A house, like a car, is a project that is never finished. Multiplied by… a LOT!
I bought this house, which was built in 1984, as a long-term project to slowly renovate while working on cars and traveling. My time frame got shifted a bit, however, when I got married for the first time at age 57.
Pictures of the house on the real estate agent’s website were lovely; well, they were really nice, high quality, and most likely highly Photoshopped. But that’s OK, I’d planned on pretty much gutting the house, anyway, so the first order of business (inside) was to order up a 30 yard rolloff container and start gutting the house, including a greenhouse built as an extension to the house, a rickety deck, horribly stained and smelly carpet, linoleum, old built-in bathroom fixtures and a ton of junk that was left in the shop and in a lean-to beside it.
Then there’s the outside stuff – buy a riding lawnmower and then, when the weeds and grass were just too thick to cut, a gas-powered weed whacker with a steel blade for the heavy work. And then a chainsaw for a bunch of dead/dying trees. And of course my trusty machete, a talent I’d picked up hacking away the jungle in Peru and Panama. All this led to one of my favorite nocturnal activities – huge burn piles! Unfortunately, the Gleed Fire Department wasn’t as enthused about this activity as I was, so night-time bonfires got toned down a bit after a nice visit from several fire trucks.
In between cars and trips, the house now has three remodeled bathrooms, all new doors and windows, a couple of extra garage slots in the basement, sheetrocked/textured/painted main parking and gym area in the basement, split a big bedroom into an exercise room and an office, new paint all around, all new flooring, cut down the big living room wall to a half-wall, remodeled kitchen with all new appliances, small bathroom in the basement, woodworking shop/tool and paint storage in the basement, new lighting, swapped out all the outlets, security camera system and wifi throughout the property and shops, property survey/shared drive agreement/new driveway, fence and gate, new deck on the back side and front porch with railing all around, landscaping galore, actually have grass now instead of alfalfa/weeds/brush/renegade trees, back pond filled in and drain field installed for geothermal pump and dump heat pump, new septic drain field, automated irrigation system (old manual system was broken in so many places I just retrenched and laid new line and added stations), and… well, my wife is an inexhaustible supply of ideas!
