Wow what a huge amount of work! Two weeks after we moved in a tree fell in storm. We cleaned it up, but identified 6 other dead and standing trees on the property that were also at risk of falling. Had a tree service cut the 6 down. It would have cost a fortune for the service to also clean everything up, and would have been a tremendous waste as they just take logs to the dump. Instead, I decided I would do the cleanup to save some money, stash away some firewood, and score some logs to mill into boards for woodworking.

We have a crawlspace under a portion of our house and the floor is very cold above it. I set out to add some insulation to try to reduce heat loss and improve comfort.

Our new house has two traditional wood burning fireplaces with masonry chimneys. We had them cleaned and inspected, which revealed significant damage to the mortar in the joints between the chimney tiles. Given the high cost to repair, the inefficiencies or traditional wood burning fireplaces, and that we have so much firewood on our property, I decided to install a wood burning insert instead.

Our new house had signs of mice living in the basement ceiling, so we went on a hunt to fix the problem and replace the drop ceiling, which had accumulated an odor.

Our house produces a huge volume of yard waste with tons of leaves and cleanup from perennials, and there is no pickup service option available. Only option is to make it go away with a compost pile.

When we moved into our townhouse it had a terrible kitchen: there wasn’t enough cabinet space, the cabinets were terrible builder basic quality, the counter tops were made of cheap laminate, there wasn’t enough working space on the counters, the sink was thin gauge metal with a bad faucet and garbage disposal. The seller did install new appliances before we moved in, which we were able to salvage. We needed a change!