Home Improvement

Our plan has been to do minimal aesthetic maintenance to our house since the kids and pets just trash the place. Then, when the kids are gone and the pets are dead, fix up the house, sell it, and buy a new home. It's nice not worrying too much about the house as it's being trashed.

Despite our plan, about once a year we allow ourselves to dream about possible home improvements we might make. We usually get bogged down for a day discussing various options before we wear ourselves out and forget about it.

We've come to realize that there are some things that we could do to enhance our enjoyment of the house and, at the same time, improve the value of the house. So, recently I decided to actually call a number of contractors, discuss some of our ideas, and get some rough estimates. I put together a detailed document on about 10 projects that we would like to have done. For example: redoing the front porch\steps\walkway\landscaping; replacing the stucco front with shake shingles, etc; redoing the master bath, adding on to the back of the house.

We were kind of hoping that the contractors would tell us that some of our ideas didn't make sense, so that we could forget about them, but it seems that, given enough money, anything is possible. We haven't even had anything done yet, but it's been quite a bit of effort just to think about what we might want to do and coordinate discussions with the contractors.

On the surface I look like an easy going guy and I am - as long as everything's in order. I really like having nothing on my mind - a "to do" list with 0 items and the freedom to allow my mind to flitter from one idle thought to another. I know that about myself and that's why I'm hesitant to engage in anything very big. I can't seem to make quick decisions. I have to weigh all the options and, rarely, is any decision a perfect decision. Instead, it usually involves compromises, which really bothers me to the core. My brain gets overloaded trying to search in vain for the perfect solution. Usually, I try to keep from getting myself into the infinite obsession loop by just not engaging at all.

Unfortunately, I'm currently engaged...and obsessing.