Tools, house, yard, etc.

My family of tools just gained a fat cousin. I'm back in possession of a decent air compressor again. It will be very nice to have when I do insulate the garage and build some outdoor pieces to hide my wife from the white trashedness of our neighbors.

Jill and I have numerous projects that we'd love to do if money were no object but frankly if money were no object we wouldn't be living next door to the people we live next door to. We have a lot of realistic projects.

Our biggest realistic project is the patio. We've got a lot of dreams here but reality is ultimately making the decision on what we do. Whoever can hit that magical $8/sq ft number will ultimately get the business. A pergola may be back in the cards if we can work out what we're going to do. Jill keeps going back to wood which would be preferred but there is a relatively inexpensive steel one at Lowes that I could install with little trouble. I could probably do a wooden one as well but Jill really doesn't like it when I build things she has to look at since I half-assed the shelves in the basement storage area. I've tried to remind her that I did it without the tools that I now have. I'm tempted to build a nice set of shelves so she can see that I do know how to build things with wood. I think her other concern is that while two people can put up a pergola easily, one guy can do it as well. We'll be getting pricing on this at the home show.

Landscaping is always easy. We're going to get more rock for me schlep around the yard. We don't want to do any of this until the patio is in and even after we have it we still want to live with it for a year before making a decision since we do all the design and planting ourselves. We will get some flowers planted up front and may need to replace a few things we planted last year if they don't come back.

Lawn is a given though it's an ongoing hobby for me. I like making my lawn look good without the aid of lawn companies and in ground sprinklers. The recent snow caught me off guard and I was only able to do the backyard which has left lots of green grass out back but none out front which is what everybody sees. I'm going to try to get some of it done after work today and get some fertilizer down so the front can catch up. I will seed both the front and back tomorrow. Woo hoo. I love grass.

I'm just about there with my arsenal of tools. I'm going to start making Jill planter boxes. I've got my eyes on some inexpensive T&G (tongue and groove) at Menards that I can use to make a pretty one. I also want to build planters for climbing plants. I'm very excited about this. I'll get to build stuff and Jill will get to plant without contending with bugs.

Long term house goals are basement related. I'd like to wall in my office and get a bathroom installed. All the rough ins for plumbing is there so the worst is done. These are big money items so they'll have to wait a decade or two.

Jill is pretty comfortable with room decorating now after the success of our guest room. We bought some towels and a new shower curtain for one of the bathrooms upstairs. It could use some artwork and maybe some paint but we'll probably stop with the artwork since we don't know what color to paint it yet. Our bathroom is pretty dull so we may do some paint as well as replacing the cabinet pulls and the faucets. Faucets are expensive so we'll put this one off as long as we can. I think the house is currently comfortable as far as decorations go but we could use a little more color and some curtains downstairs.

When you put it all down in a blog there doesn't appear to be as much work. When you add it all up on a calculator it's very scary.