I often gripe about how Lee starts improvement projects, but never finishes them. But he really has done a lot to our house. I have a link to “our house” on our homepage, but I can never seem to find time to actually update our website. So in the meantime I’ve decided to dedicate a post to my toolman.

We have a lot of “ideas” for our house, but never seem to have the time and money to actually makes those ideas a reality. When I moved in I wanted to redo everything. I hated the kitchen cabinets. All three of the bathrooms have vinyl that looks like fake wood. It’s really awful. Plus the main bathroom and the basement bathroom both had dancing bear wallpaper. Yes, you read that right. Dancing bears. Who the hell puts dancing bears in their bathrooms. I also wanted to rip out the vanities in all the bathrooms and buy new ones, with a pedestal sink in the master bath.

Since then I’ve decided all of that would be a waste of our money. If things go as planned we will only live in this house a few more years. Then we will build our own semi dream house. So now I’m just going to paint and call it a deal.

But we have done some major improvements since we moved in. The biggest and most noticeable was in June 2001. That’s when Lee and a guy he knows built our garage. A large two stall garage. In just three days. And then Lee’s friend, Mike, came over and put the siding on in just a few days too. It never even occurred to me to take pictures. But now I wish I had. It was such an accomplishment for Lee to build our very own garage. I wish I had documented it. But instead, all I have are pictures of the finished project…like the picture below of the back of the garage. Our detached garage is in our back yard facing the alley behind our house.

Many of you have heard the funny [but scary at the time] stories about Skyler & Spencer getting out of the house via the back door and finding themselves one block over. One kid is a handful. Two toddlers is nightmare. Once they figured out how to open that back screen door there was no keeping them in the house. So we needed to put up a fence.

In 2002, one of Lee’s friends, Mike [but a different Mike then the one that helped with the garage siding] had some extra fencing materials. It was almost enough to get around our yard [since our one neighbor already has a fence around her yard], but we were still a little short.

And then a guy up the street noticed we were putting up a fence and asked us if we needed any more materials. He had some extra he wasn’t using. So we took advantage of that and Lee and Mike were able to put up our fence…for free. FREE. You can’t beat that.

Our next big project was adding a fourth bedroom. Or rather bonus room because there are no windows. I originally wanted to add a window, but I don’t think we are going to do that now.

When we bought our house, our basement was partially finished. The stairs led down to a bathroom and then to the left a huge family room. If you turned right at the bottom of the stairs you went in to a big storage room with cement floors. This is where the washer and dryer were (and still are). The walls were drywalled, but nothing else was done. The floor plan was [roughly] like this:

Lee moved the big work bench that was in the storage room, out to the garage. Then he drywalled the wall along the stairs to close it off. After that he put down carpet squares that he got from a friend. It finally looked less like a barren, cold storage garage and more like a big room.

In 2002 [shortly before Caleb was born], we moved Keaton and Justis in to that space. It was large enough that we could dismantle the bunk beds and they had two twin beds. They really liked that idea.

However, I was worried because they were so far away from the rest of the family. Keaton was only 7 and Justis was 9. And Justis was in Wisconsin for most of the year so Keaton was down there alone most nights. Plus he was still a little scared of the dark.

The deciding factor was that there were no windows. And Keaton was a little too young to come up with creative ways to get out of that room with no windows if there was a fire or something.

So in early 2003, after living in that room for almost a year, we moved Keaton and Justis back upstairs. They took over the master bedroom (with their very own bathroom and walk-in closet). And Lee and I moved in to the basement “bedroom.”

For Keaton’s 9th birthday I took him to New York to visit Grandma Cathy. And while we were gone, Lee was a very busy beaver. By the time we got home on August 11th, Lee had built a wall in the middle of our bedroom. Our new floor plan looked like this:

This new wall was to block off the space that would some day be the laundry room and our walk-in closet.

