Home Repairs

We've done quite a few home repairs since we moved into this house.  The house was actually in excellent conditions, but the age of it (25ish years) lends to some things needing updated.  We've pretty much done something every year, but this year has been a big (and expensive) one.  We chose to take advantage of our tax return (with lots of Adoption Tax Credit) and just get it done.   Here's what we've done so far!

2009:  Moved in, painted the whole house, furnished it.

2010: Radon mitigated and crawl space sealed
          Stained deck

2011: Gutter Guards installed
          A/C replaced
          Changed a few light fixtures

2012: Painted/furnitured Anna's room

2013: Replaced dishwasher
          Put on a new roof
          Installed a fence
          Painted bathrooms, front door, and front porch


This weekend, we tackled the last few things on this list.  We had a gift card to use up (a rebate from our new dishwasher) and we went to the hardware store to pick stuff up. I always forget to take before pictures, so you'll just have to imagine...

Jeremy painted the front door.  It was a hunter green color and the paint was chipping of everywhere and looked horrible.  We've had it on our to-do list for years and the gift card was the kick in the pants we needed.  The first picture doesn't show the color real well, it was still wet, but the second picture does.  Along with the paint mess we hadn't cleaned up yet...

 Jeremy also decided to tackle painting our front porch railings.  They were in pretty bad shape too, a few needed glued back on and a lot of holes needed patched.  You can see the railings on the right look much brighter, these are the ones he painted.  He still has to do the left ones and the ones on the other side of the porch.  We just need the temperatures and humidity to cooperate to finish...

Our fence install was finished today!  I'm so excited to have the kids contained!  It looks really  nice and makes our yard look huge!

I found some "mistints" at the hardware store.  I was able to snag a gallon of a dark brown paint for $5 (usually $35) and a quart of cream for $2.50 (usually $13).  So I decided to paint the main floor bathroom.  I've always hated my original paint job, I just never had the time or energy to fix it.  It was originally like two different shades of teal with really poorly done stripes and a some stenciled ovals.  Anna had been peeling the paint off slowly but surely (she's sneaky like that) and it just looked bad.  Add to that a super outdated light fixture, and an ugly mirror and it definitely didn't match the rest of my main floor.

So I tackled it.  I painted first.  Then I took this shelf which was in our Master Bath (and put the shelf from this bathroom in the master bath).  Both shelves look so much better switched and I love all the storage it added.  The dolphin picture was one my sister painted when she was younger.  The mirror was one we had hanging in our master bedroom but it was a little unsafe for the kids now that they're getting taller (it never was hung well).  So we found a better use for it and it looks a whole lot better.  We replaced the light fixture (which you can't really see).

Total, this bathroom came in at $30.  And most of that was a new light fixture!  The paint and everything was so cheap and the shelf and mirror were just stolen from other parts of the house!

Anna photobombed :-)

And finally we put up the other shelf in our Master Bath and added a coat hanger instead of a towel rack.  Our bathroom is super tiny, so space is definitely at a premium.  Well, with our very cheap fixes, we can now open and close the door, all the way!  That gave us lots of extra space and makes me happy that when Jeremy gets up to shower in the morning, he doesn't have to leave the door open to wake me up :-).

So needless to say, we've been quite busy.  I have a few more posts to get up hopefully today or tomorrow!  We're having a very fun summer and I'm keeping busy with the kids and spending lots of time at the pool!