Breakneck Speed, Part One: The House

We are gearing up for a busy, project- and milestone-filled year, as we head into February. Here's just a peek at what's to come on the house front...

We've already been busy with some smaller projects, especially Jim, who has fixed our leaky tub and is in the process of painting a wall that was formerly quite red. Every now and then we hang a few more pictures, but there are still more to go, and more boxes to tackle at some point, too. The porch became a bit of a dumping ground, so once the weather warms up again we'll be sorting through that and making it into a cozy and functional space.

Of the many projects on tap for this year, the two biggest are replacing the roof (this seems to be an emerging theme for us... buy a house needing a full roof tear-off and replacement...) and remodeling the kitchen. The current roof is cedar shake but the plan is to replace it with a metal roof instead, with us doing the tear-off and a contractor doing the replacement. Jim is currently heading up that project and the next step will be to have a few contractors out to answer some questions and give us some estimates.

The kitchen is also on tap for the Spring and we are up to our ears in This Old House magazines (gotta love Craigslist!) and cabinet and counter catalogs. As you can see, the current layout is, shall we say, a bit lacking in storage... There are no cabinets and the only counter space is the island.

We currently have interesting solutions such as the toaster oven perched on top of the microwave, pots, plates and cups spilling off various shelves and baking dishes and extra food stashed in the bookshelves. It's livable, but not exactly workable for us. So we have the chance to make it something that really fits us, which is exciting and daunting. At this point we have lots of ideas that are starting to take shape but no final plan. What we have to decide now is how much we're willing or able to take on ourselves - and salvage from Craigslist, local or reclaimed wood and other such finds - versus saving some time and perhaps sanity by going the home improvement store-bought route. Stay tuned, we'll do our best to post updates along the way.

Other projects around the house that we're looking ahead to are putting in a garden and building a more functional chicken coop (at last count, 6 of the 8 are laying!). We're also planning to repaint Drew & Garrett's room for their birthday, to go along with the introduction of two very sporty race car beds. But more on that in Part Two, coming soon...