Upon returning from Mexico I immediately developed a significant leak when I turned the water back on. When I got a plumber out to look at it, he said my pipes were too old and his company wouldn’t let him touch them for fear of causing further damage. This led to me having to get a full re-pipe job for my house. I always knew this was an eventuality, but I wasn’t quite prepared to deal with it at this moment. It was expensive but not as bad as I was fearing it might be. As they couldn’t schedule it immediately I was with very limited water service for over two weeks. I jury-rigged some spades and plastic bottles to direct most of the water away from the wall and into a bucket whenever I turned on the water, but it was far from perfect. The work finally got done and I’m now happy to have up-to-date copper water pipes throughout the house.
Of course, it’s never just one thing, and the work kind of snowballed. I used the construction as an excuse to replace the vanity in my bathroom. This in turn pushed me to paint the bathroom. Since they had to work in my office, it forced me to clean up the horrible mess that I’d been procrastinating on for years, and throw out a ton of stuff. Also, as they opened the walls in my office, I used it as an opportunity to install some ground wires to the plugs, so I now have 4 truly grounded plugs and a GFCI in the bathroom. (This also allowed me to get rid of an extension cord that was snaked through my house for 30 years.) Painting the office is now also on the agenda.
Just a few months prior to the plumbing work I also replaced my 50-year-old stove that was disintegrating. A month after the construction I also did some major repairs on my car that I’d been putting off for more than a year. So I’ve spent a lot of money this year, but I feel like I’ve brought several key parts of my infrastructure into the 21st century.