The Five Year Plan

I suppose I should memorialize the five-year plan here. It will likely change as soon as I hit the "publish" button. This is the framework from within which we'll diligently work.

Pre-Move-in (which is now looking to be February, a topic for another post)

• Electric overhaul
• Complete interior repaint
• Buy sofa for living room
• Wall paper entrance hallway
• New kitchen fan
• Service and clean the furnace
• Ikea dressers for upstairs (maybe some other cheap-o temporary closet fixes until we can do the remodel upstairs in about 3 years).
• Ply-wood door in staircase (2b explained l8r)

2010 Projects

• Bolt house to foundation
• Furnish and complete the first floor office
• Buy or make a coffee table for the living room
• Get proper venting to the water heater
• Waterproofer
• Furniture for main floor guest room
• Window coverings
• Fix doming floor in entryway
  
• Fix moldings throughout house
• New interior and exterior doors in certain locations
• Reinforce/lift and stabilize 2nd floor original extension

2011 Projects

• Kitchen/dining/outer room remodel (new appliances, move sink, change walls)
• Fix previously improperly installed windows in back of house
• New washer/drier
  

2012 Projects

• Hardwood floor in master bedroom
• Cathedral ceilings upstairs and expose collar ties
• Built-ins in knee walls upstairs as storage solution
• Furnish top floor bedrooms
• Remodel backyard/patio

2013 Project

• Top floor bath complete remodel

2014 Project

• Remodel all staircases

We bought our first house

It certainly wasn't easy. Who knows if it will even payoff in the long run. But it's our piece of the American dream. Funny how exclusive a club it actually is. We were chasing all kinds of green for the last 2 months. Turns out we had to be permanent residents before we could get a permanent residence. We finally got the green card and only then could we secure the bling that is needed to buy a house in SF city limits! And the house just happens to be green.

Rewind about 6 months. We find this place on Redfin.com. We go visit it even though it was outside our price range. It was love at first sight for me and I adored all the idiosyncrasies of the place. The things that made it different than all the other houses in the neighborhood. The peculiar room layouts, the oddly placed locked doors, the tiny sloping sink room, the carpeted dining room. I saw the place for it's 2,144 square feet of potential. Over the next six months our spirits and affection did not change. The price, on the other hand, did change until like kismet it landed right within metaphorical reach.

And fast forward to last week. We got the keys (actually 12 sets of keys) to our 1905 Edwardian beauty in the City of San Francisco.

And that's were we are today. It's remodel time. Time to slowly meld each room and each piece of the old lady into something new, leaving our mark on the centenarian's history.

This house has so many potential projects, we didn't really know where to begin. The first trip to the Home Depot was like a child in a candy shop: we wanted EVERYTHING. The other night Bjoern freaked out because obviously money is the limiting factor. So we stayed up until 2 am and wrote out a 5 year plan. He then slept like a baby.

So here I am. This blog will chronicle the implementation of the 5 year plan. We're going to DIO (Do it Ourselves) for as much as we can without creating any messes, hazards, or otherwise ill and counterproductive results. Please follow along as we transform our SF house!