Missed it by *that* much

I was so going to participate in NaBloPoMo in January, and I completely and totally messed up already by missing yesterday’s post. And it’s not like I was doing something important… I spent New Year’s Day on the couch for my annual Lord of The Rings rewatch (the extended edition, almost 12 full hours of LoTR), snacking on spreadable cheese and rosemary & olive oil Triscuits and drinking rum and coke. It was FUN, let me tell you. So, anyway, as far as I’m concerned this is the first real day of January, so I’m starting my posts today.

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Since I’ve spent so much time at home this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about what changes I might like to make to the house this year. I don’t know how much of it I’ll be able to accomplish – some of it is going to require financing of some kind, which I totally dread. I think I can do a lot of the work myself, or with assistance from RC, which will help with the financial part.

• To start, I want to paint and re-floor the living room, hallway, and foyer. I ultimately want hardwood floors throughout the house, but I’m okay to start with just the main living area. The living room is actually a combination living and dining room, but I don’t have dining room furniture. It’s about 15′ wide and 24′ long, but it’s a big rectangle, so I think I could install the flooring without too much trouble. Painting will require some help since I have cathedral ceilings, but I think RC can help with that. I’m also thinking about wallpapering half the foyer and the dining room wall, but I have to find just the right wallpaper.
• In the kitchen, I’m going to put beadboard paneling and a chair rail along the two walls that don’t have cabinets. I’m also going to paint above the paneling, which will require RC’s help, again. I’d love to put in a tile floor or a stained concrete floor, and I’d also like to install a concrete countertop to replace the existing laminate and reface the existing cabinetry, but I don’t know how feasible that really is for this year. I don’t have a lot of issues with the kitchen as it is, so I’m hesitant to put a lot of money into it.
• Paint and new flooring in the master bedroom. Paint is definitely doable this year, flooring is more of a maybe. Like I said, I’d really like to do hardwood throughout the house, but we’ll see.
• Paint and new flooring in the guest bedroom. Again, not sure if flooring will happen, but paint is going to happen for sure. I would also like to furnish this room – I’m going to have to start watching Craigslist to see if I can find some furniture bargains. I’d really like to put a daybed with a trundle in here for when the girls spend the night, but it also needs to have space for crafting, and potentially a very big dog crate…
• In the bathrooms and the laundry room I’d REALLY love to put down tile flooring, and I think that’s something I could handle on my own (with a little help cutting the curved and angled tiles). I’d also love to install a new tankless water heater, but I can’t justify doing that until my existing water heater dies. It’s a fairly energy efficient model, and I don’t think it makes sense to replace it yet.

Short list, eh? Who knows how much of this will actually get done… the paint I can do easily, but the flooring is going to cost a lot. I don’t want to finance any of it if I can avoid it, which means paying cash. It’s times like these I think it would really be nice to have two incomes.

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