The Bids are In!

Okay. So here's the thing with our house. Or things, I guess. The roof leaks in a bad way (photos of our bucket brigade left out for your peace of mind), there's a giant nasty old disconnected sewer vent pipe pulling on one side of the house, we have no idea whether or not the heating system is functional but know that the oil tank is moments from death, and, last but not least, Chris hates the upstairs bathroom with the passion of a thousand burning stars. It's built directly into the roof and comes in at a slant, so that even the shower ceiling is slanted. For someone short like me, it's no thing, but Chris finds the whole room intolerable.

Upon purchasing the home, our first priority was to pop out the bathroom roof with a wee little dormer at the same time as re-roofing. Makes sense, right? While the roof is off, add a tiny little addition. Ha. Three quotes later, we're realizing that everyone warned us for a reason. Homeownership is expensive and unexpected things always pop up!

We have three bids from local contractors at this time, and all three are much higher than we expected. Today, we are meeting with a guy named Joe who is a plumber to discuss the state and fate of our heating system. We want to upgrade from oil to natural gas, leaving the option for AC in the future open, and this is expensive even with the gas company providing rebates etc. We've learned more about power venting furnaces with forced hot air in the last week than we'd like to admit. I'm hoping that the news from the plumber today keeps our budget in line so that we can upgrade the heating but still have our headroom addition in the bathroom.

All that said, it's still fun. I still love this little house and can't wait to move in. I taught myself the basics of caulk sealing yesterday using the power of the internet and some good old fashioned MacGyvering, and managed to seal up the kitchen and bathroom counters along with the downstairs shower. Today, I'm heading over there to meet with Joe and keep working on my floor cleaning project. This weekend, Chris and I are changing the locks (finally), putting a new pane of glass in the broken door window, and hopefully diving into the painting part of this project. Once the roof is on (and one of the contractors claimed that if he was hired, it would be done by August 5th!) we will be moving in and diving in to all the rest of the little projects that will absorb our lives for the next...hmm...thirty years? :) Stay tuned, folks, more before and afters coming...