In the summer of 2004 Lee got quite a deal from a couple of buddies on his softball team. One of his friends, Brett, manages a couple of apartment buildings and they had some carpet remnants that they didn’t need. So he gave it to us for free. And another softball pal, Matt, installs carpet for a living. So he came over one day and installed the carpet for a case of beer. Now you can’t beat that price. I cannot even express how much more liveable the room looked with nice comfy beige carpet. The mauvish, deep purplish carpet tiles were nice for the interim, but the carpet was awesome.

In December 2004, I went on a business trip to Chicago. And while I was gone, Lee was once again a very busy boy. This time he put up the wall between the laundry room and the closet. He didn’t get a chance to drywall it, but he was able to put up a very sturdy bar for us to hang up our clothes. Finally, I had a [somewhat] closet. And the new floor plan looked like this:

After many discussions about the ceiling, we finally decided on a drop ceiling. It is the basement and a lot of the wires run through that ceiling. So Lee decided it would be easier to have a ceiling that we could get in to easily.

Lee was all jazzed about it. He got an estimate from a guy he knew from high school. That guy quoted us like $800 or something outrageous like that. Granted it was sound proof tiles and he probably does an excellant job. But we weren’t looking to spend that much money.

So then Lee talked to his friend, Roger (who builds houses for a living), and Roger said it’s pretty easy…even Lee could do it :). So Lee decided to give it a try.

We went to Menards and looked at all the pretty tiles. We picked out the 2×4 tiles because we thought it would be easier to put up. When we got it all home Lee went to work. After many trials and errors, he figured it out and got the ceiling up. And it only took him a couple of days. He did a great job. It looks fantastic. And with each new project he completes, our room looks more and more comfy.

    

This summer (in June 2005) Keaton and I went to London with my mom. While we were gone I called home (actually every day) and Lee told Skyler “don’t tell mom what were doing.” So of course, I asked her what daddy was doing. But like a good girl she told me she couldn’t tell me. So I brought out the big guns. I told her I bought her some really cool stuff; including a bracelet and ring. So, then she whispered “daddy’s making a wall.” So the cat was out of the bag. The drywall was coming up on the wall between the laundry room and the closet. Our view went from this to this….

    

But “building” a new bedroom isn’t the only improvement we’ve made. [Don't you like how I say "we've" like I had anything to do with any of the these home improvement projects? I haven't sweated a single drop. But I sure enjoy the prize. ;-)]

Our house was built in 1983 and the windows were the original windows. Twenty years old may not sound that old. But these windows were so drafty you could feel the wind coming in while you were sitting on the couch. In fact, sometimes it would even move the curtain. The windows needed to go.

In March 2003, Lee had his friend, Roger, come over and measure each of our windows [which are all non-standard]. Then Roger took Lee to Menards to pick out some new ones. They got some really nice windows that you can open from the top or the bottom. That is so nice with little kids. Especially little kids who like to close the windows by themselves. On extremely hot days. But now if they are open at the top, the kids [Caleb] don’t know how to shut them.

Roger put in the first two windows while Lee watched and took careful notes. Then Lee put in the last six windows. And Lee did an awesome job. He is a regular handyman.

We also bought a new front door and a new back door; including new screen doors for both. Roger put all of those doors on. But Lee helped.

In 2001 [when he built the garage], Lee worked for a wholesale supply company. He got an awesome deal on the siding for the garage. So we bought extra for our house. And then that siding for our house sat in the garage. For FOUR years.

Finally, just this week, Lee’s friends Dave and Mike [the fence Mike, not the garage siding Mike] came over to put that siding on the house. Real live siding. On our house! Oh the excitment.

So far only three sides are done. Well almost done. There are just a couple of strips left on the one side….because we ran out of siding. Lee is working a deal with his old employer though to get us some more siding. Hopefully we can get a couple of scraps to finish that side. Then we will get a color that is very close to our original color for the back side of the house. But at this point, I’m just thrilled to see my “new” house. Here you can see the before, during and after.

Doesn’t it look fabulous? I love it. And I am so proud of my “toolman.”