The big move

This weekend we plan to move out of our little apartment and into a real house. That's right - we figured, why not get something for one of those mortgage payments? We went over to the house last night and walked through it after the tenants had left. I haven't really been through it entirely in almost five years, and that was in the dead of winter and after doing a ton of remodeling, so I saw things in a different light yesterday.

First, it felt very spacious. Living in 600 square feet for a while will definitely change your sense of dimensions. So that was nice. However, I couldn't help but notice some of the improvements that need to be made. As much as I have come to detest painting, I see another big round of that in my future. We will also need to do something about the flooring in most of the house. The bedroom and living room carpets have all seen much better days.

The kitchen isn't too bad, but it looks like the cabinets need another coat of paint until we can afford to replace them, and one cabinet drawer has a huge crack that I don't recall seeing in the past.

The master bath is OK. Dad and I worked on that from scratch, but I'd like to upgrade the toilet now. I've been spoiled by the nice toilet in the LBC. Is that weird? The other bathroom has an old pink tub and pink tile. We will live with those for now -- maybe have them resurfaced later. However, I would like to potentially replace both the vanity and the toilet in that bathroom, as well, and probably repaint it.

Then there's the lawn and garden which both need help and good grief, we haven't even touched on the structural things that need to happen -- the roof, the siding, the foundation on the addition, and new windows at some point. Jared and I love projects, though, and I feel like we really need things to work on together. One thing that drove me crazy was having nothing to do once our apartment was straightened up in the evenings.

In the LBC we spent practically every free weekend doing major work on the house. Now we will have no shortage of improvement projects to work on, and I'm looking forward to it.