Saturday, May 25, 2013

It Has Begun.....

With Favorite Daughter moving 1300 miles away from home and Oldest Son graduating from college and now officially out of the house, it has begun.
What you ask?
Why the Great House Fix-Up and Purge of 2013!
After years of neglect and deferred spending on our home, we are in Spend Mode.

I knew there was a reason I had been socking away all that cash in my yearly Savings Challenges!
But be advised that we will be spending with an eye toward frugality....how could I not?! 8-)

The game plan of Project Living Space is to--

A-Take care of many maintenance issues on the house, both inside and outside.
B-Upgrade and/or change out broken and "just doesn't work for us" furniture, appliances and features of our home.
C-Further purging and decluttering in preparation for selling and moving.  The timeline for this to occur is 3 to 5 years down the road.
It's the perfect time to start whittling down on the big list of things to get done to get this house ready to sell when we retire.

We began on a small scale the weekend before last, when Hubs and I replaced my old, ugly, ginormous, broken computer desk and equally worn chair with this duo from Office Max....


Though this new desk is only 12 inches shorter in length, visually it's so much lighter than the clunky massive looking desk it is replacing.  The computer drawer has a good strong magnet closure so I can use the pull-out tray as a real drawer to hold stuff instead of for a keyboard.
I'm not crazy about the velour on the chair, as it will retain heat(yuck!)but it "went" with the desk color and it was on sale and it was comfortable.
The desk was on clearance too and better still as far as Hubs is concerned.....no tools were needed to put it together! 
I didn't marry him for his handyman skills.... ;-)

The desk is small enough not to be a dumping ground for papers/dishware/office supplies/mail/children's items they are too lazy to put away/etc.  It can hold the printer, my laptop, a lamp, a box of tissues, a mouse pad and mouse, and a coaster.
Any more room than that and I can't help myself and not collect/hoard stuff on it. ;-)

And since I had a ginormous hanging file drawer crammed with assorted office supplies/computer peripherals/etc. in it's predecessor, this is what I now have to deal with today.....


And this.....
(But not the Chihuahua...I have to deal with her all. the. time.)

I have a Barrister Bookcase(the ones with glass doors) next to my desk area.  Hubs and I cleaned it out the old books, appliance manuals and cookbooks and all the stuff from the old desk I still need will go in that bookcase.
This is what I'm working on today.

If I remember, I'll post a photo of the finished product.

Now I know the desk and chair do not match my family room/kitchen color scheme but some of that will also be changing in the coming months as we progress with the Great House Fix-Up & Purge of 2013.

Do you have any house/apartment projects to start soon?
Have you saved up the funds to pay cash for what you need to buy to accomplish your project?

Sluggy

5 comments:

  1. We started the same thing in Nov/ Dec and is ongoing. Two of 3 chickens have flown the coop for us. We are 53 and 56 so we are looking at retirement/ downsizing/ hitting the road. : ) Every item I look at and ask, "do I really want to pack/ move this?" I have made some hard decisions! We will most likely rent when we sell our home to look at retirement options for a year or two so it could mean moving an item at least twice ($$$) so I think about that with every item. Listening to all my old albums right now... bye-bye Air Supply and Olivia Newton-John. Good luck! Angela

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  2. I have a gazillions of projects that I would love to work on but it's not in the books for now :( I'm still working on a few projects that we started already but nothing new.
    Good luck on all your projects:) love your chair next to the doggy too, by the way:)

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  3. Well, I have loads of projects I would like to do to my house. But after we received almost a foot of rain in 24 hours, my new go-to-the-head-of-the-list project is to get the roof fixed. We acquired a leak right over the edge of our bed. Through the roof, attic and ceiling, down the edge of the bed and on to our wood floors. What a thing to wake up to this morning.

    I am guessing my new kitchen counters and backsplash will take a backseat to this. Sigh.

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  4. The main thing that bugs me right now is the dishwasher. The guy who installed it did so with the dishwasher at an angle. I told him it was crooked and that it was going to rip out the edge of the counter. He assured me it was straight and that it would last forever. Yeah, sure. Now, every time I open the dishwasher and pull out the racks, top or bottom, especially if loaded, the dishwasher come tipping from under the counter. It's ruining the counter top underneath.

    Besides, the counter stays hot in one spot. The company said the dishwasher is NOT supposed to cause heat when not going. The local hardware store, family-owned refuses to fix it. So, this dishwasher seems a fire hazard.

    Plus, I discovered he only used one screw to attach the dishwasher.

    The reason I would replace it is I can no longer wash using the soap dispenser with a little door that opens part way through the cycle. And, sometimes it does not drain.

    I usually pay cash for appliances. We will see.

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  5. Great to read about all the changes in progress! It seems like you have a plan, though, and no doubt a checklist so that you can check each thing off as it happens! :) I love doing that.

    I'm going through a massive declutter/purge. I'm moving to England in the fall, but at the end of the week need to be moved fully from a two-bedroom apartment into a single room! I almost literally have to get rid of everything I own. What a process! I'm procrastinating, so everything is not going as quickly as it should, but I will get there. I've got about 5 people coming today to collect/look at furniture, so that will help.

    I'm glad my place isn't any bigger, that's all I can say! Good luck with all your renovations and purging!

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