Ghosts of home improvement projects past

Whilst cleaning out stacks of old papers from a cupboard where they’d sat since, oh, the turn of the century or so, I came across one that had a list of Home Improvement projects that we wanted to do (doubtless with the assistance of Jim and Ginger for most of them).  The doc is dated 5 Oct 1999 (which makes it almost a year older than this blog).

So let’s see what we had in mind to do here (everything in bold is quoted), and what’s actually happened in the 10½ years since then …

OUTSIDE

• MAP: I wanted to develop a good map of the yard to note sprinklers, plantings, and plans.  I never ended up doing this completely; I have lots of ad hoc sketches instead.

OUTSIDE – FRONT

• Sprinkler – parking strip:  Not sure whether this was referencing needing to do something with the sprinklers along the sidewalk (in which case it was relatively trivial), or putting a sprinkler in over on the far side of the driveway, by Old Tree Trunk (in which case … yeah, that didn’t happen, and isn’t likely to).
• Terracing: This did happen — in 2008.
• Trees:  Ditto-likewise.
• Path / steps:  Same.
• Porch light:  We changed out the porch light early on.  In fact, we added a second light to the other side of the garage, and I added a timer to the assembly.
• Doorbell:  I think we did this at the same time.  The original doorbell on the house was right by the door; I think it was part of the overall intercom system in the house (now close to wholly gone, and never functional).  At one point we replaced it with a wireless set, then later with a new doorbell, which we put on the garage wall for ease of installation, and put chimes both on the ground floor (on the stair landing, actually) and in the basement (for all those game sessions we were holding down there).

OUTSIDE – SIDE – EAST

• Blue spruce? We bought a live Colorado Blue Spruce for our first Christmas, before learning that we really couldn’t keep it inside at that season for more than a few days (otherwise it thinks it’s spring and puts out new growth, which promptly dies when it goes back outside).  So, like every other person in Colorado who had purchased a Blue Spruce, we thought we’d install it in the yard, albeit not (as too many others have done) right next to the house or the driveway or the front path, where it grows to a 50 foot monster that takes things over.  In the end, we didn’t, and it died.  Lesson learned.

• Repaint gas pipe:  I think this got done at some point. I don’t recall what the problem was at the time, unless this references the new gas pipe running from front of house to the kitchen, in which case it either wasn’t painted at all or had a very quick job done.
• Trim lilac:  That wasn’t a Jimmy job.  I’m guessing this was for the giant lilac behind the living room, which periodically needs major hacking (and doesn’t get it enough).
• Replant along house – Remove juniper (S, N), pull stumps:  We had some very large junipers when we moved in, all around the house.  They’d started as small junipers, but you know how junipers go.  Since I loathe trimming junipers (childhood trauma), we’d removed all the ones from the front of the house, but there were still two large ones on the side — one on the east side of the living room, one on the east side of the kitchen wall.  We eventually got rid of them and planted lilacs in their place.
• Replant along house – Remove uglies:  There were three junipers freestanding in the long wedge of the side yard — Big-n-Ugly, Short-n-Ugly, and Fat-n-Ugly (as Margie called them).  Over the coming months, we actually did get them cut down and stumps pulled — since one of the last pics I have pre-Katherine is next to the apple tree we planted in honor of Katherine’s birth.  They were, though, a huge pain.
• Dining room exit – doors, deck:  We at one point had a fantasy that we would replace the current dining room windows, turn them into french doors, and extend the deck around the house to them, which would make for a nice way to open up the house at parties and provide some additional outside space.  We never did this for a variety of reasons (zoning and lot lines being part of that), and likely never will.

• Fence – remove old, add new and gate:  The fence/gates when we moved in were in pretty bad shape, and deteriorated fully over the next years.  In 2002 we finally got to this project, and I took the opportunity to move the side fence line way forward, too.
• Fix sprinkler – weepy valve, leak:  Okay, they can’t all be big, exciting projects.
• Add sprinkler to where junipers were:  I don’t think I ever moved these up to next to the deck, and it’s a moot point now.
• Path:  We wanted to put a path through the side yard around to the back.  Never got around to this; it might happen some day.

