realtor was in July of 2008, so that puts the length of time spent between starting to look and getting into our house at almost a year. We moved in to the house about a month after we put in our first offer, and while that month seemed to drag and was about the most stressful time of my life, I look back now and can’t believe that it went so quickly.

But now, we’re in, and now that we’re in our imaginations have been churning, and our list of things we need to and would like to do to the house keeps growing. And growing. And growing. We’re starting with the need to list and then will eventually work our way down the want to list over the next few years. Even though our house is exceedingly livable as it is right now, and it already feels like home, we want to do so many little tweaks to make it more, I don’t know, I guess: ours.

This weekend we’re going garage door and dishwasher/perhaps other appliance shopping. Everything (and I mean everything) in the house is original, and since the house was built in 1989, that means that everything is 20 years old. That means all of the appliances are going to need replaced within the next few years, which is just fine with us. The garage door really does need replaced, and the opener broke and was taken out a few months before we put in an offer. So a new garage door is tied for number one. The other part of that two-way tie is a new dishwasher. There’s a dishwasher there, but the seal is broken and so it would leak if we ran it. I may be lazy, but after doing all dishes by hand for the past couple of weeks I am completely and totally ready to put in a new dishwasher. I’ll even install it myself if someone would give me instructions on how to do it. So yes, those two things are happening first. If we can get a deal on buying a kitchen appliance suite all at once, that means we’ll be getting a new stove and refrigerator within the next couple of weeks as well.

After that comes paint, a new countertop and sink in the kitchen, a master bathroom remodel, new lighting fixtures inside and out, maybe a new floor in the kitchen (because the dishwasher was (awesomely) tiled in and we may have to break some tiles to get it replaced), possibly a hardwood floor in the living room and the den (where there’s a weird octagon-shaped patch of carpet with no hardwood underneath (pictures are coming soon, I swear. We’re almost to the box that holds the needed cords)). Not to mention landscaping whenever I have time and a babysitter, as well as a solution to the mosquito-ridden back yard that’s so full of them right now we can’t use it. Also a new deck eventually, and we’ll probably put in a new closet organization system in the master closet sooner than later.

Man, just looking at that list makes me tired and excited all at the same time. We definitely have the before shots of the house and can’t wait to be able to show the afters. Owning a house is a lot more work than we expected, even without all of the remodeling nonsense we’re planning, but it’s also a ton of fun, and it feels really, really good that we finally have a home of our own.