David A. Windham thumbnail

Project 2025

Nope, it’s not the Project 20251 you may have heard about … it’s what we’ve been calling the home improvements we’ve started to schedule early next year. Hurricane Helene2 dropped a big oak tree on our house back in late September and we’ve started working through some of the repairs.

The tree damaged just enough to make the repairs a bit cumbersome and I’ve documented the details in my notes3,4. The first reaction was just disappointment. Neither of us expected the storm to be that severe. We had planned a getaway that weekend for our anniversary and even up until the night of, we were still planning on traveling the next day. Like a ship out on the sea, the storm unalterably changed our course.

Instead of miring ourselves in the repairs or the insurance process, we’ve decided to go ahead and make some improvements along the way. I often try to set little rewards out in front my myself to keep the morale up. I remember when I had my first colonoscopy. As you could imagine, I wasn’t too thrilled at the idea so I decided to reward myself with a new iPad as motivation. Although the process is tough, the outcome will be a great improvement.

So we’ve gladly reappropriated the Project 2025 name for our projects. We’ve already gutted the master bed and bath upstairs and moved downstairs. We’ll be combining our two bathrooms upstairs into one master bath5. The new bath will seem luxurious as compared to our old ones.

I’ll also be transitioning my office upstairs into a studio6 in the den in order to convert the fourth bedroom upstairs into a dressing room. I’m calling the new space a studio instead of an office because it’s much bigger. I’m really looking forward to having all of my tools in one place with a generous amount of natural light. One additional carrot on this stick in this transistion is an integrated A/V system and a new set of keys… 88, the piano type.

In the process we’re also considering all of our other future home improvements. Although we try to stay true to the original design, our project 2025 isn’t looking backward. We might change up the style a bit and add some new front doors to boot. I’m hoping to have it all wrapped up by early spring next year. We’re lucky to have a little wiggle room financially to make a couple improvements and I’m sure I’ll follow up here when it’s done. Making the effort to turn an unfortunate situation into an opportunity is the way to be.

  1. Project 2025 – Heritage Foundation – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
  2. Hurricane Helene – https://davidawindham.com/til/posts/hurricane-helene/
  3. Glenridge – https://davidawindham.com/wha/glenridge/#helene
  4. /notes/house/helene – https://davidawindham.com/til/notes/house/helene
  5. /notes/house/bath – https://davidawindham.com/til/notes/house/bath
  6. /notes/house/studio – https://davidawindham.com/til/notes/house/studio