OUTSIDE – SIDE – WEST

• Clean / re-org:  The side yard on the west side is paved — I think, with the driveway work that was  done, that it was designed to be able to park an RV or boat or something.  Obviously we’ve never done this, but it’s a bit of a mess, and always has been, with extra trash cans, firewood, stray flower pots, wheel-barrows, and big piles of rocks.  This isn’t a project so much as an ongoing effort.
• Pebbles into yard:  The junipers in the front yard had decorative pebbles all around them, across the front patio and down the driveway.  Which was, of course, all covered and infiltrated with matted juniper and other organic debris.  So when we took out the junipers, we carefully pulled out the pebbles and stacked the many wheelbarrows-full in the side yard for future use.  We actually did get some of them used as filler when the front yard was redone, but there’s still a sizeable stack there.  We’ll find a use for them, someday.
• Potting table:  You know, that’s an excellent idea.  I wonder why we’ve never done that.  Though, to be sure, we never do as much potting and repotting as, say, Jim.
• Gate:  See above on fence.  This got done in 2002.
• Spigot:  Though the sprinkler line comes out of the house on this side, there’s no water spigot, which is annoying.  We’ve toyed multiple times with putting one in, but never have.  Someday.
• Fix / latch outer gate:  Fixed and the latch was redone at some point, but it remains a problem, and probably will until the whole fence with the neighbor had to be replace.

OUTSIDE – BACK:

• Terracing:  The back yard is on a bit of a hill, too.  We’ve talked about both terracing the side-back, but also doing some terracing / steps down from house level around the edge of the deck to the house proper.  Not likely to happen, but something like it might still.
• Planter below deck:  When the deck was smaller, it made sense to put in some sort of a planter (area or raised) below it.  Now, not so much.
• Door into basement:  Another on one of those $5,000 projects, at least.  The basement could, maybe, be made into a walk-out.  We’d need an architect and some code reviews to be sure.  If so, it would add substantially to the house value.  Since we don’t use the basement so much, this has become a lower priority.
• Replace lawn – buffalo grass? Margie loves buffalo grass, and it’s certainly a more eco-friendly (and low-maintenance) alternative to regular grass.  Could still happen.
• Babyproofing – slats, gate:  The deck needed to be babyproofed from the anticipated baby.  We did this with avalanche netting for several years, which worked out pretty darned well.  The back gate needed baby proofing, too, since it was, um, off and lying across the gap sideways.  We did this as part of the fence project in 2002, and in the meantime used baby gates of various sorts on the deck itself to restrain wandering toddlers.

INSIDE – MASTER BEDROOM

• New Closet:  When we moved in, the master closet was a smallish walk-in.  Margie filled that  up, so I used the close in the craft room for my own clothes.  Since that was to become the nursery, that was no good.  So Jim came up with the idea of putting in closets across the east wall of the master bedroom, which we did, and those became for Margie.
• Fix up old closet:  The old walk-in got made much more efficient (double-hanging the rods, adding shelfing, incorporating an old bureau of mine for drawers), and that became my closet.  (This was all clearly on the agenda for Jim’s next visit).
• Paint bathroom:  The master bath has never gotten any painting or redoing.  That’s on the mid-term agenda at this point, though it’s likely to be a very involved (and expensive) project.

INSIDE – UPSTAIRS

• Office – clean and org:  This never really got done until the office was recast as the guest room and the Boxes o’ Junk all got moved, shelved, or tossed.  That was in 2007.
• Nursery:  The old craft room, now that I was no longer using it as a dressing chamber, got emptied out (into the office, ahem) and turned into a nursery, complete with cheery blue walls with poofy clouds, and various glow-in-the-dark stars and constellation on the ceiling (the Big Dipper, Orion, and the two astrological signs that Kay was born on the cusp of).  This (and the closets) all got done by May the following year, of course.
• Babyproofing – slats, gate:  We eventually decided that the railing in the balcony wasn’t kid-neck-snapping dangerous.  We also ruled out putting a gate at the top — we just didn’t allow wandering upstairs.

