A few weeks ago, renovations started on a house across the street from my office. At first, it looked like they were just going to redo the deck around the house, which was a pretty substantial project in itself because the deck wrapped around about half of the house. A few days later, it became apparent that they were doing much more. They have replaced all of the windows on the first floor, completely torn the roof off of the house, and are adding a 3 car garage, and what I think is a hot tub room, among other things. Its kind of crazy to see just a chimney sticking sticking out about 12′ above what is now the top of the house. I’m not sure what they are going to do with it, but I’d bet that they are going to add another level.
At any rate, they have a construction dumpster on site, and it is totally loaded with goodies! There were some awesome doors in there that looked perfect and would have matched our house, but I didnt go up and ask for them. Unfortunately, I’ll probably never get a chance like that again and feel like it was a wasted opportunity! Those doors matched some of the ones in the basement exactly (including the tragic paint job). Once they started the roof though, I knew that I couldnt wait on that. There’s a whole dumpster of 2x4s out there, and I went and liberated a few of them for my next project this week, and am going back this weekend with a saw to get a few more (some were like 16′ long!) so I can take them home.
On to the best links this week:
How Frugal is too frugal, over at My Journey to Millions. There are definately some times that I’ve found spending less money will end up screwing you over in the end, either by the item wearing out quickly or by breaking at an awful time.
Pinterest Meal Planning 101 at Money saving enthusiast – I’ll be the first (or last) to admit that even though I’m a guy, I still check pinterest every once in a while for unique DIYs and good recipes. This seems like an interesting premise, as there are usually a lot of good looking foods on the site!
8 Ways to Save on Holiday Airfare – I usually end up needing this, because when we travels with H’s family I have to be back soon because I’m the only non-teacher in mix, so they can spend more time with family and I have to go back to work.
I’m Growing food in my backyard over at Yes, I am cheap. I have been looking into aquaponics for quite a while. My roommate and I had a small hydroponic set up at our place in college, and we were able to get lots and lots of cherry tomatoes from it! It was amazing. Aquaponics is a similar gig, but using fish to supply food to your plants.
