Blue View – I Need a Project

We’ve been home almost a month now, and my to-do list is getting shorter. Most of the deferred yard work is done, all the various filters have been changed, a new sprinkler controller installed and set to the winter watering schedule (one day a week here in Las Vegas… no need to drain and winterize our irrigation systems like all our friends in the northern climes must do. A definite perk to living in the Mojave Desert). Even all those pesky tasks that I groused about last week are now complete, including programming a new garage door opener remote - a job that should have taken fifteen minutes, but took me close to a full day.

Now, as the to-do list is getting down to the really mundane tasks like clean the BBQ grill and trim the juniper in front, I’ve started getting edgy. What’s next? Marcie called it during our morning walk – “You need a project!”. Yes! That’s exactly what I need – a project that will keep me fully engaged (or obsessed with as Marcie would describe it) for a few weeks. Preferably something that requires some demolition (‘demo work’ as we men call it), and involves lots of power tools. My brother, Paul, has seemed a little down lately – I’m sure he’d welcome a project as well. We can do some brotherly bonding as we rip, cut, hammer and saw.

So, what should we do? Renovate the kitchen? It certainly needs it, but it’s probably not a great idea to rip out the kitchen at the beginning of the holiday season. We’ve been discussing converting our rarely-used guest bedroom into an office. Maybe, but that seems like a pretty small project. I’ve started a list of upgrades to Blanche, but I had planned to start those after the new year.

How about updating the main bath? Aha – the perfect project! The basin has a number of stress cracks, the vanity is dated, the paint is tired, the wall cabinet was never that great... and the tub/shower? We’ll demo the whole thing and refresh our tiling skills to build a gorgeous new shower enclosure. We’ll be without the use of the bath for awhile, but we can work around that.

There’re lots of things we need to get started on; figuring out a budget, deciding on color schemes, vanity tops, lighting, tile options, shower doors, faucets, shower heads… In fact, I need to cut this blog short - it’s time to head to the local big box stores and tile outlets and get this project going.

I’ll keep you posted...