Moving Forward.

Our old house is officially on the market, and has been for just over a week now. We've had two showings, but no offers have come in. We'll probably do an open house in a little while, but for now we're in a "wait and see" holding pattern. We've had several people call it a "unique" property (I guess because it isn't your typical subdivision house? and it still needs some work?), so I suppose the right person just needs to come along.

I have so many ideas for the new house and for my life, and I want to jump head first into everything and do it all at once, but the reality is I need to pace myself and choose maybe one or two decent sized projects to tackle in a year or so. But I am a millenial and having to choose frustrates me. I WANT IT ALL. AND I WANT IT NOW.

Because I want to do so much, and I don't know which few projects to choose for this year, I'm probably going to end up doing very little. I tend to plan, plan, plan, plan something, and then...never do anything with that plan.

That being said, I feel completely different this year than I have in the past few years. Without major renovations looming over us, or having too much stuff in a too small house, I feel like I can breath, and my mood and outlook are vastly improved. So in completely cliche fashion, maybe this year will be different?

And just in case it is, here's a look at a few of the things gnawing at the back of my mind.

CHICKENS.

I've been talking about getting chickens since we moved into the old house. Enough talking about it, it's time to get some feathered friends. This spring. Mike and I were throwing the idea around again a few weekends ago, and there's still a lot of figuring out to do (where exactly do we house them? will they freeze to death in the winter? how many do we get? dual purpose or straight up egg layers? day old chicks, started birds, or ready to lay?). I'm good at research and planning, so this part of the process doesn't freak me out. When it comes time to order actual birds is when I'll start procrastinating...

VEGETABLE GARDENS.

We have seeds. We have cedar to build raised beds. But, we probably won't take this on this summer. There has been discussion about moving the fence that's by the horse barn, because the way it's situated right now results in a lot of 90 degree angles in a short distance and it's a pain in the arse for my father-in-law and brother-in-law when they're running tractors and other machines in that field. Currently there's a great open space behind the horse barn that would be perfect for gardening, but if the fence is moved this space goes away. Which is obviously fine because the farm is the priority. So even though we have most of the supplies needed to get this project going, it's on hold for now until we determime exactly where the garden beds will go.

THE BATHROOM.

Mike and I both really dislike this bathroom - both it's functionality and it's appearance. A renovation of the room isn't in the cards, but I would like to spruce it up in the looks department. It'll take a bit more than just paint and swapping hardware to get it to be more tolerable, and I'm sort of dreading the idea of turning our only bathroom into a work zone. But, I've been gathering ideas and sources over the past few weeks, so it's actually something I might tackle relatively soon. Fingers crossed?

FRONT & BACK PORCH.

Both the front and back porch need a little bit of attention. At the very least they need to be pressure washed and restained/painted, but the stairs on both could use some work too - they're a little bouncy.

THE BASEMENT.

I wrote a post awhile back about there being water in our basement. Putting in a proper sump pit and running an outlet pipe from the basement is a must. There is a ton of room for storage down there, but we aren't using it right now because of there being such a high chance of things getting ruined. So hopefully we'll get to this when things start to warm up. Which probably won't be for a million years based on how flipping cold this winter has been so far.

In addition to all of that, there are a few small things here and there that need done. Like fixing up the oval window that I started in the fall. And re-attaching some metal flashing around one of the posts on the front porch. And recaulking all of the windows on the exterior, because oh my goodness when the wind gets blowing, does the bay window ever howl.

One thing at a time, right?