The short list.

We are still new to this whole "home ownership" thing. It was a pretty scary undertaking for us, not just because we were taking on the maintenance of a house but a house that's 110 years old. You always hear stories about what a money-pit an old house can be. It appeared to be well maintained when we bought it, but you never know what the quirks are until you actually live in it.

So far so good. Our old house has been good to us and we haven't had any emergencies yet (knock on wood). In fact, as I've mentioned before, I am officially in love with old houses now.

I love this house so much that I would happily live in it for the rest of my life if I could move it to a different part of the country with me. In every house I've lived in since college, there have always been things that have driven me crazy after awhile. Annoying storage issues, appliances that are sub-par, grimy carpet, etc.

But after almost 5 months in this house there is nothing about it that annoys me. Every single day Micah and I talk about how thankful we are to be living here and what a great place we have to come home to. There are a few things we would like to "upgrade" but as a whole, I love every single thing about it. And that's saying something.

You homeowners out there know there is always a wish list of improvements. Things that would be nice to do if you could. So here is our wish list. It's pretty short.

1. A fence for Skylar and the dogs. (Per city regulation it has to be 50% see-through and no more than 4 feet tall...basically a white picket style. Icing on my dream cake, if you ask me.)

2. A new fridge. We have stainless steel appliances except for the ancient fridge. I've always fantasized about having an extra fridge/freezer to have all stocked up, so I would love to move this one to the basement. I'm so used to buying things as I need them due to lack of freezer storage that I don't have much in reserve. In fact, for about a year our freezer space consisted primarily of ice cubes and breast milk.

3. New counter tops. Except for my "baking station" with a butcher block counter top, the counters are linoleum and the top layer is pulling up. Micah tried to cement it back down and now it's bubbled.

4. Renovate the master bathroom, otherwise referred to as our "dirty pink secret". I would show you a picture, but it pretty much deserves it's own blog post, so I'll save that for another time. Just know it is covered in more pepto-bismal pink tile than you can imagine. Honestly, we were so excited to find a house with a master bath that we really didn't care what it looked like. But it would be nice to update.

I think pretty much all of those things, except the fence, would increase resale. We'll see what we accomplish while we're here.

In the meantime, we are checking one off the list! The fence is going up now, just in time for winter so I can open the back door and let the dogs out without having to walk them every time. We decided not to do the whole yard for now, but we are at least getting the back right corner done.

Today the peanut gallery watched the progress from the playroom window:

Getting posts put in around these massive tree roots was an undertaking for sure:

I'll post pictures when it's done. I can't wait!