Back in the saddle

Last weekend, my best bud Miss D and her boyfriend came up for a visit. It was the first time she'd seen my place since the basement was redone and since she's also in the process of snazzifying (hell yes) her home, we talked about projects a lot. You know, when we weren't sampling the best of Iowa wines at Swine Fest or enjoying the view from Mullets' rooftop patio (WHICH I must rant about. Mullets used to have fried crab claws and now they don't. And I'm pretty P.O.'d about it, man. You can't get crab claws anywhere else in this town and WHY WOULD YOU TAKE THEM AWAY FROM ME, Mullets? WHY?).

Anyway, all this project chit chat got my brain humming again. We'd taken a big break since the last piece of trim was painted in the basement and I'm itching to get my DIY on again. It's like when you don't work out all winter and then one day you decide to go to the gym because it sounds fun and you think, "Who am I? The gym sounds fun?" and you roll with it and do in fact have a good time.

So, we're tiptoeing back in with some small projects - our next big project will be finishing our walk-up attic, but that's a few years away still. We need time to forget how draining the basement was, financially and emotionally, before we get crazystupid with DIY again.

Here's the list of in-the-meantime projects:

• Touch-up exterior paint
• Finally putty holes in the wall from old curtain rods
• Touch up bad interior paint jobs 
• Paint all trim white
• Try crown molding in the hall or bathroom - if it's not too bad, go all out
• Paint the office
• Get a new dining room light
• Paint the kitchen
• Retile the kitchen floor 
• Look at getting kitchen doorway expanded
• Tear up front walk and side walk
• Put down paver bricks in those areas
• Re-landscape the front yard
• Double the size of the garden and convert to raised beds
• Paint some furniture
• Focus on getting stuff on the walls in the living room and basement
• Paint the bathroom

I'm sure we'll come up with more little projects along the way, but this is a good list that doesn't involve too much heavy lifting. 

I'm curious who else has had DIY burnout. What project made you so crazy you needed a sabbatical from home improvements?