Home Projects

Our Home is Our Castle

As I am sure is true for every home owner there is always something to fix, tweak, improve on a house when you are a homeowner.  I'm not including those immediate or emergency things that happen.  Just the things that need improvement.  For example, when we were purchasing the house we had someone inspect the house (@Ron_Gerome)  as is typical.  He found that while we had a whole new breaker box which was clean, well done, at grounded, our other items (water heater, furnace, gas) were not grounded.  Not anything ground breaking but not something that you want to let go forever, particularly since it's "not up to code".  So we have begun the process of getting estimates for these items plus those items that we have noticed we want or have "broken" in the meantime.  For example, Arisa and George did something so now the kitchen sink faucet drips non-stop.  It'll probably be a 10 minute job for a plumber.  So we'll get the estimate for:

1. Electrical (done today)
2. Plumbing
3. Furnace and AC Check
4. Masonry (tuckpoint work)
5. Chimney Sweep (probably not this year)
6. Minimal Roofing Repair (not this year)

So we had an electrician come by today to knock off some the electrical work we need to make sure that we addressed the "not up to code" items.  We do need to get some work done to finish that but we now have an idea of what's required.  While he was doing that George and I started dealing with some extra cables that have been strung around the house, as well as the cable tv cables that were coming up through the air vents.

We know that we have a bunch of things to fix, big and small.  We are beginning to create a list, getting estimates then we'll start in on getting them completed.  Clearly anything that is a safety issue will be done first, like GFI plugs in the kitchen will be first on the to do list for the electrician.   We are planning to keep a list of items from the house inspection that we fix.  Does anybody else do that so they have a record of the investment and improvements you've made to your house?

Without seeing the final list of repairs and estimates, I'm not exactly sure how to proceed with which project. I certainly can't get them all done at once since I just can't pay for all of them at the same time regardless of the total cost.  I'm also fairly certain that they couldn't fit into a day of work so I'll need to coordinate with my PTO's etc.  

How do you manage your house improvement projects?  How do you prioritize?

By the way, we used BERS for our electrical services.  The technician that came out had a troll on his antenna! 

And that alone my friends sealed the deal.  I will use this electrician again. ;-)