Thursday, May 17, 2007

Thursday Thirteen: Home Improvement Plans


Thirteen things we're planning to do to our house


1. Finish the garage: hubby has been working hard on building a 2-car (un-attached) garage with workshop. It is almost complete, just some finishing touches left.

2. Replace the roof: this weekend hubby, his dad, his brother and my dad are going to replace our roof with a metal roof.

3. Turn finished part of our basement into a playroom: part of our basement is finished, and we will soon be turning that into a playroom for the boys. Right now it is full of random stuff that we need to go through and clear out. It will be so nice to have 1 room for all the toys, games, etc instead of them being strung all over the living room and boys' bedroom.

4. Get all of the tools and stuff out of basement and into new garage: Now that the garage is almost complete, we will be able to start moving all of hubby's tools, hunting/fishing stuff, etc out into the garage, which will free up a bunch of room in the basement.

5. Build a new laundry room: once all the stuff is out of basement we are building a new laundry room down there- a finished room with a ceiling and walls, even! lol

6. Build a new bedroom for the boys: the other plan for finishing the rest of the basement is to build a new bedroom for the boys. My 6-yr-old has changed his mind 3 times already as to what kind of room he wants...Power Rangers, dinosaurs, and now Transformers. We'll see what he wants once it is time, I'm sure he will change his mind again.

7. Put in new steps or make the ones we have safer: we need to do something different with the steps leading to the basement, since the boys will be going up and down them a lot once their room and playroom are down there. Right now, due to the lack of space, the staircase is this funky spiral staircase with small steps. We either need to rebuild the staircase to be normal steps, or add backs to the existing ones.

8. Buy padding for bottom of the steps: also in regards to the staircase, we will be buying some foam padding for the landing area, just in case, God forbid, the boys ever do fall down the steps.

9. Remodel current laundry area to be entry-way: once we have the new laundry room finished, we will change the area that we are currently using for laundry into an entryway/mud-room like it should be! I have plans for a bench, cubbies, baskets, hooks, etc to make it very functional for all the coats, shoes, backpacks, umbrellas, etc. Can't wait for this!

10. Change boys' current room into workout/scrapping room/office: originally we were building a bedroom in the basement for my 6-yr-old, and we were planning on his current bedroom becoming my 2-yr-old's room. However, now they have been sharing a room for long enough that they want to keep sharing a room, so, they will both be together in the new bedroom, and that frees up the current bedroom for other uses! (until they decide they don't want to share, and then we'll move one of them). So, I hope to turn the current room into a room for working out, scrapping, and move our computer in there too.

11. Change flooring in master bathroom: for whatever reason, the master bathroom is carpeted! A carpeted bathroom is just not ideal. Hubby would like to eventually pull up the carpeting and tile instead. Oh, and he also wants to build a "shitter room" around the toilet too.

12. Change closets around and make into a walk-in closet: we have the most pitiful bedroom closets I've ever seen. They are 2 tiny closets in the bathroom, each is about the size of a small coat closet, and that's all we have for our clothes. Granted, I don't have many clothes, but still- they are ridiculously small. So, we're thinking of knocking out the back of the closets, expanding them into the bedroom to be a walk-in, and having the access to it be from the bedroom side instead of the bathroom side.

13. Long-term plan of big addition: all of the above things are to hold us over until we can eventually do a big-ol' addition on the house. We have it planned out, but we just can't afford it yet. But eventually, the plan is to add on a new living room, main level laundry room, attached garage, and 3 new bedrooms. Then turning the current living room into a dining room.
It will be many years before we can do the big addition though!


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13 comments:

Lazy Daisy said...

Wow, those are some really wonderful plans. Will you do the work yourself or hire a contractor?

Courtney said...

We do the work ourselves for most things. For the big addition we will hire parts of it out, and do some ourselves.

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

my word! that's alot of improvements!! good luck!

smiles, bee

Lyn said...

Stay focused.
Lyn from Bloggin' Outloud

Sherry said...

My home improvement list would have to be reserved for a 'Tuesday Too Long' list...Thanks!
http://toddlerlearningactivities.blogspot.com/

samulli said...

Well, now, that certainly sounds like a lot of work. And it's a neat plan to move the kids to the basement. LOL (just kidding)
Home improvement is all nice and fun (well, for me at least it actually is), but there inevitably comes a point when you just can't stand the thought of yet another thing to built/change/refit/move. Hope you're getting it all done before you reach that point.

Gattina said...

Oh geez, am I happy to have all this behind me,lol!

MaR said...

I guess we are never done with our homes...you have wonderful plans!!!
I need my husband to change a lamp in the bathroom and do some small things around the house...
good luck!
and happy tt!

Carmen said...

You've got a lot of work planned. Want to come to my house and do some more work? ;)

Bubba said...

Wow...what a list...I'm tired just looking at it!

Thanks for stopping by..and happy TT!

Kat said...

Wow that's alot of work! But it will be so great when it is all finished.

Jen said...

Wow, that's all so ambitious! How fun, I wish we did big stuff like that around here :-)

Thanks for stopping by today!

Amy Ruttan said...

I have lots of work to do on my place. We just did the roof. It looks awesome.

Happy TT and thanks for dropping by mine.