Attention Thrifty Homeowners
April 30, 2008 by Deborah Ng
Filed under Around the House, Simple Pleasures, Simpler Thinking
Did you gut your master bath the week after you moved into your house six years ago and haven’t gone back since?
Did you peel all the wallpaper in the hall and add primer in hopes of painting before winter set in four years ago? Have you taken to decorating your walls with kids art projects to add a little color and cover the holes? Do say every summer you’re going to finish the painting but then another project pops up?
Is your back room tripling as a pantry, laundry room and place to store the cat’s litter pan?
Does the truly ugly wallpaper in your one functioning bathroom look like this because your six year old likes to sit and peel?
Do you use your garage primarily for storage of DIY items?
Does the family sports car look like this?
If so, you’re Simply Thrifty folks. You don’t need to spend your money on such frivolities as paint, wallpaper and toilets? Instead, you use it for necessities such as food, a Wii and a large screen television. You know what you want and where your priorities lie. You don’t mind being too embarrassed to have company over if it means you can have your toys, because after all, having company means you have to wait for your turn with the Wiimote. Besides, you can just tell everyone you’re renovating and they’ll understand.
Simply Thrifty folks aren’t cheap, though they might be frugal. Simply Thrifty folks don’t do without…they learn to live within their means and save for the things they want while still getting what they need. Simply Thrifty folks don’t rack up expensive credit card bills, instead they put away a little each week or month until they can pay for what they want in full. Simply Thrifty folks enjoy life, and all that comes with it, while knowing they don’t need to be a millionaire to do so.
Come visit Simply Thrifty, we may be renovating, but we’re always up for company.
LRN
Oh … wow then I should be okay. Now the old house, well that’s another story
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA I can’t stop laughing because other than having a gutted bathroom, this is so our home. We’ve been “redoing” and “organizing” our basement for 3 years now.
Thanks for letting me know I am not alone!
That looks like our old house. A million projects going at once and not one of them even close to being finished. Ok, so at this house, we have half a million projects going on and another half a million planned but not started yet. We’ve learned a little.
What’s worst is when you get stuck in the circular reasoning of, ‘we can’t finish this until this is done, we can’t finish this until we start this, we can’t start this until this happens, this won’t happen until this is done,’ and on and on until it seems like nothing will ever get done!
In all fairness though, we’re not sitting around every weekend either. It just seems that once we make headway, something else comes up. A car breaks down and needs repairs, the trees need to be chopped, we have to visit a relative…slow going.
Yeah…. I’m learning all about money pits.
You should see our back room. It was our den, and we’ve decided to turn it into a kitchen because the current kitchen/living room/dining space is to cramped — especially considering that there is a huge room in back that was just a really big, poorly decorated, poorly structured add-on living space.
It started when I looked under the carpets which was either a big mistake, or something I should have done ages ago. That led to ripping up all the carpet. Then I noticed how much stuff was coming down from behind the paneling. So, my husband and I removed that, revealing that it was packed over a foot high with roach dooky (fortunately we got pest control when we moved in, so there was no sign of living roaches). Then we removed the ceiling. Not pretty. However, it then got beyond what we could afford because the roof needs to be replaced — the roof that’s supposedly under warranty, but who knows who even did the roofing or where the previous owner is. Plus, the structure of the roof itself is not sufficient. I could go into everything else wrong with the room, but I’m afraid somebody might condemn it.
Anyhow, somewhere along the line we decided that we might as well make the room a kitchen, or at least not make it not a kitchen. We’ve also been kicking around the idea of adding a second story on the back (with professional help of course), because we really love the neighborhood and wouldn’t want to move just to upgrade, but the bedrooms and bathrooms are just too small for us, especially since we often find ourselves renting to a friend.
Of course, all that is on hold right now, but at least we’re not breathing so much roach dooky in. Plus, closing the back room off like we have has dramatically cut our electricity bill because there was NO insulation back there at all. And, it gives us the perfect place to store all our yard sale items — which I hope to get rid of this coming weekend and maybe the weekend after.
YES! Our house looks like this. The only difference is, we HAVE the supplies. I bought them when Hubby announced the project. Three years later, it sits. How do you MOTIVATE? I’d love never to see the underside of my shower stall when I use it.
Ha ha! I loved the part about the child who likes to sit and peel wallpaper…ah, isn’t parenthood something
Love your blog!
hahahahahahaahah This is like, “You might be a redneck . . .”. hahaha Wow, I really appreciate my husband now. We’ve been without a shower for 2 1/2 years. It’s finally almost done. lol We’ve been without vinyl in our other bathroom for about 3 weeks now. I guess that’s not so bad after all. hehe
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