This Old House

As some of you already know I have a difficult time sleeping and am often up into the wee hours of the night. It is in the depths of night that I often ponder my world and everything that is going on in it. I try to come up with ways that I can make improvements in within my life. Lately I have been pondering the decision DH and I made almost 8 years ago...the one to buy our first house, a 1993 Skyline Mobile Home. We bought the house for two main reasons. The first, and possibly largest reason we decided to buy was to get out of the city (our home is located in a nice little mobile home park just outside a small town). The second reason was to help out a co-worker of my husbands who desperately needed to sell since she and her husband had already purchased a bigger home for their growing family and were struggling with 2 mortgages. We both thought "what the heck!" The mortgage would be low and for only 15 years and it would allow us to stop pouring money out in rent on a property we would never own. We also figured we'd only be here a few years and then we would sell and move on. Fast forward 8 years and here we are in the same home. We have done a few small home improvement projects but nothing too major. I blame this in part on our fear of our own ability to complete certain physical tasks and perhaps on what seems to be the far, or at least farther off than planned, dream of moving to another home. I've decided that as long as we are going to live here, we should really do all those things we have been putting off. All those things that we have been waiting to do in our future "traditional" home. Nobody knows what the future holds, after all and a wise person once said: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift, that's why they call it the present."

So with all that said, I think I'm FINALLY ready to dig into some pretty major projects around here. So lately instead of staring at my monitor looking at all my usual newsgroups message boards and the like, I have been feverishly researching everything from paint types and techniques to laying flooring and installing cabinets. Could all this have something to do with my new found obsession with HGTV?!? I'd say that is a definite probability, but hey, at least I can say I have found my inspiration! I have taken many many notes and have even started a sketchbook of ideas that I would like to incorporate for each room. I am starting on the bathroom but also have plans to refurbish the kitchen, master bedroom, living room, my craft room and dh's den. Since we do not have any children, that takes one more thing OUT of the equation and may actually make things run a little smoother. (No worries about having to hire a babysitter when we paint, placing decorative items out of the reach of little hands, childproofing cabinets, etc...and so forth.) Although we will still have to worry about some of these issues with our two fur babies, but on a different level and to a slightly different degree. SO, what is the point of this post you ask?! I am here to tell you that I plan to track my projects, problems and progress as an ongoing (episodic) blog topic. I hope you enjoy reading my stories as much as I know I'll enjoy writing about them.

I will also be listing questions and asking opinions often so please feel free to chime in at any time if you have a question, comment or simply a helpful hint or idea regarding something I am working on, or plan to work on - TIA! Oh yeah, and stay tuned for some exciting (and NOT so exciting) before, during and after photos and video clips I'll be posting along the way!