Home Improvements

In August, we had a bad windstorm. It took a lot of our shingles off. It was suggested that we talk to our Home Owners Insurance. They sent out a claims adjuster and our insurance sent us a check. We had a roofer come give us a bid. To have the entire roof removed and new shingles put back on was pricey. But the roofer did a bid with just putting new shingles over the old ones, which he said would still last 40 years. That bid was just under the amount of the check the insurance sent us. So, we got a new roof for free!! (Our Homeowners only went up about $100 per year, so it worked out well)

Old roof (ready to be re-shingled):

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                 New roof:

 

This kitchen faucet was really cheap when we bought it a couple of years ago. It felt like it would start breaking soon (I'm sure I just wanted a new one, so I was imagining it) so Ryan replaced this faucet:

With this new faucet!! It has a nice brushed finish, so it looks clean most of the time. Plus, it has a sprayer, which I had declined on the old faucet, because I didn't think I would use it. Well, this time I got one, and I don't know how I cleaned without it. It is great.

Since we (Ryan did all the hard work. I just ordered what I wanted) were replacing faucets, I got a new one for the kid's bathroom. This old one was really hard for any child to turn on, and I got tired of having to turn it on and off each time someone went to the bathroom.

So Ryan put this new one in. It is a lot easier for the kids to use. The handle has a tear-drop hole in the handle, and it has a brushed finish that is easy to keep clean. The only disadvantage is that the temperature control is not very fine. It seems to be hot or cold. Oh well, next time...

This is our bookshelf. I painted it yellow years ago, and we keep the girl's books in it. It didn't have any dividers, so the girls couldn't really see what books they had. Which meant we read the same 4 stories over and over because that's all they could see. I was complaining to Ryan about the books always falling on top of each other and all leaning one direction or another. He came up with this fabulous idea. Put dividers in! The girls can now see all the books and it makes it a lot easier for them.

Our old shutters were a pale gray blue color. Which looked fine. I wanted a change, and so we got some dark blue ones instead.

When we took off the old shutters,we found lots and lots of wasp nests. Yuck. Left side of the window:

Right side: (if you click on the picture, it will get bigger and you can see them better)

But this is the final result, and I think it looks nice. Ryan says he can't tell a difference, but he was still so great to put them up and put sealant around them so no more wasps can build nests back there. I think the new shutters brighten the house a little.

This is a new curtain I put on the kitchen sink window:

This is the back wall of our walk in closet. It has some drawers and misc boxes piled on top of them:

I painted some shelves a beautiful deep purple, with white trim:

And I painted the knobs of the dresser the same purple:

This is the new and improved closet.A little color makes everything better.  :)

I'm not sure why I felt I needed to do all these changes. All of the sudden I just felt like things needed to be different. And then Spring came, and I don't worry about the inside of the house as much. I do have a list of things I want to do when it starts getting colder this year though...
Ryan has been great through all these projects. He is always willing to step in and help when I'm at the end of my rope. My hero!