One might think people who build a new home won’t have any house projects for at least a few years. After all, everything should be new. That’s not the case at all at my home, which was built just last year. This weekend we finished our third major house project of the year.
The first was the installation of a lawn and some landscaping around the home. We opted to wait until the spring after our home was constructed, because we were too busy last summer and fall to get to it.
The second was converting the spare bedroom into a baby’s room. This project was necessary because of the unexpected but much appreciated baby we had this summer. The old saying about babies coming with new houses couldn’t have been any more accurate in our case. This project included installing chair rail around the room, repainting it in baby friendly colors (take away your own meaning on whatever that might mean) and refinishing an old dresser to make it like new again.
Our final project of the year was to make our room dedicated for an office into an actual working office space.
Since moving in the house last summer that room was the one we often closed off to visitors because it was a bit of a disaster. It had a small desk with a computer, a table for us to pile papers on and put my wife’s scrapbooking supplies underneath, a messy bookshelf, and boxes and other “it doesn’t have a real home so it’s going in here” stuff.
Doing actual office work in this space was impossible because it felt as though we were in an actual episode of “Hoarders,” the popular show on A&E about people who, to put it nicely, collect stuff and let it gather in their homes. I exaggerate, of course, as animals that weren’t our two cats or our oldest son’s gerbil in a ball, weren’t going to pop out any time soon. The clutter was not conducive to working, which meant we often went to our respective work offices when we wanted to do that.
First came the purchase of cupboards and countertop for the nook in the office. A store in Plover had some great cupboards on clearance that we snatched up and somehow managed to fit in our SUV.
The second piece of the project involved buying a new desk. We went to nearly every store selling furniture in the Stevens Point area, settling on a desk we could both agree on. My wife and I have similar tastes, and we both respect the veto authority each possesses – making this a fairly easy task. The desk we both agreed on is one we will be happy with for hopefully the rest of our lives.
The third step was finding someone to install the cupboards and countertop. Gary Glennon, the general manager at The Gazette, recommended someone he’s worked with on his own house projects. Within a week this guy was at our home, installing those items and essentially finishing the project.
The only thing left to do was clean the room up and organize it. We spent the weekend doing this, which in turn allowed my wife to spend a number of hours working on work stuff at home rather than the office.
I capped off the weekend by installing Windows 8 on my computer. I’m not going to provide an in-depth review of the computer operating system, but I will say that while I liked Windows 7, I love the new version. It has suddenly made my computer fun to use again.
I’d love to say our projects at home are now done, but we’re still a long way from that happening. Next year we want to install a deck and a small shed, plant some trees, and start on our unfinished basement. By the time we finish with all these projects our house won’t be new anymore, and a new round of projects will probably be necessary.
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Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Nov. 2, 2012.
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