I was watching people flip houses on tv the other day and got the idea that I should make my house look better. My mom said it desperatly needs curb appeal. I want to:

1. replace the siding - have it white with blue shutters like in The Notebook
2. trace the backyard with a black, ornamental iron fence (and rescue a dog to stick in there)
3. build small covered porches for the front and back entrances
4. repave the driveway
5. strategically placed trees/bushes/etc.

What do you think? How much should I apply for in the loan? $25,000? Who wants to loan me?

I want to replace the rain spouts too. They are ugly looking. Got any ideas?

To get ballpark ideas, you'd have to list dimensions of your yard, driveway, and area to be sided. There could be tens of thousand of dollars difference in the price depending on how big that stuff is.

Ask liberty, she knows how to do all that kind of stuff.

I would also suggest getting a home equity line of credit instead of a straight home equity loan. That way you have a revolving account to use for little things that pop up (and they will) when you undertake big projects. The interest is deductable just like mortgage interest, but you have to be disciplined with paying it off. They will only send you a bill each month for the interest. It's up to you to tack on extra to pay down the principal.

6. Remove the tv. stand from the wall.

And before you start, find out if you have any covenants in your neighborhood regarding where you can locate your fence (from the back corner of the house only), what color shutters you can have (no hot pink please), if the shutters must match the garage and front doors, and so on. Without being in a HOA, I don't honestly know how those covenants can be enforced, but it is good to know before you piss off your neighbors and sink a lot of money into it.

2 words: Gutter Helmet

Heather,
$25,000 won`t cover all that you want to do with the house.
1- permits (Big bucks) then it will need inspections.
2- porches $5,000 low est.
3- gutter $10.00 per ft. installed
4- yard fence $5.000 and up
5- land scape almost $100.00 per. hr. depends on how many workers. plus materal.
6- like she said remove TV. stand first.
7- replace dry wall where tv stand made a hole while removing it. $50.00 to fix

Heather $30,000 would cover most but not all the project.
( One project at a time) food for thought.

GOOD LUCK

I just typed 10 paragraphs and deleted it. Apparently this is an emotional project instead.

Hey Heather,

The most expensive part of the project is the covered porches, as they are actually structural components that you'll need to apply for building permits to complete. Call a builder before you apply for any money, just to make sure it's feasible. Also, as far as fences go, you can generally put a fence on your property line as long as it's less than 6' high (more than 6' high you'll have to stay within your building restriction lines). The porches have to be within your building restriction lines. Are you on city water and sewer, or do you have a well and a septic tank? If you have a well and septic tank, then you also have to keep the porches away from those items, as well as the septic field. New footings need to (TYPICALLY) be 10' min. away from the septic field, and 10' away from the septic tank, and 30' away from the well (although you can apply for a variance regarding the well if your addition is a porch and not a basement or crawlspace).

Perhaps you're just thinking of putting little roofs over existing concrete porch stoops, though. If that's the case, then you would have new posts bearing upon the edges of an existing concrete stoop, and you need to be sure that there's sufficient concrete beneath the edges of that stoop to support the load from the new porch roof. Call a contractor, have someone come out and talk about ballpark costs for what you want to do. Then talk to a bank about a home equity line of credit. Nothing sucks worse than getting all jazzed up to do some big home improvement, then realizing you don't have the money to do so!

Good advice from momsapilot about building covenants in your area -- if you're in a subdivision you might need to show preliminary drawings to some board to get approval. Also if you're in a Historic District you'll have to get architectural approval.

Y'all kick ass.

My parents are good at landscaping, so that's not a problem.

I already have existing porches. I just need to cover them. In fact, I never use the back porch so I think I should skip that one. It has this huge vine that has grown all over it, so you can't step on the porch anyway. It's got gold and purple berries on it. So pretty I just let it run wherever it wanted.

I don't have a well, so I guess I have city water. The hard stuff with a great big helping of lime in it. Yum!

The reason I want a fence is to have a dog, so it would have to be pretty tall. I don't want a little yapper, I want a big dog so the fence would have to be tall.

I have my HOA papers somewhere. They never even welcomed me to the neighborhood though.

I'm probably going to hold off on the dog though. I have three rows of immature trees I'm trying to grow. They are necessary because they block out a major eyesore. I tend to them all the time and basically nurse them like babies. I would hate to have a dog come in and pee all over them or trample them. I keep losing a tree in the same spot too. My theory is that there's a body buried under there!

Nope, a body would provide fertilizer to the tree and make it grow better than the others (I learned that on the Horticulture Homicidal Maniacs Network Channel).

What you probably have buried under there is petrochloropropenalphylenestyrobutylien. They used it in WWII to grow extra fingers on pilots of fighter aircraft so that they could use the extra fingers to shoot the machine guns on the planes.

But Yoss, it might be an evil person buried down there. The ghost prolly wanders around my yard at night.

I'm going to patch some holes in the walls today. Wish me luck.

Got mad over the week-end and put your fist thru a couple walls?


(or wild uninhibited monkey sex?)

Temper tantrums, yes. Use my fists, no.

Slamming doors and throwing stuff...and roller skating in the house. I've got four oopsies that need fixed.

after you fix your house, you should join the new hagerstown ROLLER DERBY TEAM. take out some of that aggression. i think its called "HCORE". saw it in the herald mail yesterday. bahahaha.

<singing thread>

I fell in love with a roller derby queen,
meanest hunk of woman that I ever seen...

jim croce