The past couple months I've been putting money back for new windows. Our old ones are absolutely terrible and when you buy an old house you have to expect that it's going to be constant work in progress. We've been doing things to our house every summer since we moved in. Just in the four short years we have built an addition, put in a new front lawn, did a complete kitchen remodel, new flooring, new carpet (twice, thanks to our child who had a puking problem while she was crawling ha!), painted each room at least twice (no, I do not have a problem ;-)), managed to have three kids during that time, and many other small projects. Charlie added it up and we have put at least $30,000 in this house. That's a lot of time and money.
Ok, back to the windows--I'd been saving up for a couple months and I FINALLY saved up enough money to buy the windows. Charlie talked to his dad and they were trying to decide to best way to put the new windows in. We have vinyl siding on our house and putting new windows in was going to be a bit complicated. Turns out, the only way to put new windows in is to take off the vinyl siding. This means spending money on new siding, and siding the whole house. Ouch, that didn't fit into my $1200 budget. At this point we asked ourselves: If we are taking the siding off, why not put insulation in as well since our house doesn't have insulation in the walls? The window project was going to cost around $1200, was easily going to be a $5,000 project and ANOTHER summer gone to house projects. Oh, and don't forget that I'm due in 9 weeks so there'd be a newborn thrown into the mix as well!
The thing is that it's not like we don't have fun with the kids because we do. Our summers are not completely consumed with house projects. God has blessed us with the ability to spend at least three weeks in Kentucky visiting my family every year, fun camp-outs, visiting zoos, etc. So we were faced with a decision to either put new siding, windows and insulation in the house, or buy a really nice camp trailer. We weren't exactly sure what to do at first. After thinking about it for a little bit I told Charlie that house projects are always going to be there and memories with the kids aren't. He agreed. Lord willing, we will be doing the siding next summer and this summer will be filled with newborn cuddles, camping around Oregon/Cali (in our NEW camp trailer!!!), a trip to Kentucky and the Creation Museum, building a new back deck, and mostly enjoying summer and hanging out with the kids. The thought of doing all this instead of putting new siding on the house makes me VERY happy. I know we'll look back and be very glad that we spent the money on something that will create fun memories for the kids and ourselves. House projects are fun......said no one ever. Ok, they aren't THAT bad.....but you know what I mean haha!
I decided to post a view pictures of the yard progress that I took the other day. Here ya go:
So this is when we bought it. No one can like this. Why is the drive-way going through the front yard?!?
Redoing the front yard....
How it looks today. That's a HUGE improvement if you ask me.
Another before picture.
Aaaaaaah, so much better!!
<3
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