Our not so new house.

When does a "new" house stop being a new house? I have asked this question and am starting to get answers. We had our house custom built in 2003. That makes is 5 years old. It is becoming evident that this "new" house isn't so new anymore. Nothing major, and mostly cosmetic, but we are finding ourselves doing more and more repairs and home improvement lately. I recently replaced the cabinet hardware in the kitchen with some beautiful antique copper finished handles. I decided I wanted the kitchen sink faucet to match. Pretty easy right. NOT! This 30 minute job turned into 3 hours and we totally ruined the old faucet trying to get it out! We did get it out and the new one went on in 15 minutes and is leak free. I also found myself outside yesterday staining our wood fence with my new Wagner power spray painter. Very cool, very fast, but very messy. By the way, I only got 1/4 done when I ran out of stain. This is just a sample, here are some of the things on my to do list:
1. Cut back the pyracantha bushes in front yard.
2. Paint upstairs hall bathroom.
3. Paint the upstairs hall.
4. Re-paint living room walls, (painted 3 years ago, time for a fresh coat.)
5. Paint downstairs bathroom.
6. Rock in the underground untilities in backyard. We only have 2 now that our neighbors rebuilt their fence and fenced the ones on their property in their yard! Yea!
7. Plant something to hide the last two utilities.
8. Finish landscaping the back side of the house, but first repaint the back side of house thanks to the sprinkler system calcium buildup. Thank goodness for the new power spray painter! DH is actually looking forward to this!
9. Maybe this fall, build a new deck on the back side of the house over the existing concret patio.
10. Put a roof of some kind on the kids swingset fort.
11. Look for new hot water heater, after only 5 years, our hard city water has created buildup and it knocks and bangs after showers.
12. Price and contemplate ceramic tile in kitchen and entry. I like the hardwood laminate we have now. It's just hard to keep clean. I learned to lay tile this spring at our church, and I think some natural stone looking ceramic tile with grout would look really nice.

Overall, our 5 year old house is holding up well. It is just time to make some little changes just for the sake of them.