No Spend Projects

The beauty of buying a house and property that are 'fixer uppers' is the fact that you get to work to make it your own.

The real drag about buying a house and property that are 'fixer uppers' is you have to PAY to make them work as your own.

Of course, when we moved in plans were fairly set on how things would go and what projects would be done before move in, then listed in order of priority, and weather permitting.  It lined up so awesome on paper.

REAL LIFE doesn't like to be contained on paper and within set lists.  Why this still shocks me some days at the age of 38, I can't tell you. 

So - now we're revamping our priorities.  Of course most of these, in a dollars and sense fashion, revolve around paying for major medical surgeries.  (THANK YOU JESUS that we were able to get them for Charlotte!!!)  Yet, you can still do quite a bit of house stuff before you fork out cash.

Like rip out decks.

It had to come out anyway, remember?  Here we were before Saturday - Mudsville. (Actually, I told Alan the other day that we really hadn't taken out the deck.  What we really did was create a new, enlarged, bathroom-with-a-view for our cats. :/  He said, 'Oh it's always been that....it's just that we can now see it. Ggggrrreeeaaatttt.)

So...we were considering what to do with this area when last week I read in our local community paper that the education foundation was GIVING AWAY bricks from an old school that they had to burn down.  The sparks went off in my brain and the date was circled on the calendar.  Saturday my AWESOME husband went down and picked up a F-350 load and we've begun our own chain gang at the Hayes zoo.  It's awesome.  I can't wait for someone to tell me they're bored or don't want to do school. 

We're chipping away old mortar from three sides of the bricks and laying them out in a walking path out the front door.  I was hoping that we'd have enough to do the path and finish out the entire area where the deck was, but with just this one load we'll be short.  I've sent an email to find out if there will be another opportunity to salvage more bricks.

HANDSOME HUBBY ALERT!!!!

I love having a piece of community history and re-purposing a great material.  Since we have to build monster steps it may not be exactly a NO SPEND project, but the bulk of it will be just sweat and tears with as little bloodshed as possible.