3/21/11

About a year or so ago we replaced our windows. Several contractors/window people bid it. Seventeen windows. The prices ranged from $7500 to $33,000.00.

We did not get the $33,000.00 windows. Does that surprise you? At the time we said, "is this our retirement home?" And decided it wasn't.

So we went with a cheaper alternative. Our house was built in 1938. Construction has changed a lot since then. The men who put in the windows did not add insulation or make any adjustments other than to replace the wooden frames and glass. So why weren't our utility bills any cheaper?

Less than 2 years later, they leaked. The roof leafed. The skylights leaked. We got a new roof and windows taken out - insulated and set back in. It completely changed the appearance of the house.

Sometime in the past our house was owned by a man who owned stock (a lot of it) in Radio shack. The reason we know this is the wiring. Not only did house have holes in the walls for speakers and volume control. Each room including the baths had telephones. Try to imagine how many calls I wanted to take in the bathroom. Cable installers groaned when we took them to the basement and the closet of wires.

Times have changed. We no longer even own a land line. Replacing the roof allowed us to remove 3 of the 4 skylights.

So now we have a very different house with - wait for it - beige aluminum siding. Whoo hoo!

Of course, the siding had to go. But here's the cool part. Under the siding (and yes we did have those tacky aluminum shutters) was cedar siding. Cedar siding today is priced at $3.40 a foot. I know this because my remodelers are so excited they mention it about three times a week.

My house continues to look worse before it looks better. We're still waiting on better. In one of my poor-pitiful-me moments, my husband reminded me of the quote I had posted on the wall in my office. "When you are in the middle of something, everything looks like a failure." Never post anything on your walls - you are just calling out to the Universe to make it a fact.

So how did we pay for all these changes, in a year where we had not budgeted for this? Why we went to our credit union. And guess what? Our house is now worth $100,000.00 less than it was two years ago. So it turns out, we who weren't bright enough to know it, are upside down in our mortgage. But just barely.

The good news is once the remodel is finished the house will be worth more than it is today. However, we won't have any comparables to prove it.

So as it turns out, this is our retirement home.