Things I Should’ve Gotten Done This Summer… and Didn’t

With today being the last day of August, it practically means the summer is over. And with that, all the summer projects I wanted to complete and didn’t.

Okay, so really, it isn’t the end of the world. I can always still do a majority of these projects, if not all of them. But, I had set a goal to finish them this summer and I think we got one out of a dozen things finished. Why summer? Simply put, they were projects that would require being outdoors or we would need to spend more time outside due to the nature of the project. Still, all is not lost, and other projects were added to the list due to necessity, which in turn, probably would have cancelled out some of the other projects anyway.

There were some things at the top of the list I really wanted to get done: paint our bedroom; paint, tile and put in a new shower surround in the main bathroom; replace the broken windows; thoroughly clean out the rock garden of weeds and trim the plants as needed; put in a shed in the backyard; clean out the garage; gravel the side driveway; put the gutters on the chicken coop. Hmm… it looks like the things at the top of my list are, well, everything left to do on the list. At least we got our closet cleaned out and clothes garage saled or Goodwilled.

Of course, other projects took precedent. Our roof, for instance, on the south side of our house has had a few issues now for a few years. The main issue being that because there was no flashing between the gutters and the roof rain would get between the crack and eventually rotted the wood, including the plywood under the shingles, the facia and soffet. The gutter nails weren’t even attached to anything in the center stretch and were barely hanging on from either end. Fortunately we have a roofer friend who helped my partner fix that issue and we paid him in imported Jamaican beer, which was our only cost along with the materials required. This project alone took up a majority of our nonexistent budget, as we could have replaced both windows and painted our bedroom with that money. Not that we necessarily would’ve gotten around to doing either of those things, but still, it was spendy and had to be done. If for no other reason than to get rid of the rampant bird population living in that portion of the house.

Alas, while the summer is not really over, perhaps there is still time to get a couple of the outdoor things off the list. I know putting the gutters on the chicken coop will be rather quick once we get a downspout for it, and with the cooler weather, it might be easier to clean out and trim the rock garden, so perhaps there is still some time after all to cross a few more items off my summer to-do list.