2026 Home Remodel
Emily and I have lived in our Littleton, Colorado home since 2021, when we decided to downsize from our central Denver home. It’s a beautiful 1960’s house that checks all our boxes. There’s plenty of room for the dog, Panda, the two of us, three cats, Oliver, Luna, and Jasper. The open family room, mostly finished basement, and fenced in back yard with a view of the mountains makes living here very pleasant. However, we finally gained the confidence and ambition to make some changes. As one thing always leads to another, once we opened up that box of worms, the worms led the way to a very busy year! Here’s some before pictures:
It all started with a knock at the door. A window sales guy was offering what seemed to be an amazing deal. They’d do all of our windows for half off if they could use our house as a neighborhood “advertising house”. Apprehensive, we had the guy over to see what he had to say. He kept comparing their products to Renewal by Anderson and Pella. The high pressured commitment at the end of the conversation was enough to boot him out the door, but after talking with Emily, I realized how badly she hated our outdated vinyl windows. We decided to entertain the idea of getting a quote from Renewal, and the guy educated us on all of the stuff we wanted to hear to get our check book ready. Here’s what our windows looked like before:
We had some time before Renewal would get to work because they had to manufacture all 15 windows and a patio door to measurement. I knew that we weren’t getting a great return on investment for new windows, and contemplated doubling down on new siding and a new fence, since those typically pay off better on ROI. That led to the “while we’re at it” effect. Our vinyl siding wasn’t terrible, but we were faced with a decision of making our windows smaller, accomodating the existing siding vs. replace it now. We didn’t like the idea of smaller windows, so got some bids from contractors. We ended up using Paramount siding using a vertical board and batten steel siding. After some deliberation, we were able to get both windows and siding companies to agree upon what would happen first. That would be the windows. Hopefully, the siding would go up right afterwards (more on that in a minute!)
We decided that since we were spending a lot of money with contractors, we’d put in some sweat equity as well. I attempted to repair a creaky board on our deck that had been bothering us. As I unscrewed the board, I noticed rotting wood. I kept removing boards, hoping we could just replace some support beams, but what we discovered was a deck built on top of an old concrete patio that wouldn’t pass today’s safety codes.
This became my weekend and after work demo job. We got a large roll away dumpster and after a good couple of weeks, filled it up to the max. What we were left with was an old uneven patio. Albeit ugly, we found it nice sitting in our camp chairs at this level.
The pets found a new shady hang out spot leading into some hot summer days!
In preparation for the siding, I needed to paint the soffits, since we were keeping the existing, which were in good condition. I did this in one day, but it took one week for my shoulders to recover!
Rather than spend a fortune for a new deck, we got some quotes for a new concrete patio. The quotes were all over the map. We ended up using New Valley Concrete and were very happy with the result. I found the only window well at Home Depot, and it matched the dimensions perfectly to replace our old one, so had this ready for them to bolt to the house before the pour.
The pets were very excited to try this new thing out after we gave it a day to dry out!
I’d been wanting an EV for awhile, and with the price of gas these days, I decided to upgrade our 100 Amp electrical panel to later install a level 2 charger in the garage. MH Electrical put in a 200 Amp panel with whole home surge protector. This was done prior to the steel siding, but I didn’t have a before picture, so you get a little glimpse of it.
When that was done, I decided to map out the internal panel with better labels. This was a tedious, but interesting exercise in learning where every circuit was located.
Next, we decided to paint our living room. Panda was super helpful!
While we were at it, I recolored the grout in my shower and painted the steps to look like piano keys.
Emily started her garden this year from seeds, and I knew I needed to get to work on the backyard to get more space for planting. These were growing up fast!
There was an area of our yard that was previously overgrown juniper bushes. I took most of those out a couple of years ago and it had become an unsightly, unused, weedy space. As Emily was preparing her plants indoors, I cleaned the weeds out, did some leveling, and laid weed fabric out.
