The Money pit

Perhaps it's a bit of an exaggeration, but our feelings towards our home lately can be wrapped up in the moniquere (sp?), The Money Pit.  We wish we could put it on the market right now and walk away...except then someone would have to take it off our hands and we'd have to find a new place to live. Perhaps we should have sold and PCSed last year instead of extending, but we have liked living here and wanted to stay. As it is now I feel we're just getting deeper into maintenance issues and the longer we're here the more at risk we'll be.

 What I wouldn't give to feel like I did last year. How accomplished I felt when we replaced the roof with the architectural styled energy star asphalt shingles then paid in full. We'd made such a big improvement! This year I had envisioned installing as many new windows as we could afford with our tax return. While it was disappointing to learn that window replacement is even more costly then a roof, it wasn't hard to resign ourselves that perhaps it would take two years to accomplish this much needed update. Of course the bathroom tile falling off the wall required the window project take a sabbatical and ever since things have been dropping like flies... if the house had feelings I'd say that many things are jealous of the new roof and have decided to pitch a fit and demand our immediate attention.

The numerous detours are making it hard to get anything done, as I try my best to prioritize the most essential jobs on the list. Our focus has been on collecting quotes for the bathroom, and while we've had two separate folks over to measure, no one, as of yet has provided an actual quote for the work. They don't like to quote you anything till you've gone to the painstaking process of picking out tile, which is difficult when you're not sure how much they're planning to charge. In selecting materials I've gleaned that porcelain is best for bathrooms, as ceramic has to be sealed to be non-porous (otherwise it lets water seep in). White grout is bad...darker grout is better.

Meanwhile, the kitchen floor gaps allow water into the subflooring everyday (spills are routine around here), and we have a refrigeration problem... not enough working space in the fridge upstairs....To add insult to injury, a couple days ago the extra fridge downstairs is broke.

We've needed a bigger fridge, but the space upstairs will only allow 33" wide. Ironically, narrower fridges are more expensive, so it galls me that I'm having to pay $$$s more for a smaller fridge when I need more space. We removed the cabinet above the fridge to allow additional height and expand our choices a wee bit more. I thought I'd found one that would work well, only to find delivery of that particular model isn't available to our area (why the heck not I have no clue). The only fridges available have awful reviews...and cost more. And then we'll have to find a way to make up for the missing cabinet.

Today we spent hours at Home Depot trying to get the quote from our bathroom project. The way they're working it up is entirely confusing and ridiculous...and did I mention they charged us $35 just to come measure! Long story short, they wanted to charge us another $45 to measure our bathtub, even though I have the measurements and specifications already... (no I'm not keeping the 1966 enameled PINK tub)......Everyone looks at me like I'm crazy for wanting to replace this tub. After wasting our entire afternoon in the store someone finally refered us to a different Home Depot service that could appraise all the work for the bathroom for free! So all that wasted time and we still do not have a quote and have to endure another Home Depot measuring appointment. I just want to know if I can afford it or not. A third company is coming tomorrow morning... lets hope someone can give us a clue as to how much this is going to run.