In the past when I’m bored, I tend to find an online survey someone has posted on MySpace, insert answers containing my information, repost on MySpace and fall to sleep. To be honest, it’s sort of fun, but all kinds of lame. No offense to the people I repost from, because obviously I enjoy doing it – but you have to admit, it's lame. Especially when I could be doing other, more practical things with my time – like writing, in my blog… ugh, I’m pretty sure this is still lame. Oh well, I’m bored, and procrastinating. I really should be doing my time entry for work. It’s like I’m in college again or something. But I’m rambling and completely missing the point of this blog entry.
I haven’t blogged in awhile, and a lot of things have been going on in my world, specifically regarding my home. In an effort to actually care about my homestead and increase its rapidly decreasing value due to the recession and flux of homes on the market, Justin and I have invested in several home improvements that will hopefully pay off when we sell the house in five to 10 years. (Or never, I really love this house).
Among the improvements:
Fixed the sprinkler system – It had been on the fritz for awhile, and it turns out the builder did a crappy job installing it – lesson learned, don’t ever have your builder install your sprinkler systems.
Hired a lawn service – The yard actually looks kept, and we got it because Justin wasn’t “cutting it” last summer… oh that was puntastic.
Donated my old furniture to The Salvation Army and bought new furniture at Ikea – I had this furniture suite since I was five, I’m 26 now… I’m not going to lie, I felt like I was giving away my teddy bear or something. It was hard.
Painted a bedroom and a bathroom by ourselves – It took almost four months. We are never doing that again. We both suck at painting and came a little too close to killing each other on a few occasions.
Got built-ins for the study and the living room – Dude, if you’ve been to my house before, it looks different. Amazing what wood and a ridiculous amount of money will get you.
You might be asking, why now? Or not. But I’m going to tell you anyways because like I said, it’s Sunday evening and I’m bored. When we bought the house, Justin and I had a vision – a vision that required money. After purchasing the house, we realized we had no money. Because we didn’t want to go into debt or be silly and frivolous just because we wanted stuff we didn’t really “need”, we devised a “Phased Home Improvement Plan” to slowly make our home perfect. Here are the phases and the current status of each:
Phase One – Furnish home with necessities, such as living, dining and master suite furniture, guest bed and blinds. Status: COMPLETE. For the sake of our neighbors, I’m very glad we got blinds right away. I wish our next door neighbor had the same courtesy when he moved in. YIKES!
Phase Two – Purchase outdoor furniture for our back patio. Status: COMPLETE.
Phase Three – Get curtains and matching bedspread for the master bedroom. Status: COMPLETE.
Phase Four – Acquire built-ins for living room and study. Status: COMPLETE. We’re still waiting for the paint to cure in the living room, but woot woot! It’s done!
Phase Five – Get new outdoor grill and outdoor television for back patio. Status: NOT COMPLETE. Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2009. Justin doesn’t like our current grill (probably because he takes absolute zero care of it) and when we built the house, we wired for cable on the patio. He gets to suck it up this year though. It’s his own dang fault. And hopefully the prices of outdoor televisions will fall. The outdoor TV I think I’m the most excited about because it’s my dream child. And people wonder why I love doing technology PR. Because I’m a dork, that’s why.
Phase Six – Middle bedroom decoration. Status: NOT COMPLETE. Estimated Completion Date: When I get knocked up. HA! What is the point of spending a couple G’s on a room for a bed and furniture when we plan to have a baby in a few years? No point. So it’s currently an homage to Dave Matthews Band (way too many posters), a blow-up bed and Justin’s entertainment center from high school. It’s functional, but ugly.
Phase Seven – Build pool. Status: NOT COMPLETE. Estimated Completion Date: When I can convince Justin we need one. Pale red head doesn’t want a pool. Easily tanable (and probably skin cancer-prone), burnette wife does.
Phase Eight – Hardwood floors. Status: NOT COMPLETE. Estimated Completion Date: Probably never. I want them, Justin doesn’t. Starting to see a pattern with these last few?
Phase Nine – Mini Cooper. Actually, that has nothing to do with the house, just a pipe dream of mine. That won’t happen either. Haha.
Anyways, here are a few pictures of the recent improvements. I’ll update with some more once we can put stuff on the living room built-ins, I install this shelf in the guest bathroom and the grass gets a little greener outside. Oh, and the following comment from Justin absolutely made my week regarding my decoration of the guest bedroom: “Shit, this looks like it’s something out of Pottery Barn.” Clearly, he doesn’t look at the Pottery Barn catalog that much, but the compliment was awesome, and more importantly, sincere.
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