You may remember this post and this post from a while ago where I talked about master planning for your house. I went over what my definition of it is, how we did it, why I felt like it was so valuable, and what we decided on. Well, I thought I’d share a little update about where things are.

Recently we finished up the last of our “catch-up” projects. That’s what I’m calling all the stuff that came up in the inspection or is more behind the scenes work. We bought and installed blinds, had gutters installed, updated a lot of the old electricity (see ya, wouldn’t wanna be, knob-and-tube), had a minor roof leak repaired, added an exhaust fan and extra outlet to the upstairs bathroom, had the attic insulation updated, and had both the attic and crawl space spot sealed. It has been a lot of work, but it’s all the kind of stuff that you really can’t see. Even the blinds, for example, technically you can see them but it’s something that you don’t notice at all.

Now, that we feel caught-up we’re really thinking about the plans for the rest of the house. We both agree that our next steps are the tool shed and the kitchen but we don’t agree on which should come first. Surprisingly, the tool shed is above the kitchen on my list. Primarily because I’m crazy about grass. Like, I think it should always be cut and pretty and think it’s so annoying when people don’t. Haaaaa. Look at me now! The thing is it doesn’t bother Xan nearly as much. Of course he’d like our grass to be mowed regularly, but like most people, if it’s not he doesn’t fixate on it.  Because we don’t have any kind of outdoor storage or garage right now we don’t have anywhere to store a lawnmower, so we haven’t bought one yet. This means that our yard is a hot mess 70% of the time. Unless you catch it in the few days after we’ve borrowed a mower from our friends then it probably looks like squatters live here. And, yup, borrowing a mower from a friend is about as annoying as it sounds. Loading it up in the car, driving it home, unloading, mowing, reloading, driving it back, and unloading one last time. So we’re still trying to figure out which thing we’re going to jump into. In reality I think it will probably be both.

Back before we moved in, during closing and waiting we would both draw up new kitchen plans by hand. It was our treat during all the paperwork and uncertainty. Our reminder that it wouldn’t be this annoying forever and eventually we’d get to design a kitchen! So, Xan spent a weekend last month measuring the whole house so he could create a digital model. This is a huge next step toward any renovations, but especially the kitchen. Now we can try all those designs we drew by hand without any additional measuring to see if any of them will work. The new space the kitchen will be in is still pretty small so it will take some work to figure out how to maximize the layout and function while still keeping form intact. But we’re both crazy excited about it.

Our plan is to spend some time working on kitchen designs and pricing them out so we can see how much we’re going to need to budget. Which will help us figure out the timing of when we’ll start renovating. The process will be somewhat similar for the shed. We’re planning on building our own because we think we can do it for significantly cheaper than something pre-fab. So, we’re going to spend some time thinking about the design and then price it out as well. And, then ultimately we’ll probably be working on aspects of both projects at the same time.  

So, that’s where things stand with our Master Plan right now. I’ll try and update you on progress periodically!

PS, these pictures are meant to sway you into believing that i'm right and we DO need to get a tool shed first 😉 I mean check out those before's - scary!