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January 28, 2007
Random House Stuff
Well, I've suddenly gotten motivated about home improvement after several months of sloth. Well, it was decided that we cannot wait to replace our roof, so that is definitely happening once the weather gets warmer. While financially it's a bit scary, it will be a really good upgrade to the house, preventing further damage, solving the mold problem, and allowing us to replace the attic insulation and thereby saving us lots of money next winter. The good news is that I got a fourth estimate recently, from a local, family-owned company that our realtor recommended. Their estimate came in several thousand dollars cheaper than the others we'd gotten.
I also assumed that the old windows in this place were going to be a terrible heat sink this winter, but putting in the storms actually sealed them up pretty well. Only a couple feel at all drafty, and we've got curtains or cloth blinds up over all of them. I finally got a Roman shade up in the office room, which means I can now walk from the shower to our bedroom at night without streaking through the office (there aren't actually any neighbor windows facing that window, which looks out on the back yard, but if someone were out in the neighbor's yard at night, there would be a free show). The other window-related thing I finally did was scrape the paint off the windows in the kitchen. Whatever troglodyte painted the kitchen also painted all the hardware and slopped paint all over the window glass. It looks much nicer in there now.
I've got the curtains for the kitchen all sewn, and a trip to Menard's next weekend will provide the hardware to hang them. I got this panel in 'cinder' from Pier One to use for the doorway to the utility room, and then got a second to cut up into a cafe curtain for over the sink and a small curtain for the window on the door to the outside. The cocoa brown looks nice with the antique red on the walls, and both colors are in the small rugs I got for in front of the sink and the door. My other color-related plan involves replacing my dishes. I love the pattern we have—Noritake Colorwave, but when we got married the pattern was new and only had four colors. We registered for purple and blue. Now, I'd like to replace those with earth tones, probably graphite, chocolate, and maybe suede or cream.
I also hope to strip the wallpaper in the spare bedroom and get that and the office painted by fall. I'd like to do one wall in each room in a mossy green and the other walls in a warm cream tone. I wanted something colorful, but that went with all the bright colors we have in the front of the house. We probably won't paint the master bedroom; I'd like to eventually tear out the wood paneling and drywall in there, but in the meantime we plan to remove the brown wood folding doors on the closets and instead hang curtains there; probably in this, this, or maybe this fabric from Ikea. I decided that a graphic black and white print will work better than color, since we've already got a whole palette of reds, purples, and maroons in the bed linens, the furniture, and the rugs.
As much of a headache as owning a house is, it is really kind of nice to really build a "nest" and feel that it's your own.
Posted by mwashburn at January 28, 2007 11:02 AMPosted to homeownership
Comments
Just wanted to point out the tax advantages to obtaining a home equity loan for the roof repair. Of course, the advantage is that instead of just paying cash for the roof, you could instead take out the loan for the roof, and pay an equal amount of cash for an outstanding loan that isn't tax deductible, like a car payment. Even student loans, because I *think* there is a cap. on those (can't remember, dumped mine a long time ago). Then, when you file for income tax next year, you can say that yes, you used the money for home improvement (cause who could argue otherwise).
Posted by: b at January 28, 2007 04:18 PM
Uh, yeah, b. You're making the assumption that paying for the roof with cash was an option. Don't worry, we've had HELOC financing lined up and we have almost no car loan to speak of. And A did that whole student loan consolidation thing a while back, so the interest rate on what's left of that is so low it would be crazy to pay it off with a variable rate loan. But thanks for the tip.
Posted by: flygrrl at January 28, 2007 05:20 PM