We bought our home in 1997 when our kids were mostly little and when house prices were a lot lower than today.
It was a fixer-upper.
An elderly couple had previously owned our house, which was built in 1967. They had taken pretty good care of it but they really had not updated anything.
The first two projects we undertook were when we bought it. We replaced all the windows. We used Thermal Windows because the windows are custom made here in Tulsa and because it is a Christian-run company.
We also updated our kitchen. It wasn’t a renovation. We had really ugly dark green kitchen cabinets that we had resurfaced with wood. Those were two projects that we paid someone else to do.
Our house had some really ugly wallpaper, including some red velvet paper by the front door. We stripped all of the wallpaper and essentially repainted the entire interior walls.
That was a lot of work but we were young and we couldn’t afford to have someone else do that work.
The guest bathroom was a problem. The previous owners had carpet over the tile floor in the bathroom. We ripped up the carpet and, to our dismay, they had damaged the tile on the edges with carpet nails. We repainted the walls and cabinets.
In the past 24 years, we have:
- Replaced the heater and air conditioner
- Recarpeted the entire house
- Replaced the carpet in the living room with wood tiling
- Completely remodeled the master bathroom
- Cut down and removed two trees
- Replaced both ovens in the kitchen
- Replaced the garbage disposal twice
- Replaced the garage door opener twice
- Replaced the natural gas line from the house to the meter
- Replaced the guttering
- Replaced sections of our sewer line (under the slab) twice and had the line cleared many times
- Converted our formal living room into an office
- Installed ceiling fans in all four bedrooms, the dining room, the kitchen and the living room
- Had a lot of electrical work, including rewiring the ceiling lights in the living room
- Purchased two refrigerators
- Built a squirrel-proof tomato cage out of pvc pipe and chicken wire in the back yard
- Repaired parts of our brick fence
There may be more but that’s all I can remember.
We still have these projects left to complete:
- Replace the walkway in our front yard
- Reshingle the roof
- Replace the carpeting in the four bedrooms
- A complete remodel of the kitchen
- Replace the concrete in our backyard patio
The good news is that the remodeling of the guest bathroom is done.
Chuck Daugherty, owner of Trinity Renovation, is now our go-to guy on big projects and he oversaw the bathroom makeover.
We got rid of everything except the toilet (it was in good shape) and we had the bathtub redone. We replaced the green tile on the floor and in the shower. The shower tile is subway tile and it looks great.
We installed a custom-built bathroom base and countertop with new plumbing, new lighting and a new mirror.
Now it is a showcase bathroom. It’s not as nice as the bathroom in The Shoji Tabuchi Theatre in Branson, Missouri, but we didn’t have room for a pool table in our bathroom.
This bathroom project took several weeks because skilled workers are very busy these days and we had interruptions due to the Chinese coronavirus.
As the years go by, we do less and less of the renovation but we are better able financially to have someone else do the work.
We paid off our mortgage last year and people ask if we are going to sell our home.
That’s is not the plan right now.
The housing market is great and terrible right now. Ours is worth more than twice what we paid for it in 1997 but if we were to sell, we would have to pay a high price – so it is a wash.
I love our house. We plan to arrange it so our kids and other relatives can visit and have a nice bedroom to stay in. We went through earthquakes in this house. We endured blizzards and ice storms and power outages.
And we have a lot of memories associated with this house. We raised our kids here. We know our neighbors. We have a great location. Our business is here.
It seems a shame to put some much sweat equity and investment into a family home just to sell it to someone else to enjoy.
God gave us this house and we have many answers to prayer associated with it. The time may come that He leads us elsewhere, but right now we still have some projects to complete.