Home Projects

Ah! Home projects. They are always fun, until they are not...LOL. I actually enjoy home projects whether it’s a simple project or something a bit more involved. Some people hate projects unless someone else is doing it for them. I can do most home projects myself whether it’s remodeling a basement or room, redoing a kitchen, building a deck, painting, etc. An occasional project is fine, and I find them to be fun and a good way to occupy my time.  But I am at a point in my life where I want projects to be farther apart and less involved.  Take for instance the pictures included in this post.  They are from a project I completed a few years ago that looked very straightforward at first, but morphed into something bigger once demo day started.  We had this huge built-in cabinet in our front living room that looked ok at first but soon started to look like old school Florida and dated.  It had mirrors in each cubby with lights that looked cool sometimes depending on what was displayed but it also limited the room configuration.  Plus, a huge TV does not belong in the formal living room. 

So, the decision was made to rip it out!  Sounds easy, right?  Just tear off the drywall, rip out the studs and your soon down to bare walls and ceiling.  It turns out that whoever built this monstrosity knew how to build it to last.  Since we are in Florida and Florida has termites, they used metal studs.  And did they over-engineer this thing.  Wood studs generally come apart easily with a hammer, crowbar and Sawzall but metal studs are screwed together.  And man did they use a lot of screws.  Demo day should have been just that, a day.  But this took me 3 days to tear apart.  When I said sometimes a simple project morphs into something bigger, well, this did.  Turns out that once the structure was removed, we now had to repair the back wall, pull some wiring, re-route some electrical, and close up an old A/C vent hole in the ceiling that was concealed within the built-in cabinet.  But in the end, it was worth it.  The room now looks amazing and can be configured in several different ways. 

So, I strayed off course a bit.  The point is that I do love projects but sometimes they can get out of hand and become much more time consuming and costly than originally planned.  I guess that can only be expected.  I was happy that most of our projects were complete and I could take a breather and just enjoy our home.  But suddenly, yesterday, my wife and I were looking at my man cave/office and she said, “the energy feels off in here”.  Now, my man cave/office is actually meant to be a bedroom but I was using it as my space.  Long story short, we ended up with a third mattress that I needed to find a place for.  The only place available was my space, my man cave, my sanctuary…I had my space configured with a 65-inch TV, desk, comfy chair and man cave-ish side table.  There was no room to fit a king size bed and still call it my space.  But what are the options?  Loose my sanctuary or find an alternative.  So, I found an alternative.  I installed a great looking murphy bed cabinet that hides the mattress.  Great alternative but it obviously messed with the energy flow of my space.  So, back to yesterday.  We needed to reconfigure the space to make it feel more energetic and inviting.  Huh, a project emerges.  Fortunately, this turned out to be a one-day project.  We moved the 65” TV to our bedroom since there was already a wall mount there, purchased a new 55” TV for the man cave (it fits the space better) and mounted it to the wall, moved the desk away from the wall and rearranged the chair.  Voila, better feel and flow, more comfortable and it only took half a day. 

Off track again.  So, I like projects but I am also happy to have fewer of them as I get older and just want to enjoy my time at home.  This is the new plan, to just live and enjoy…That is, until the next project pops up…  How do you feel about home projects?  Love them, hate them, avoid them like the plague?  Let me know your thoughts and share your project experiences in the comments.