The purge – Time to get serious

It is time to get serious and kick it into gear.

Looking around at all of the “stuff” and the list of “projects” that have to get done. It’s a little overwhelming.

We have four projects that we are going to tackle in the next couple of months:

1. Replace the back deck that is over the rear sunken patio – Major job, major $$$.
2. Replace the front sidewalk, and 10 sections of the rear sunken patio.
3. Replace 9 sections of stockade fence on the rear corner of the property
4. Minor landscaping of the front beds (one bush replaced and remove decorative stone and replace with dirt/bulbs  in one planting bed)

It’s a start, and there’s a lot more to do, especially inside, but that work can be done over the winter.

I first went onto Angie’s list to find contractors for items 1 and 2, but was unsuccessful. I then turned to Home Advisors and found a few contractors who could give me pricing for all four projects.

The two prices I got for the back deck were within $500 of each other. And I fell more comfortable with one over the other so we’ll most likely award it to him.

I was only able to get one price for the sidewalk/patio work, however, it seemed reasonable and was within the local averages when I estimated the job through RS Means.

The cost of the fence was another story. I was able to get  four estimates; one contractor wanted to bundle it together with the front landscaping and when I asked what the cost was he said it was too small of a job to separate but the labor and material for the fence was “very expensive”. (It’s a pressure treated 6 foot stockade fence – $40/section at Home Depot). Another contractor was so far out of the ball park, I just kindly escorted him to his car and said “have a nice day”. We ended up going back to the contractor who installed our fence ten years ago (all but the nine sections that is now down) since he actually remembered the job, and had the best price. Only problem is he has so much work scheduled,  there’s a four to six week wait. But that’s ok, it’s been down for awhile, and it’s not going anywhere.

I’m now planning on doing the minor landscaping myself one weekend in the fall when it’s a little cooler.

The next “project”is to get ready for the garage sale. So I had a 10 year dumpster delivered and spent this past  weekend filling it with everything from previous project’s construction debris to stuff that we know nobody’s going to buy.

It’s now Tuesday, and I’m still sore. But it’s all good because we are one step closer to reaching our goal.