the money pit

All through my trip to France, I dreamt, fantasized, and built plans for all the house projects that were going to happen. So needless to say, I had done the typical, anal planning for which I am famous. So after months of anticipation, my schedule has finally cleared up enough to actually take some action! Since we are having a little party, or should I say PART-YAY, in a couple of weeks I thought it would be a good catalyst to get these house projects done.

Needless to say, I never seem to do anything in moderation. Ever.

So in the past week we have (drumroll please)

Put in a pond
Re-leveled our yard
Planted 4 trees- including one transplant that isn't looking so hot
Built 3 retaining walls
Marked off the area for a deck
Planted 50 plants
Stained the footbridge
Retiled the kitchen
Purchased new appliances
Purchased a camera to document the madness
Received one pedicure. Just me though, Barry wasn't interested.

This weekend we will:
Paint 3 rooms
Strip the fireplace
Put in a deck
Stain the deck
Tile the mudroom

A party or PART-YAY doesn't seem to be good enough reason to dump this much time and money into our house, but I am reminded of the big move in 05. When we put our house on the market we were faced with the dozens of projects that were required to get our house in suitable selling shape. I often asked myself during that time why the hell we didn't just do it right away so that we could enjoy living there.

So that is really the story. Do all this shit now with a self imposed deadline so that we can live there for a few years without having all these stupid house projects on the brain.

Lessons learned so far. Get your neighbor involved whenever possible; they know so much more that I do. Don't go to the garden store without a chaperone; hemorraging of money ensues. Don't plan on having energy enough to do anything else; ie work.

All is well though otherwise. I will post pictures when my new camera comes in.