Home Improvements

Dino and I bought our cute little 1925 house almost two years ago.  We loved the floorplan with tons of open entertaining space, and we liked the neighborhood and location quite a bit.  We didn't love that it didn't have a garage, but it has plenty of parking area, so we're making due, and the basement houses all our stuff that would live in a garage.  It's a super cute house, and I love it so much!  But it's really really small.  In addition to having no garage, it's like a 1 1/2 bedroom (the second bedroom is so small, it only maybe could hold a queen sized bed), and only 1 bathroom.  Right now, it works for us.  But it won't always.

The house right after we bought it.  Personal Photo

The house after removing all the wisteria and doing some work outside!  Personal Photo

After we bought it, we dove into home improvements.  First thing we did was paint.  Goodbye beige, hello gray!

Inside beige with carpet and orangey floors.  Personal Photo

Oh look!  Now it's gray!  Much improved...  Personal Photo

We also replaced the aging roof and had the hardwood floors sanded and redone (in the process, realized that half of the floor was not original nice oak hardwoods like we thought, but instead just crappy boards, so we had to replace those - cha-ching!).

Here's the crazy floor we found under most of the carpet.  Personal Photo

And here is all the new hardwood laid in!  It isn't finished yet, though.  Personal Photo

We painted the chimney a dark gray to act as an accent, and here you see where the old and new floors meet.  Personal Photo

Lovely dark stain.  It's darker and less reddish/orangeish in real life, but super pretty.  Personal Photo

And some new appliances were basically necessities.

The kitchen "before" (but it is pretty similar still...)  Personal Photo

The other side of the kitchen, "before."  Please note the amazing grape vines painted up above.  Those are still there, but hidden.  Personal Photo.

Our gorgeous new fridge!  Such an upgrade.  Personal Photo

And we replaced the icky dishwasher (the supports on the rack inside were rusting.  It was time.)  Personal Photo

Beyond that, we've done very little.  We replaced the furnace when it died the Friday before a long, cold, winter weekend (it was around 40° inside for about 5 or 6 days).  We've done some minor work outside.  We had the chimney re-capped and tuck pointed (it's amazing the terms you start to learn as a homeowner).  But the list of what we want to do is HUGE.

But as I said before, this is a small house.  It's not a place I can see raising kids (although, funny story, the people who owned it before us had 4 children.  A total of 6 people living in this 1 1/2 bedroom house.  SIX.  I can't even fathom.), not because of the neighborhood, but because it's just so small.  We plan to move at some point, to something a little bigger with a garage.  But at the same time, we're living here now.  It's functional, but not the prettiest in some areas.

So do we keep doing work?  Do we invest the time and money to redo the rest of the kitchen, fix up the bathroom, improve the basement, replace the electrical system, etc. etc. etc.?  It's a tough call.  Sure redoing the kitchen would be nice, but would it be worth it?  What we've done has been mostly necessary or cosmetic, and I believe we've increased the value of the home some.

What would you do, keep putting money into fixing up the house (which couldn't happen immediately, it'd have to be a slow process!), or stop worrying about this house to save money to improve the next one we end up living in someday?