When my husband and I bought our first place, it, like pretty much any place, needed some work. Most glaringly, the bathroom needed to be updated. Unless you have a special fondness for 1980s track lighting and tie-dyed tiles and then, this bathroom, would've been, like, the coolest bathroom ever.
The realtor had raised a casual eyebrow and said something innocuous like, "Updating the bathroom is an obvious way to increase the re-sale value of this place." Since I don't have a thing for track lighting and tie-dyed tiles (note: this may not actually be what they're called but it's descriptive), I immediately seized upon the carrot she was dangling and thought, "Oh YES. This will be the very first thing I do! I will improve the re-sale value and I will enjoy the lack of track lighting and tie-dyed tiles in the interim!" Ah, the sweet hopefulness of first-time buyers.
Of course, this never happened. We lived there for six and a half years and it bothered me...oh, approximately everyday. But we never got around to fixing it.
Cut to buying our new place. It too came with a long list of "...obvious ways to increase the resale value." You know, things like the bathroom door not closing. And actually no other door actually closing either. And a hole in the wall that let cold air in all winter. Small things like that.
But this time, I was actually going to do it. I was going to carpe diem, carpe momentum, carpe whatever I can to fix whatever I couldn't live with. Life is just too short to live with something that could be easily fixed that bothers you everyday. (Note that the key part of this is that it's easily fixed.)
And so concludes a week-long sojourn of a home under construction and a thousand little niggly projects completed.
And now the bathroom door--and all the doors--actually close. All the way. HOORAY! (OK, I know these are small joys. But it's amazing how much they mean.)
The realtor had raised a casual eyebrow and said something innocuous like, "Updating the bathroom is an obvious way to increase the re-sale value of this place." Since I don't have a thing for track lighting and tie-dyed tiles (note: this may not actually be what they're called but it's descriptive), I immediately seized upon the carrot she was dangling and thought, "Oh YES. This will be the very first thing I do! I will improve the re-sale value and I will enjoy the lack of track lighting and tie-dyed tiles in the interim!" Ah, the sweet hopefulness of first-time buyers.
Of course, this never happened. We lived there for six and a half years and it bothered me...oh, approximately everyday. But we never got around to fixing it.
Cut to buying our new place. It too came with a long list of "...obvious ways to increase the resale value." You know, things like the bathroom door not closing. And actually no other door actually closing either. And a hole in the wall that let cold air in all winter. Small things like that.
But this time, I was actually going to do it. I was going to carpe diem, carpe momentum, carpe whatever I can to fix whatever I couldn't live with. Life is just too short to live with something that could be easily fixed that bothers you everyday. (Note that the key part of this is that it's easily fixed.)
And so concludes a week-long sojourn of a home under construction and a thousand little niggly projects completed.
And now the bathroom door--and all the doors--actually close. All the way. HOORAY! (OK, I know these are small joys. But it's amazing how much they mean.)
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