INSIDE – KITCHEN

• Pocket door casement:  Our fridge is too big for the space, and the trim at the kitchen door had to be taken down for that.  We’ve never done anything for that, and likely won’t until either (a) we remodel, or (b) we replace the fridge.
• Cabinet / paint over fridge:  Again, we had to take out the small cabinet over the fridge space for the unit we bought, leaving primed drywall behind.  This is still a problem, masked by all the boxes of foodstuff we keep on top the fridge.  I doubt we’d put another cabinet in there (dead space), but some better organization of that space probably isn’t a bad idea.
• Extend cabinets over microwave:  The house originally had cabinets hanging across the peninsula, but these had been removed by an earlier tenant.  That still left kind of an ugly cabinet arrangement there.  Eventually we (Jim and I) replaced that cabinetry (piecing in with what had been removed), and that’s what we have today.
• Dishwasher – tile, install:  We still had the original dishwasher when we moved in, and even when we retiled we left it in there.  I was concerned we weren’t going to be able to put a new dishwasher in, but as I recall we made it possible and an installer got it in place.

INSIDE – FAMILY ROOM

• Corner console:  Jim had long talked about putting in a console in the corner to support the TV, etc. We did eventually do this, though it became a much bigger project, involving cabinetry all around the family room.
• Paint out bookshelves: Part of the family room project, the existing built-ins were actually reskinned.
• Paint out mantle, add wood trim:  Ditto.
• Tape storage? Tape.  How quaint.  Yes, we did end up with storage for our video tapes and DVDs and CDs as part of the family room project.
• French door curtain:  Removed, not replaced.
• Sliding door? The existing french doors on the house, both in their quality and in how they took over the breakfast room when opened.  My thought had been to replace them with a sliding door, but Jim suggested, I believe, outward-swinging doors.  Genius!  When we replaced the doors, that’s what we got, and I love it.
• Upholster side chair: We eventually send the side chair and the sofa bed in for reupholstery.
• Weather strip french door: See above.
• Fix plug by french door: Fixed.  It’s now actually in the cabinet below the phone.
• Speaker system. We never did wire the whole family room for sound.  Instead, we make use of some cheap home entertainment speakers by the TV. Which, for our limited purposes, work just fine.  Maybe someday, when wireless sound is cheaper and easier.

LIVING ROOM

• Dining room fixture: Replaced.
• Entry hall fixture: Replaced.
• Hang the bell: We did, then took it down for the big dining room redo, then rehung it again.

STAIRS / RAILING

• Dining room rails: We wanted to strip down the uprights of the railing between the living room and dining room, and paint out white the rail itself.  Instead, we eventually built out a buffet.
• Loft rails: This still remains on the List of Things to Do.
• Rest of the stairwell: Not  sure what was left undone at that point, but it’s all done now.
• Stairwell light (x2?):  Fixtures replaced.
• Beam! Not sure if this refers the dark, ugly beam that remains in the family room (we think it’s load-bearing, esp. since the other ones originally in this model were taken out), or what.  But it’s still there, and will probably need to be boxed in as part of the Big Paint & Floor Project.

And that’s it. What a strange journey it’s been all the work already done on the house, the stuff not done, and the stuff yet to be done (much of which wasn’t yet envisioned in the above list).  It’s kind of cool seeing this glimpse of the personal future from the past.  And all this investment in the place makes it less likely we’d ever want to move, of course, which suits us just fine.

Nice house.  I think we’ll keep it.

(Many thanks to Jim & Ginger for all their help in this endeavor.  And the shareholders of Home Depot owe us, big time.)