Andy’s Household Projects To-Do List

Because I live in an apartment and Jessica has a house, it seems to make the most sense that I’ll move in with her when we get married. Since I have little to do at work today, Jess suggested several things that I might write about to pass the time. One idea she had was to write about what I’d like to do with the house once my name joins hers on the deed. Here’s a list:

1. Tear down one or both “storage rooms” in the garage. There are two rooms in the garage that are constructed of 2×4’s and thin plywood. Jess loves them, I think they just get in the way. Since the garage is typically considered the man’s domain, I have aspirations of snowmobile storage and work benches that require them to go. Since she loves them (they do keep the clutter out of sight), one of the two will likely remain standing. The other is coming down!!
2. Landscape the yard. There is a chain-link fence around the back yard that is nicer than most of the fences I’ve ever seen, but is still something I’m not a fan of. While it will likely stay (it’s great for keeping dogs and kids in the back yard, should any come along in our near future), it is a nightmare to trip around. I’d like to put something by the fence to keep the weeds from climbing it, whether it is rocks, mulch, or plants. I’d also like to replace the plastic lawn edging with decorative concrete block. Also, a tree or two would go nicely in the front yard.
3. Build a three-season porch. The deck off the back of the house is rather large. A screened porch over half of it would make a pleasant place to relax on summer evenings
4. Paint the house. While the existing paint seems to be in good shape, the color is not our style. Jess and I agree that it would be nice to paint over it. This is fairly low priority though because of the condition it’s in. The dark brown will be covered over by a lighter paint of an underdetermined earth-tone that goes with the rock facing on the front of the house
5. Build a video game machine. Phil, my good friend and Jessica’s new brother-in-law (who set us up with each other) recently built a video game machine with a computer in it that emulates arcade games. Jessica loves it, as do I. I want to build one for us. Jess is just as excited as I about having one for our house.
6. Install new light fixtures. The ones in the house are very dated. The house was built in the early 1970’s, and the style of many of the fixtures is still original. I’d like to update them.
7. Refinish some of the floors. Like the light fixtures, some of the flooring is original to the house, and also outdated. First on the list is the tile in the entry. Jess has said, independent of my input, that she doesn’t like it either. New tile would be nice, or maybe hardwood floors. Jessica has plans to replace most of the carpeting in the house. I agree that most of it could use replacing. It’s not work that I want to do, but as a designer, picking out new flooring would be a lot of fun for me.
8. Install a model train. It’s been a dream of mine for some time that, when I was in a home of my own (in this case our own), I’d like to put a model train going around a room above window height. It would be on a shelf wide enough to run two tracks. One track would be uniform, maybe with a model Amtrak train, while the other would be for collecting different kinds of train cars.
9. Wire the house for Audio and a Computer network. Her house is already partially wired for computer networking, which will make that job much easier. She says the guy she bought the house from ran a business from the house and had several offices in various bedrooms. I plan to run networking to rooms that don’t have it, but could use it. With the video game machine I’d like to build, a network jack would be nice. The computer in the game cabinet will be a normal computer, and a network could serve several useful purposes.
10. Replace the cook-top. The house has a built-in cook-top and two built-in ovens. I’d like to replace the electric cook-top (which is original to the house) with a gas cook-top.
11. Build a computer desk. Neither Jess nor I have a great computer desk, but we both have computers (I have two desktops – one that hosts this blog – and two old laptops, she has a laptop). I’d like to build a desk for the room she has set now as an office. I designed some furniture during my free time at a previous job, which doesn’t really fit in with our ideas for the house, but could be modified to make a pretty cool computer desk. I’d like to make it large enough for two workstations, a printer, a scanner, a bookshelf stereo system (for computer sound), and space to use as a regular desk.

More likely to come!!