The Money Pit

I knew when we bought a bank foreclosure house several years ago that we would have to do some repair work and remodeling.  Since the house was about 30,000 under market value at the time we bought it, I figured that would do the repairs and remodeling.  Hmmm, let see I think we are over the 30,000 now, but our house value has also jumped to 60,000 more than we paid for it.  I pray we stay way below that 60,000 mark!  To date we have done the following.  We moved into our home in March of 2005.  Not long into the summer we realized that our house was HOT!  No matter how low we turned the thermostat the house stayed warm, esp upstairs.  The basement of course was cool.  We then realized that the windows were not blocking air.  Doug put some plastic on the inside of the downstairs window and you could hear the air blowing the plastic.  So we replaced all of the windows and put in new siding with an additional layer of insulation.  Wow, that really helped with the electricity bill.  Great improvement.  Jan of 2006 on the coldest day of the season I turned up the heat to warm up the house a bit and the heater made the most obnoxious high pitch squeal I have ever heard, and you guessed it no heat came out of the vents.  So we put in a new heat and air conditioning system and added vents to all of the basement(only half was vented prior to this).  We then had outlets that would no longer work.  We had an electrician to come in and repair and replace some of the electrical wires.  Then the plumbing at the kitchen sink began to leak.  Thankfully my dad came and fixed it for us.  Then more of the electrical outlets stopped working, thank goodness Doug and I were able to do the repairs.  Then we found a leak in the upstairs bathroom.  They would have to cut out part of the basement ceiling to do the repairs, so since they were doing that we moved the washer and dryer downstairs and added a tub to the master bath and added a full bath downstairs with the washer dryer.  Remember the posts at the first of the year with the joys of that remodel?  I don't want to remember that.  Then Elijah flooded the bathroom in the middle of the remodel and we had to replace the subfloor in the bathroom.  Once they moved the washer and dryer they would no longer work, so we had to replace them.  Then last weekend, Doug was going into the basement bathroom and realized that the carpet in front of the door was wet.  He opened the closet by the bathroom where, you guessed it, the water heater is located and of course it was leaking.  Great, now the water heater has to be replaced and of course this occurs on a holiday weekend so we can pay more for the repair.  As you can tell from this post most of this has been repair work, I have not gotten to do much remodeling, wonder when I will get to do that?  Almost everything is new now, so I probably better hurry up before anything gets old!  Oh wait, I think we are BROKE!!!  I must admit I have done some remodeling.  All but one of the rooms have been painted.  I have replaced several of the light fixtures.  We did update the fixtures in the master bath when we added the tub.  Doug has redone the back deck and has started a walkway around the hill into the back yard and we have put in shrubs(twice now, they keep dying!).  Maybe one day the money pit will be our dream home.  Of course, since we bought this home we have adopted Sarah and I will not be sending her to the school she will be zoned for(we are really thinking hard about our options on this).  Elijah's elementary and middle school are ok, but he also will not go to high school here.  Let's see, Sarah will start receiving services from the school system in September of next year.  Think I better go call the real estate agent we need a new home!