After moving from Florida to New Mexico to be around my family, I purchased a house that was a nightmare. More leaks than a sieve. Sold the house and bought another small home, 1400 sq. ft. with practically a 45 degree roof. It also leaks. Karma has deemed that I will have water problems even in the desert. Saw the Future Steel building and decided to enter this contest to give Karma a run for her money. Not only do we have a leaky roof, I have the home that is the hazard on the 10th hole of the golf course. My courtyard is the landing for all the golf balls on a dog leg left. At this time I have dents in the house and a broken kitchen window from the last tournament. Duct tape really is a wondrous invention and will keep the remaining glass in the kitchen window intact until the first snow and the golfers go east for the winter. The glass surrounding the electric meter on the house is totally cracked from a hit that would have been lethal to a head. The courtyard is completely covered in concrete 20×40 and all I can think of is how wonderful it would be to have a Future Steel building there for my business (professional organizer and teacher…How’s that for irony?) and to add the wasted courtyard space to the home. (Also to give the golf balls something hard to bounce back from and train the golfers how un-cool it is to put the homeowners and pets in danger for their recreational endeavors. I have all the furniture and boxes from a 2700 square ft. house in Florida, stacked to the ceiling and the garage is totally full. This space would be an answer to a prayer and a way to be able to organize our lives for work and a home life. Even if I don’t win…I still think your buildings are terrific and believe most of the people that live on my block would consider one for thesame reasons.

My husband I purchased a house in December 2001, in January 2002 we started noticing problems. Fast forward to today and you will find that we have been in a lawsuit for the last five years. We had to move out of the house because it was structually unsafe. The house that we purchased was a good deal, but needed a lot of work. There were holes in the walls, doors off the hinges, years of wallpapers on the walls. We did all the work we stripped the wallpaper and painted every wall in the four bedroom house. We ordered a new countertop and installed it in the kitchen. We installed new kitchen cabinets, hard wood floors in the kitchen and dining room. New carpet in the family room, living room, stairs, hallway and all four bedrooms. New subfloor in the master bath. New lineium in the guest bath. The last thing is the deck. But with the emotianal stress and mounting legal bills the lawsuit has left without the hope of a new deck for the back yard. Our resolution is to get this done this summer no matter what.

Just perfect for restoring the cars I wanted as a kid. Now we actually have a garage.

I am a new bride who is very frustrated. We own our own business and have 2 boys…..we are ALWAYS running. Plus I have RA which makes it hard for me to help with any home repairs or work. I am just looking for help for my hubby! This is probabley all I can give!

I live with my mother and we have about 3 homes worth of things stuffed in one house. we really need a storage building.

We bought our home as a ’starter home’ only to find that it was leaking water into the basement like a sieve. We didn’t know it originally because it was a finished basement. We ended up gutting the entire basement ourselves with sledge hammers and crowbars, and then shoveling the debris into 5 gallon buckets while my husband then hauled them outside to the back of his pickup to take to the dump. That was a very small beginning to our nightmare. This year I need to finish paint touch-ups, get a handrail for the stairs, refinish the wood floors (again), trim out the whole downstairs, finish tiling the basement floor (the part that doesn’t leak anymore), put in the drain tile around the basement (the part that still leaks), and re-finish the concrete countertops. That would be a good start, if I can get all of this done.

Our major improvement will be our kitchen. Right now it’s very small, very dark and most of the appliances are at least 20 years old. The cabinets are falling apart. We’ve saved for 5 years to be able to afford the remodel, and my husband will be tackling it all himself to save us labor costs.

We’re going to gut the whole thing, and open up a wall on the side to make it a little bigger. It should give us about 4 feet more counter top space. The cracked tile floor needs to go too. The only thing we’ll be putting back in is the refrigerator which is only 5 years old.

I’m looking forward to the much needed updated kitchen. Especially the extra counter space and under the cabinet lighting we have planned. I’m dreading being without my kitchen for a while though. Good thing I love to grill outside, though I’m not sure what to do without a kitchen sink. Looks like it’ll be paper plates and silverware for a while.

Here is a picture of the wall that will need to be removed.

Here is a picture of the opposite side. We plan on removing the built in oven that stick out, and will replace it with a full stove/oven.

As it stands our home needs major spring cleaning, I would love to remove our kitchen floor…spring into action and get another one. Our son is in a wheelchair age 9, and is curious why he cant go into our den, that has steps… I would spring into action if I could and make his dream come true…build a ramp or something. Wheelchair freindly carpet, flooring…I would have my son a big therapy room, bed room just for him. My idea of Spring Cleaning improvment is..Get rid of old and bring in the new.And for my husband , I would love a GentleMans quarter.A building just for him and his freinds, so they can smoke,listen to music.. etc.I spring him into this area with pride.

We have been upgrading as we can, and it has been a very slow process. So far, we have replaced bathroom fixtures, and some of the flooring. We still need more flooring, new windows and doors, and our kitchen needs remodeled desperately! We plan to replace the flooring next.�

My favourite spring cleaning project is my backyard, there’s leaves, pine-combs, pine needles and various bits of garbage and what-not have been hiding under a pile of snow. I like doing it because I’m outside in nice weather and each year we do something a little different with our gardens so its quite fun actually. It’s especially fun when your done! It’s allways quite a transformation just from cleaning, but now sit back and enjoy!!