We ordered some aluminum garden beds, which took about an hour each to assemble. Emily put cardboard on the bottom, then branches, leaves, and garden soil.
My disc golf friend Tyler helped me on his day off to move 10 tons of pea gravel with a Toro Dingo. We also ordered mulch, top soil, and a toothed bucket to demo some shrubs. I greatly underestimated this project and worked tirelessly into the evening. I had to return the Toro, so ended up moving the rest with a wheelbarrow the entire next day. We had previously received a quote for this work from Four Seasons and estimate diy saved $16k. That was motivation to keep going!
I found a store in Layfayette, called Repurposed Materials, which had $6 pressure treated guard post rails, and a pickle barrel that I intended to use as a rain barrel. I barely fit the posts and the barrel in my Outback and had to drive back on I-25 with my knees touching the dashboard!
I had some digging to do and another juniper to remove before making these guard rails into a retaining wall and steps, leading to the garden.
I accidentally dug too much dirt, so had to go back and create steps. This would have been a good place to bury a dead body, lol! I used crushed rock to act as a drain underneath the wood steps. Also, added some corregated pipe in case our sprinkler guy needed to run lines underneath.
The prep work getting everything level and graded to slightly slope down paid off as the staircase started coming together. My other disc golf friend, Alex, helped me move some left over pea gravel to fill the steps and finish screwing in the posts with the longest screws known to man. A little more leveling, and mulch, and things were starting to come together.
We laid some pavers down, planted a few things, and made a rock retaining wall. Our sprinkler guy re-routed our irrigation system to the new beds and plantings.
We had several spring snows and freezes and had to make shelters for our new plantings. We managed to keep everything alive and the tree branches from snapping!
Did you know that rain barrels were illegal in Colorado before a law was passed in 2016, allowing each single family home up to 110 gallons? It had to do with water rights and who owned the water. Having rain water to manually water plants and flowers has been amazing, considering the drought we’re in. I converted our downspouts to route the water into the barrels during non-freezing times, with the option to winterize, by flipping a part 180 degrees. These are made by Earthminded.
When we weren’t doing physical labor, we were acting as general contractors, drawing up plans, and keeping a notebook with information about everything we had going on. It felt like a game of 3D chess!
Since we moved in, I had done what I could to keep our rotting fence posts from collapsing, and part of our property, we didn’t use because the fence stopped at the side of the house. We wanted to sit in our tree swings in privacy… I was granted a permit after a lot of back and forth with the design requiring a “sight triangle” for cars and pedestrians.
After getting several quotes, we settled on a horizontal fence from Integrity Fencing. The crew managed to finish it in one long day, working past sunset. I can’t say that they cleaned up well, but we are happy with the end result. We paid a little extra for a top cap, so that the cats and squirrels can run on top of it. We added some solar lights and were really happy with our extra space!
Also, around this time, we did some more landscape work and added a fixed disc golf basket so that I can practice putting (I desperately need practice!)
Three trips to Home Depot later, I still didn’t have the right colored mulch to match the rest of the yard! I used a sprayer to stain and seal the fence a month after the cedar dried.
Emily added a terrace and re-planted her honey suckle. I regretted instantly saying the terrace she picked out was ugly, so it’s two strikes now!
We also needed to move our shed three feet from the house for the siding people to have enough clearance. We paid Ted’s Shed’s to move the shed they built there a couple years ago with a fancy shed moving machine that beat my idea of moving it using Egyptian techniques with logs or pvc pipe and car jacks. Meanwhile, Emily’s garden is flourishing!
The week finally arrived for the window install. Emily had to work from the garage one day as the office windows went up. The end result exceeded our expectations! Not only were these beautiful, but it quieted noise from outside.
The siding people started right after, stripping the existing siding and putting up 1/2″ insulation. A surprise arose when they realized they ordered the wrong color siding. Another mistake on ordering, and a month went by as our frustration grew, living in our space house.
