I know this is hopelessly off topic, but...

A year and a half ago, at just a hair over 40, I ended my adult lifetime of apartment dwelling and bought a very cheap rather small house.

I started renovations right away; had my tenant move out (I shared the whole house with him,our own bedrooms, but other than that, totally sharing).

Here's what all got done (if anybody is even remotely interested);

Totally gutted the basement right to the cement. It was 1960's style 'rumpus room' until then with a bathroom straight out of a horror movie. This is the only thing I did myself; it was kinda fun smashing down walls :).

I also gutted the upstairs bathroom, which had candy-floss pink fixtures with GREEN WALLS and rust and rot everywhere. Got rid of the old furnace and put in high efficiency; re-did the shingles; new windows and exterior doors all around; excavated all around the basement and put in weeping tile, a sump hole and pump system, and clad the basement exterior with waterproofing and insulation. Put in new plumbing almost everywhere. New flooring upstairs, and re-did the upstairs bathroom with tiles, adobe-style walls, cedar ceiling and trim, and an air-jet tub; had the basement re-done as a totally independent rental suite, with shared area just for laundry. And most happily, found out the house was basically structurally sound, hooray!

The only things that did not happen were no new siding outside, no new kitchen upstairs (it is so ugly I refuse to even describe it), and no wall or carpet renovation in the upstairs bedrooms, but that can happen over the next few years.

And finally, my biggest suprise to myself in all this, I somehow, unbelievably, stayed on budget; everything happend for around 50,000, exactly how much I had to spend. Whew.

Now that a tenant has moved in that I seems ok (the suites are completely separate with private entrances, but some sounds bleeds through; however we both like the same music, yay!) everything has finally come together. Joy!

Thanks for reading my little brag-blog (blush!)... this is the first place I've posted how I feel about this anywhere. Maybe I can write something again now that I feel so settled!