Almost Burned House Down - Twice!

We almost had two electrical fires in my daughter's bedroom this past year via the electrical outlets. It was supposed to have been fixed after the first time but then a different plug started shooting sparks. We shut down the circuit to her room so she's been without electrical plugs since this happened (she sure does miss her stereo). When the electrician was here today, he pulled the outlet out. We could see what had burned back in there. Scary!

We're going to have every outlet in the house pulled, the wiring checked and fixed as needed, and outlets replaced sometimes this week. It is something my husband and his dad could have done themselves but it probably wouldn't get done until later this year and it would take them days to do as opposed to several hours for a licensed electrician. I'd also feel better having the electrician take care of it. We are also having GFC outlets added to the bathrooms and kitchen. Our house doesn't have any of these and with the girls getting older, it's only a matter of time before the curling irons and blow dryers come out in the bathrooms. Better safe than sorry.

Electrical problems are nothing to mess around with. It's scary to think that we could've had a fire in the middle of the night in my daughter's bedroom. It almost happened twice!

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Home Improvements...Finally!!

We have lived in our current home for almost two years. It wasn't the home of our dreams. We were in a hurry to buy, needed a four bedroom (six kids), and wanted in the school district this house is in. In 5-1/2 years, we will sell this house and move out to the country with 5-10 acres for horses, but that is years away from being affordable. My opinion of this house - I hated it. Really. It needed SO much work and we had moved from a 1914 home that we had spent six years fixing up to how we wanted it and it had that charm of an older home - hardwood floors and lots of thick oak trim, high ceilings - just beautiful. Nothing like the house we have now:( We finally bit the bullet and refinanced the house a few months ago to get some of the equity out of it. The leaking roof with green growing on the shingles has been torn off and replaced with a new roof. Yippee!! The kitchen cabinets, which were literally cracking on the sides of the drawers, have been pulled out and replaced with budget-minded but beautiful cabinets. The vinyl floor that was torn in the kitchen and carpet that was unprofessionally laid crooked in the living room and two bedrooms and stained by a child and dog has been replaced with vinyl planks that look like hardwood but will be easy to clean with kids and dogs. BIG YIPPEE!!

The main level of our house is almost fixed up, with the exception of paint, trim, and bathroom flooring.

Cabinets that aren't cracked!

Does this look like hardwood? It's not. It's vinyl!!

Now when I look around the main level, I see the potential of this smaller home. It may not be as big as we would like (and need) or have the charm of our previous home, but it can still look nice. It will soon be ok to actually invite the neighbors in without being embarrassed! As long as they don't go to the other level and see that half of the house that we still have to fix up, lol.

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