Kuunari

Hello pavement!   Haven’t seen you in a while!  

We’ve been enjoying warm weather here in Minneapolis for the last couple of days, and so of course it’s gotten me thinking about the summer months, and everything that we hope to do.  In no particular order, here’s what we have so far.  

The Basement (medium priority)

The basement needs a bit of love.  Our hope is to turn part of the basement into a in-law apartment for when family members stay/live with us.  That’s going to involve a number of upgrades.  

• Radon mitigation – this goes without saying.  If anyone is going to live down there, we need to make sure there are never dangerous levels of radon.  The radon tests came back low, but still, if someone is living down there, it needs to be taken care of.  
• Door to back area installed – this needs to be done if the room is ever going to be an actual bed room. 
• Egress window – same deal. If someone is sleeping down there, it better be safe.  
• Shower installed – this is going to be the trickiest part.  We somehow have to install a shower in a bathroom that currently has no room for one, which means the bathroom needs to expand into the laudry room, which means that the laundry room needs to be radically reformatted while respecting the circuit breaker box.  You get the idea.   This is going to be the trickiest part of the whole job.  
• Walls redone – at some point, the faux wood paneling from the 1960’s was painted over. It looks just as good as it sounds.  That has to come down and be replaced with drywall.  Not a real priority, but something that we would like to do.  

The upstairs bathroom

The upstairs bathroom has a closet the size of the bathroom, which we think will be a great place to put a bathtub as the house currently doesn’t have one.  However, that would mean covering up the nice wood flooring in that room, which always makes me cringe.  We might also need to take out the wall separating the two rooms as well.  When it’s done, it’s going to be nice, but it’s going to be a bigger project than I think it is.  

Odds and Ends

• The wonderful, huge garage needs to be organized and sorted, turning it into a true work space.  
• The ceiling in the baby’s room needs a coat of paint.  I’ll do that when my wife is out of town.  
• The light fixture in the backyard needs to be replaced. 
• The den windows need molding.  And stained. 
• The kitchen cabinets need to be painted/stained.  I vote getting a dark/black stain, rather than painting it.  It makes me cry painting wood these days after what I dealt with stripping paint at my condo.  
• A dimmer switch installed in the dinning room.
• Power wash the siding.
• Trim and clean up all the scrub trees that have grown up in the backyard.  

Things that need to get done, that I likely won’t be able to do myself

• Re-grout the chimney. Apparently it’s being held up by gravity these days.  (Medium Priority)
• Fix the wiring in the circuit breaker box. (Medium/High priority)
• Remove the vermiculite in the attic.  (Low priority)

The joys of home ownership, am I right?