New Year’s resolutions

My best girl is going to get some major work done in 2008…as long as my checkbook does not burst into flames from too much use. I’ve got to prime, caulk, and paint the interiors on my windows—a leftover project, if you will, from 2007. That’s old houses for you. Everything takes twice as long and costs 4x as much as you expected. Ain’t life grand? :)

Then comes the fun stuff. Ideally, I would like to get the steel siding stripped off to see what’s hiding underneath. Also ideally, I’d like to find someone who will do it for the taking of said siding for the scrap value. Or maybe I can pull down the siding and get it hauled away for the taking. But then, if I’m doing all the work, I want to get the cash from scrapping it! Of course, I can probably only fit half a length of siding—if that—into my dependable old Hyundai. That’d make for a fun +/- 247 trips back and forth to the scrap yard.

More reasonable project goals for 2008:

1. Begin stripping wallpaper. This, I’m sure, will be super duper fantabulous fun. Just like running a splinter into your foot is fun. And I’ve got 11 rooms’ worth of splinters. This is one of those projects that I just have to start on a rainy day because I’m antsy but don’t want to go outside. Ever have those days? They can become quite productive if channeled. Or they can become flop-on-the-couch-and-watch-old-movies-all-day kinds of days. Very nice.
   
2. Start patching holes. You know the holes the electricians made when they fished the wiring through the house? Yep, they’re still there, in all their crappy-looking glory. They’re generally high up on the walls and have been a little out of sight, out of mind…but lately I’ve been noticing them more and more. Probably because I’ve been living in a house with freakin’ holes in the walls since September of 2005. Think that might be it?
   
3. Readhere the plaster ceilings. I’m not seeing a lot of sagging on my plaster ceilings, but they are cracking, and right now I’m not sure whether their keys or the canvas/wallpaper coverings are holding them up and in place. Seems to me that it'd be wise to take care of it now, before it turns into some house-related crisis. I have enough of those already, thankyouverymuch. So some month I am going to break out some scaffolding, drill some holes in the plaster, and inject a flexible adhesive, then brace it all with plywood and 2x4s until it’s dry. And I will repeat this magical feat room by room until I have no more saggy ceilings. It sounds like a lot of work when I put it that way. Gawd.
   
4. Paint. Sounds simple enough, right? Paint can change the whole feel of a house, right? Yeah, sure—easy. I just have to strip the wallpaper, patch the holes, and/or fix the ceilings before I break out those brushes and rollers.
   
5. Pull up the remaining carpet. Notice how I list this one last? I’m doing it last so I won’t have to be careful of my floors when I am working on projects #1, 2, and 3 . . . at least I won't have to be careful in the three rooms that are still carpeted. In all the others I’ll be in floorcloth hell. I particularly hate to put tarps/floorcloth/dropcloths down because no matter what, they seem to slide around on me just as I am near the top of a ladder doing something that requires me to not think about the fact that it feels like my ladder is sliding out from underneath me. Think of me, please, and write something nice about me when I’m gone.
   
   Some list—just five things. I will consider myself extremely lucky if I manage to finish them all before the sun sets on 2008. And that’s just the house.