Next?!?

One of my smarty-pants blog readers loved my bathroom remodel photos and asked what the next project is. She was only kidding, but my beloved husband is not.

This little house of ours is the first house either of us ever owned. We saved our pennies and lived in a tiny apartment for years before we found our “dream” house. I use the term loosely because we must have been “dreaming” when we bought this place.

We wanted to stay in the neighborhood where my bonus daughters were living to make visitation easier for them, so that helped to narrow down our selections. Then, we decided that we wanted really low mortgage payments because we love the jingle of change in our pockets. Then, we decided that all the kids should have their own bedroom and we should have a spare to use as a nursery someday. That narrowed our selections considerably.

We stumbled upon this little bungalow after a few months of searching. The house had been vacant for 6 years because the original owner died and her son didn’t sell it immediately. Although a landscaper had been hired to mow the lawn, little else was done to the house during that time. The house had the original 1950s carpeting and every room was painted a cheerful turquoise color. The house was also a two bedroom bungalow with an unfinished attic.


My husband took one look at this little nightmare of a house and fell in love. I had no idea at the time that I had married Bob Vila as too many years of apartment living had stifled the contractor inside him. We got a great deal on our little house and the work began.

We painted every wall and ceiling before we moved in. We ripped out all of the carpeting to discover beautiful hardwood floors. We washed the windows and cleaned the blinds. I painted the green front door a festive, bright red. We planted grass and trimmed the hedges. We peeled wallpaper and replaced light fixtures. Then, we moved in.

That’s obviously not the end of the story. We built two bedrooms on the second floor, which only took us sixteen months of working everyday after work and every minute of every weekend. We installed shut off valves for the washing machine in the basement. We built a custom entertainment center for our new widescreen television. Hubby built custom nightstands for the kids’ new bedrooms. He also built a custom habitat for our tortoise and a custom bench complete with storage for our eat-in kitchen. We removed trees from the backyard. We replaced the garage door opener. We replaced the roof. We remodeled the bathroom. We replaced the driveway.

So, what’s next?

It depends who you ask.

Ask me, I’ll tell you we’re done. It’s time to enjoy a relaxing life.

Ask hubby, the list includes:

Install new fence in backyard

Remove hedges at side door

Install motion-sensor light fixture at side door

Install brick patio in backyard with lattice canopy and firepit

Build a family room in the basement

Install fireplace in the basement

Build an office in the basement

Build a pantry in the basement

Add a complete bathroom in the basement

Replace basement windows with glass block

Can you think of anything he missed?