Saturday, January 18, 2014

5 Home Improvement Items I Want for Our House

I seem to be on a home improvement kick lately.  In fact, I spent over an hour today browsing through home depot while visions of home improvement tasks danced in my head.  Here's my short list of home improvement tasks I want to accomplish this year:

  1. I would absolutely love to have a tankless water heater.  These are supposed to save a lot of money over the cost of your standard hot water tank that keeps gallons and gallons of water hot 24/7.  Plus, our gas utility will give us a $350 rebate if we buy such a hot water heater.  I'm hoping I can squeeze some money out of my summer work to buy one of these.
  2. A new washer and dryer.  This purchase is one of my goals for the year.  Our current set was bought super cheap from a cousin when we bought our house in Las Vegas and while the set is OK it isn't great and I don't think is is very water/gas/power saving.  I want to get a high efficiency washer and dryer set but it doesn't need to be a super fancy $1500 per unit kind of set, something basic will do fine.  I also think we can get some sort of utility rebate when we buy these items plus my BIL works at Sears and can get us even more discounts on appliances. 
  3. We need an electric garage door opener.  Our house didn't come with one so we need to open the door manual and while this isn't a big problem because we don't park in the garage it would be nice to have.  I checked the price at Home Depot today but I think I can get a new unit for about half the price on Amazon.
  4. A new refrigerator is also on our goal list for this year.  Again, we bought a super cheap refrigerator, along with the washer and dryer, from the cousin when we moved into our house.  It is basic and nothing fancy and not even a side-by-side model.  So I definitely want to get a new side-by-side refrigerator with a water filtration system (our tap water is just horrible in Las Vegas).
  5. New flooring, while not necessary, is something I definitely want to get.  Our house had brand new carpet when we moved in but it was cheap and it was carpet.  In colder climates I love wall to wall carpet but in the hot, sandy, desert, I would like a laminate wood floor or tile for our house.  As it is, there is so much dust in the air that it settles in the carpet and makes it kind of yucky even if I vacuum a couple times a week.  Also, tile seems to keep the house cooler which is a plus in Las Vegas.  So we hope to get new flooring which will probably end up being a combination of wood floor/tile and carpet (apparently putting wood floor or tile on the stairs is super expensive so many people put carpet on the stairs).

Daily update
  • Walk: 2 miles.  Hubby is doing marathon poker this weekend so I ran over to the park and did my two mile walk (dodging soccer balls as there are four soccer fields inside of the walking path.  Eeekkk). Only 942 more miles to go!
  • No spend: $7.32.  We had lunch at the casino which was free with hubby's comps but we did leave a $4 tip.  I almost forget, I got a Baskin Robbins Blast today as well.
  • Update this blog: yep
  • Update client blog: yep
  • Photo: yep
  • Genealogy: Another half hour of FamilySearch.  I simply click on a family file and try to fill in more and more blanks.  
  • Writing: I was very productive on my trusty talbet as hubby played poker.  Yeah productivity!

4 comments:

  1. Those are all good and smart investments. I would love to have real tile floors in our house. Most of it is carpet and vinyl tile. I hate both. If we had a garage, I'd insist on a auto door opener. I'd probably kill myself trying to open one manually. We just have a carport here. I miss our two car garage, especially when it rains. We're getting by with an apartment size fridge and a really old washer/dryer set. When we get our own place, we'll get new appliances.

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    1. I was thinking of hardwood floors but everyone tells me laminate hardwood floors are best here because it is so dry that real wood continues to shrink and shrink leaving gaps. Im looking forward to new appliances too :)

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  2. I LOVE tile flooring! So easy to clean!

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    1. I like tile flooring but I want to learn more about it before we decide which to install. I know marble tile is slippery when wet and tile with a rough pattern is hard on brooms and mop but other than that I know little about it. I like the easy cleaning part!

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