Anne, so sorry about your grandmother.

I'm sorry, Anne.

Plei, what were you talking about before--thick siding boards? Wood? Do you have clapboards, rather than cedar shakes? Could you jimmy one off, and take it to a lumber yard, so they could see what you're talking about?

It's the insanely wide, insanely thick wood lap siding that you see in a lot of houses from the 1960s. I'd guess that at the thickest, it's about 3/4", and they're damn near a foot wide. I have some that are off already, in our precious stash of "please don't let us need more than this for patching" from when we put the windows back in where the POs had removed them. Contractors and painting professionals may have a stash, but I've never seen a match in the lumberyards, and I used to spend a lot of time in the lumberyards, before we burnt out on working on the place.

The smart thing for the idiots to do would have been to match the original, but they were trying to update the whole look, methinks. Get it to look like crap 50s/60s construction instead of crap 1920s construction.

When people have major things done, do they get loans? How does it work? A cheap kitchen remodel job is still about 20k, and I'm probably lowballing. Do people save that much somehow? How do regular adults do this? My parents did, and still basically do, everything DIY, and almost always with ready money.

{{Anne}} My condolences to you and your family.

Heather, that is a sweet, schmoopy story! It made me sniffle.

bt, tell Brendan to start baking a carrot cake so he doesn't get overwhelmed.

You can get a home improvement loan, but I don't recall the workings of it, but yeah they do. I also know of people who've gotten a credit card for home improvement projects. They then buy the stuff on the card, and once that project is paid in full, they either get rid of the card, or start a new project.

home equity loans.

refi - and add X to the morgage. but you only do this once you have so much money in the house. most H EQ loans let you pay interest only foever, until you refi again ...

and round and round the circle goes....

That is how we will get a master bedroom. and grow the kitchen . but there is an area of inbetween.

This plan works if you don't plan on moving

or you are in a crazy realestate market.

Heh. We're not really that shmoopy, but I am often amazed at the awwwwnes of our coming together.- There is this other really cute part where after deciding we should be more than friends, but before doing anything about it other than getting sweaty, when Mr. H decided to make more-than-friends official, but was really nervous because of my committment issues so he was all "I don't want to freak you out or make a big deal, but what would you say if we thought about maybe trying to start dating?" and I'm all confused because of the round aboutness and "What? What do you mean? Each other?"

Also I keep meaning to say condolences to Anne, but when I'm in a not so good place anything to do with death gets locked away in my brain for it's own good. Anne, I'm sorry for your and your family's loss.

bt, tell Brendan to start baking a carrot cake so he doesn't get overwhelmed.

Yeah, I can see that one working. "Back in the kitchen, beeyatch!"

When people have major things done, do they get loans? How does it work? A cheap kitchen remodel job is still about 20k, and I'm probably lowballing. Do people save that much somehow? How do regular adults do this? My parents did, and still basically do, everything DIY, and almost always with ready money.

Home equity for the really big stuff. For expensive materials for jobs that we can *theoretically* do, we often do the six-months or one year same as cash deals on the Lowe's or Home Depot credit card.

I can't complain because our house was only 15 years old when we bought it. Except for the cheap ass materials--from the gross faux wood trim to the cheap cabinets and sinks. Redoing the trim is taking forfuckingever. If we had $5 K in ready cash, we could just hire it done.

(Anne) my condolences to you and your whole family.

I {heart} the how Heather met Mr. H story. It always makes me smile.

Had a lovely day. Will get chatty about it in a moment. A tiny half lot might cost about half a million in my neighborhood but I love it here... I can't afford to own, but I love it.