Future plans

What are our grand schemes for the house?

1) New windows. Hopefully a spring task. The old ones still have some lead paint. We're okay in the winter with them closed, but come spring, we don't want ~J to be exposed.

2) Re-shingling the front porch. Those shingles probably should have been replaced 10 years ago. A six pack of beer, ~D, Toril, and maybe Crow should get it done in a day or two (with the stripping that'll be involved).

3) Patio in the backyard. Our house sits up on a ledge, with retaining walls and stairs leading to the backyard. Once at the bottom of the stairs, the yard continues to slope to about the midway point, where it finally levels off. This separation of house and yard makes the yard feel a bit isolated. We hope to put in another, small, retaining wall to the right of the stairs at the bottom to level off a section, and we'll put in stone pavers or similar and a fire bowl. Add some comfy seating...

4) Redecorate the kitchen. While the kitchen works functionally, it does not aesthetically. There's way too much wood in there: the ceiling is wood planks and beams, the cabinets, and then there's wood paneling from the floor to nose height on the walls. The counters are ugly white corian, and the wallpaper is white with cherries and crap on it. So the paneling comes down, the wallpaper comes down, the floor gets tiled, and the counters get replaced with tile. I'm leaning towards terra cotta, old Europe style, but we'll see how I feel when we get closer to having this project done.

5) Bathroom remodel. The bathroom is tiny. Right now, the thought is to pivot the tub, blowing out the wall into the craft room. Major concern is what that'll leave in terms of the craft room space. We'll strip the pale yellow tile, put in a new vanity and sink, etc. Our bathroom is celestially themed at the moment. We'll probably do a warm-tone slate-look tile in the tub, something suitably complementary for the floor, and I want a hammered copper/bronze look sink. We've started a bit of the cosmetic work (in an entry to come), but won't be doing anything structural for a while.

6) Expand the driveway. Playing the two-car shuffle gets a little tiring. But right now, we can only fit the two cars in the driveway one in front of the other. We'll be expanding towards the house (the other side would be encroaching on our neighbors' property) so we can hopefully fit the cars side-by-side.

7) Finish (part of) the attic. When ~J has a sibling, we'll need a little bit more room, so finishing the attic is a possibility. It wouldn't qualify as new square footage because of the stairway going up there, but would make a great spare/play/craft room. One obstacle to this will be whether we add a whole house fan (which is a distinct possibility). We'll have to play with it a bit to see if we can do both.

8) Cosmetics. More rooms to paint, lights to update, etc.