Home Improvements

Ben and I bought a house last July and have been so excited to have a place of our own. For the first time we can alter our surroundings. We can paint, we can replace, we can nail things into the wall, we can put up shelves. So we have.

The first things we did after we moved in was to paint. We started with the living room and the hallway going upstairs. Next we moved to the kitchen and painted there then slowly, the bathrooms, bedrooms and finally the den or Ben's place downstairs. We were so excited about our accomplishment. We showed it off when family came in to town and have friends over. We put up our pictures and got some new curtains and Ben with the help of his mom stained some wood planks and put up shelves in his Den. That was completed in January.

Now we're moving on to our next project. Ben and I filed our taxes and we were excited to get our tax credit for buying a home. Our house was built in the seventies so the windows are single pane and our utilities go right out the window quite literally. We started shopping around the got quotes from several places to get new windows. As a result we found out about a tax credit program were we can get up to 30% not to exceed $1500 of the money we spend getting energy efficient windows. Once we received our tax return (which took 7 weeks by the way), we chose our dream windows and ordered them last week. They should arrive April 8th and we're so excited. After that we'll work with an installer and after 2 days labor tops we'll have beautiful new windows! Fear not, pictures will be posted. Once that's done and the snow goes away, (It's snowing as I'm typing this) we'll have our open house and invite over some friend for some grilling goodness and some fun.

Next projects on the agenda, painting the exterior of our house this summer and after that tiling the bathroom, I love owning a house!