It's been over 6 months now and I've learned quite a bit and feel more realistic each day about what we are doing. I feel pretty confident that I can do practically anything in the house without creating further problems and keep it well under budget. In addition, the grand plans I had for the house have now changed to reflect our present and short-term future needs.
This being our first home together, it's realistic to assume that we may not live in it for longer than 5 years. Although, we are loving the area and house with each passing day, neither one of us feels that this will be the last place we will live. So, why put in a ton of new remodeling when we won't enjoy it forever and the next owner may just tear everything out anyway? We also know that unexpected costs, such as a backed up drain under the house, will crop up now and then and we just can't be in the position of being tapped-out remodeling something and then forced to deal with an emergency.
(This Old Kitchen)
All this means is that I need to stretch our dollar even further and think harder about the changes and fixes we do in the house. Now, I'm going to work on a set of the kitchen cabinets which traditionally tend to be very expensive to replace. I had grand plans for the kitchen remodel (including tearing down the cabinets) but now we would both be happy to have a French-style looking kitchen without changing the layout radically and by surgically removing things, cleaning them up and reusing them in some fashion. Mostly I'll be refacing these cabinets and adding new doors and basically making it look good all without pulling down the cabinets.
So this "Schmuck and One Buck" approach is primarily how we will approach our projects which leaves much of the original work and leaving it up to some luck to get hold of good, strong materials to replace worn out dated items. Wish us luck!
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