Do What You Can With What You Have

This is my new motto lately, told to me by a friend who fixed up her house, that I have taken on regarding my house. 

Do what you can with what you have.  It sounds so simple...it really is simple.  Just take what you have in your house and improve from there.  Don't try to out-do yourself or keep up with friends/family.  Just make do. 


It was a good time for me to hear this.  At the time (a couple weeks ago) I was ready to bulldoze my house down and start over.  That would take so much money, though.  I do get frustrated with the condition of my house...

it is 24x24 with two livable floors...
the siding is rotting...
the windows are rotting...
the basement gets wet...
I don't have a front entry...
etc.

(Sorry...I'm not really complaining...it's all true!  I'm not mad or upset about the state of things. It's the way it is, and we can either choose to do something about it or tear it down and start over.)

I think we're going to 'do what we can with what we have.' 
For those of you who've seen my living room, it leaves a lot to be desired...it's not really cute or fashionable or anything...
Matt tore out a wall in there, so we have one big living room with missing sheetrock that needs to be fixed up.  We didn't really know what we wanted to do, so we've just left it for over a year.  However, since I can't do much about that, I do plan on repainting so it's all one color and rearranging the pictures to better fit the room.  I'll be doing what I can...

We've talked about adding on to the back of our house sometime soon...within a year or two.  We'd add a big back main entry, a little office space, and a big bathroom/laundry room.  Right now, my laundry stuff is in my wet basement.  (Not ideal.)  I take baths because we don't have a shower in our bathroom (we have one in the basement, but it really creeps me out!).  So, a laundry/shower combination would really improve that situation. 

I'm hoping that will work out someday...it'd be so nice to have it all so close...and to have a bathroom on the main floor. 

Anyway, my motto...do what you can with what you have...it's really a great way of looking at things (house-related).  It makes me look at things from my standpoint...what can I do by myself that would make me feel better about what my house looks like...it puts things on my shoulders, too, not making it seem like I'm just waiting for Matt (which I'm not...I know he's busy...things will happen when they happen).

This wasn't a post to complain about my house...it's just a post to explain how I feel about my house, get it off my chest, and do something about it (i.e. paint my whole living room the same color, try to organize better, etc.).


Have a Happy Tuesday!!!