Well, the calendar might say Spring has arrived, but my 19-degree walk at 5am this morning tells me otherwise. Regardless, I have started to think of my home improvement projects for 2011. My federal tax refund got "delayed" through no fault of mine or my accountant, so I've had some extra time to think about what I want to do.
I went out yesterday with my notebook in hand and measured and priced and assessed. While I will not be able to do exactly what I want for all my projects (time, money, some are not DIYish projects), I do believe I have found acceptable alternatives. First up is replacing the emergency lattice fence out back with an actual wood picket fence. The neighbor's yard that borders mine has one, and although I cannot find the same picket style anywhere in this town, I think it will look much better than what I have now. Hopefully it will be stronger for the dog, but I fear it will allow more bunnicides to occur. From what I've been reading, I should wait a few weeks/months to paint it so it has a chance to weather. (Not sure what constant canine urine does to it!)
From there, I am hoping to replace the leaning chainlink kennel pieces with beautiful white vinyl fencing. This appears to be quite costly, and I can't really find any I like. Here's the dilemma: If I go with a privacy fence with no slats, Lucky won't be able to see people/dogs walking by and might bark less. However, he's an outside dog during the day most of the year. He's always been able to see outside his yard. It seems cruel to take that away from him. Decisions, decisions. I am going to send my specs to a local company to get a price quote on materials/labor. Based on what the computer spit out at me at Menards yesterday, I'm wondering if it isn't worth it to just pay someone to install it. We shall see...
From there is the basement. My really nice, very cold basement. Gosh I wish that was usable year-round. First I need to strip all the crappy paint off the block. Then I need to fill all gaps. Then I need to seal it against water. And those are just the steps I had planned to do last year! From there, insulation. I've been online for weeks now trying to find alternatives to framing and sheetrocking. I'm not sure why I'm against that option, but I am. I'm still working out the details on this project, but I will have insulation in that space before next winter. I'm hoping that one of my friends who just added a room addition to her house can help me with the heat source for my new basement. Appears that this will also be a difficult decision to make due to the amount of options available to me.
Finally, and I'm sure there will be $0 left over after the above, I'd like to bring a company in and insulate the walls of the house. Based on how cold I am 6 months out of the year and how much my bills are, I'm fairly confident I got nothing in those walls. I don't even know what this little adventure would cost me, but the local company that blows it in from the outside is the same company who replaced my windows. Good people. So, I'll be working on getting an estimate for that. It might be worth dipping into my savings to do that before next winter. Who knows what kind of money I could save next winter if I opted for this project yet this year.
So there it is. My 2011 all planned out. I'll be sure to keep everyone posted with updates of my successes and failure along the way.