While waiting for the proper siding to arrive, we came up with a number of other projects. Nothing got overlooked. I patched some drywall and painted in the garage, then updated an old workbench and added some storage. I installed an EV charger and started the conduit run. I made a shaker door to replace an oddly sized back garage door that sounded flimsy and had some warping due to water and added some hexagon led lights.
Our rusty old window wells were ugly, so I painted them with an oil based primer, then high gloss Rust-Oleum paint so that they’d reflect more light through the basement windows. I finished the bottoms with some river rock.
We deep cleaned our rugs and carpet, which of course attracted all the animals to lay down on! Emily acquired a bunch of new house plants as well.
When we thought we were running out of projects, we decided to paint the basement and change the lighting to dimmable led’s. I even added some led lights to the back of the tv. We bought a new couch for the upstairs to replace the ones the cats tore to shreds.
We were getting antsy for the siding people to finish because we had Emily’s mom, Sheryl, two cousins, Andrew and Austin, and brother Sam, all coming to stay with us and volunteer for Lim359 youth camp (for kids with limb differences). Fortunately, they did finish just before we had company. The finished job was amazing, almost enough to forget about their delay!
My EV charger required a somewhat complicated run of conduit from outside the garage, along the base of the house, through the concrete, into a junction box, then through the utility room and crawl space, to the breaker box. This was the hardest part of the project for me, and required the most research, and I only had a couple of days before our company arrived. I also added a couple of outdoor outlets. I was able to pull it off, not because I needed to, but because I’d been anticipating doing this and couldn’t drill a hole through the garage wall until the siding was done. It was a relief to get this done and diy saved us a lot of dough. The same electrician that did the panel upgrade came back out and made the connections. Before the charger was hooked up, I bought a 2024 Polestar 2 EV. I had to share the level 1 charger with Emily since she drives a plug in hybrid. That was a bit stressful for a few weeks! This car has been amazing btw.
After half a day of driving around and testing our butt’s preferences on different furniture, we went back to Christy’s sports, where we started, and bought some outdoor furniture, which would arrive a day before our company. This cool, little Bonzai, I went back for after seeing at Lowes, made it into our front yard.
When the company arrived, I had a few sets of hands to help with some important projects. First, was moving a big rock that the fence people worked around and left a hole in the fence. Second, was holding all the posts in place as we secured the beams and anchored the posts to the concrete. Thanks a ton to Andrew! Having this done with our company to enjoy was amazing! Oh yeah, Panda had to wear a Satellite dish because she kept licking her paw (not me!)
We had the AC looked at because it seemed like it was running constantly this summer. The maintenance people said it was good but recommended replacing the condensate drain that wasn’t installed correctly. Apparently this can lead to flooding in the basement. They also recommended replacing the expansion tank on our hot water heater, which they said was blown. They quoted $1500. After researching the issues and verifying the problems, I was able to fix everything for less than $100 and a morning’s work. Plus, I learned a lot!
With watering restrictions this year, our front grass yard was mostly brown with a lot of bear patches. Instead of fighting it, we decided to xeriscape. It took less than a month of solarization (covering it with clear plastic) before it was fully dead. I then power raked it, added weed barrier, then rock.
Lots of shoveling and raking later, the front yard project was mostly done. Emily thought it looked a little empty, so showed up with a bunch of plants and did the digging and planting herself since I was tired from too much disc golf. As these plants get bigger, I think this will look really good!
Lots of hot sauce, salsa, zucchini bread, flower seeds, dried herbs, and other cooking stuff she’s been doing. The harvest has been the best so far.
We added some lights and a new pet hedgehog. Emily’s pumpkins are getting eaten by squirrels, despite our best efforts (spraying with hairspray doesn’t work here!)
Just when we thought that we were maybe at the end… It was actually strange, the end had come. We were finished. Finished, at least, on what we set out to accomplish. I’m sure we’ll come up with more, like the backyard grass next spring, or maybe adding a bathroom downstairs. Nevertheless, we’re kicking back for now. We were greeted by this spectacular double rainbow, signifying the end of our big project year!
