A Bucket of Money

This is my new signature phrase (right up there with "here's the thing" and "this is the third time I've asked you to clean your room"). Before I go any further, let me say that I am content with our lot in life. We have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs and good food on our table. It's not like we're destitute or anything. I realize that millions of people all over the world would be extremely comfortable with a fraction of the worldly goods we possess. Blah blah blah. But sometimes I can't help it. I look around at all the little (and larger) projects I'd like to do around here and that's when I say, "You know, if I fell into a bucket of money I'd....."

If I fell into a bucket of money I'd:

Rip off our back deck and build a terrace instead. There would be wide stone stairs leading down to it. There would be a built-in bbq area and a brick bread oven. And I'd replace our sliding doors with French ones.

Paint the house a deep, gorgeous charcoal grey with red and white trim. I'd also put shutters on all the windows, pop out the living room about 4 feet, put in a bay window and add a proper porch. I'd have the front garden completely fenced in and hire a landscaper to do all the things I still envision for the garden so it was just done. And I'd replace the trailer trash cyclone fence in the back with something lovely. And install a gate between our house and The Neighbor's because it would be far more convenient.

Refinish our hard wood floors. (It's not the refinishing itself that keeps me from tackling this project. It's the whole moving-out-everything-we-own-and-living-somewhere-else-for-two-weeks thing. But if I had a bucket of money we could have movers put everything into storage and stay in a nice hotel downtown).

Get a shelf for above the Viking. (This is probably the most doable of all the projects. We thought about getting one when we bought the stove but it was pricey and we were closing in on our budget ceiling so we figured we could do without. We were wrong).

Do some other things in the kitchen, specifically hire a cabinet maker to enclose our laundry appliances and actually finish the ceiling, which we didn't do when we remodeled because we figured we'd just paint but the patching we did after installing new duct work and such made some areas that just can't be painted over. I'd like to install tin ceiling tiles. Wouldn't that look awesome?

Buy a new sofa and replace the leather chairs we have (which I love but The Dog, when puppified, chewed big holes in the arms of both of them, which I now cover with throws. A reasonable solution and yet, it bothers me knowing they are there).

Hire a phalanx of handy people, painters and designers to do something with our family room. Ah, the family room. When we bought the house we were so excited to have this room. Finally, things like the computer and the television could be hidden away (I don't like electronics in the living room). We had room for over-night guests. It was super fantastic. But that room has become the room where things go to die. Nothing matches, it's crowded. It's a mishmash of computer crap, books, DVDs & videos, file cabinets and guest linen. It's a nightmare. And nothing I do mitigates that. But it is so full that even to paint and put in some proper bookcases (which would be a vast improvement) would require so much effort that we just don't do it. Unhooking and storing the computer equipment alone would probably take a day. And I don't see The Spouse getting jiggy with that proposal anytime soon.

Although, all of that would be solved almost instantly if I had a bucket of money so we could just build a master suite on the north end of the house. This design would include a small hallway off of which would be a powder room and a small studio pour moi. Then The Child would move into our room, her room would become The Spouse's office and viola, three-quarters of the crap in the family room would move elsewhere and then I could go in there and design a nice, cozy family space/guest room.

Now that my brain has been dumped all over my blog, I think I'll convert this into a proper to-do list. We could probably manage to do all of these things, incrementally, over the next few years if we were just focused on them. I'm just impatient. That's why I would rather fall into a bucket of money and just make it all happen. That, or find a fairy godmother. That would work, too.