Summer Project Plans

Category: Home Improvements | Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 12:46 pm

Well it looks like it's going to be an expensive summer with home improvements! Here's what we have to get done.

1. Remove old walnut tree that is dying. It is too close to the neighbor's house and needs to go. I'm expecting a $1000 expense there, too big a project for us to do.

2. Remove the old deck from the house before we have it painted. We can do this ourselves, and it will bring us great joy to destroy it. It was poorly built by a contractor, and is now unsafe.

3. Have the house painted. Another big expense, as I'm not up to doing that any more.

That's probably all we'll be able to get done this summer due to running out of $. But the next steps are if we can get to them and/or afford them...

4. Put in a new retaining wall holding up the hill next to the foundation of the house. It's still holding but "leaning". Thankfully it's leaning the correct way and stable, but still an eyesore. This will probably have to be engineered, as it'll be big, another big expense.

5. Build a new deck. This we know how to do, and wouldn't hire a contractor. We were disgusted by the last two decks contractors put on this house when my parents owned it. They got ripped off and we had to fix what wasn't done right just to make it safe.

Far in the future plans:

6. Build a 2 car garage out back and a concrete driveway.

7. Rebuild the garage in the front and a new concrete driveway.

Then we'll be all done! Ha, right! By then we'll need to repaint the house again. It hails badly every 5-10 years here, so the roof gets replaced on a regular basis. Our siding is old cedar siding and it just laughs at the hail, that's why we keep it.

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eileen wrote on Sat Apr 21, 2012 1:00 pm:

Gee I think you've got enough there to keep you going for a years and years. Fingers crossed you can achieve everything you want to this summer at least. Good luck!!

toni wrote on Sat Apr 21, 2012 1:51 pm:

Your list is much like ours. Pretty much everything except the deck and retaining wall, but we have painting, siding, concrete slab and cover for truck out back, remove a huge old dying Pecan tree, Chinaberry tree and Hackberry tree.

Expensive year!!! Good luck with yours