I purchased the house on Friday the 13th of September 2013 and officially moved in around the 25th of October 2013. It has now passed one year since I moved into the house and there has been many projects both planned and unplanned. The top of the list when I moved in was the water heater and the leaking pipe in the ceiling (which was not really repaired by me). I tried getting a water heater installed through Home Depot but they refused to install it because of the difficulty they would have getting a permit for it. Apparently the water heater was too close to the furnace. I called my uncle and got that squared away. He owns his own HVAC company, but had to drive quite a ways to help me out. The local agencies wanted to sell me a new furnace (rather than pushing the existing one back) along with a new water heater. But that was not all, they seemed to believe I needed a lower power blower and would require a new A/C unit as well!! WTF! I just bought a house, where do they think I'm going to get that kind of money?? Crazy talk! Now here I am with a new water heater and the existing HVAC system working just fine! I had to hire out the leaking ceiling pipe because I do not know plumbing AND it was high in the air AND I did not have any tools for that. It took two tries or the plumber to get it right. Boy was I glad I didn't do it myself. The solder kept coming undone on the plumber. When he thought he had it and tried everything out he left. Turns out it came undone again. He came back the next morning and fixed it.
The next project was new carpet in the bedrooms. My roommate was to move with me into the new house (he still lives here today) and I wanted to replace the bedroom carpets before any of us moved in. I found some carpet at a local store and my boyfriends dad agreed to install it for a reasonable price. At the same time of ordering the carpet I started to really fix the deck (the insurance company was making me). The deck was in REALLY rough shape.There were two levels to it and the lower level was attached to the house and the garage with a downspout going through it. I started with the upper level and had no trouble (well maybe a little) getting all the boards off. I knocked down all the railings to I could replace all the boards. I finished replacing all the boards before winter with some help from my dad. The lower deck was another problem because all the boards were screwed in and I could not get them up. It had to wait for next year, along with the railings of the top part. Definitely was a liability risk!
During that first month of owning a home I had my grandpa help painting and my boyfriend's father installing the carpet. It was a big house and a ton of rooms to paint. On top of that when I removed the wallpaper from the upstairs hallway and the foyer the glue did not go with it. I just finished removing that glue two weeks ago... The bedrooms have been painted and both of the living rooms. The hallway and foyer are in progress and my bathroom is in desperate need of painting. The laundry room has some drywall missing as a result of a minor flood from the "harmless" hole in the garage. I probably should have addressed that one sooner. The kitchen has been remodeled and the outside nearly finished repainting. All these changes have a story to tell and I will elaborate in future posts. In one year we have accomplished a lot, but there is still so much more to do. What I'm most excited about is the spa pump I recently ordered to finally repair the Hot Tub. I cannot wait to relax in it. Now to prepare for Halloween (accompanied with a snow forecast this year).