While most people think of planning for the new year before the Christmas tree comes down, our “home improvement calendar” typically kicks off with the arrival of spring weather. Here’s what’s on our list of this year:

THE ATTIC
It’s been on the list since day one, but continues to get bumped by more urgent projects. This year, that changes – we hope. While the plan is to turn the attic space into a family room, with our track record of bumping this project down the list every year our goal is going to be fairly minimal – we want to end the year with the attic insulated so it is ready to finish. To get to that point we’ll need to do a little prep work, but nothing that can’t be done in a weekend or two. I suspect it may take more time to find the right company to install the spray foam insulation needed for the job.

THE YARD
This is also the year we’re going to focus on shaping up the yard, and there may not be enough days in the year for this one as it means of bunch of small projects coming together:

Tear down the old smoke house.
Remove the tree next to smoke house.
Shape up the smoke house area and move the kids play-set there.
Put in a yard fence.
Finish the pasture fence.
Improve grade/drainage of yard.
Establish grass in all the spots we tore up in 2015 and will tear up in 2016.

That should be enough on top of the normal day-to-day to keep us reasonably busy for the year. Of course, there’s always something unexpected in an old house that seems to jump to the top of the list – 2013 had the leaky roof that lead to a new furnace and roof, 2014 had the new well, 2015 had the new electrical service. Who knows what 2016 is going to throw at us, but if at the end of the year this list is finished – and not bumped by other projects – I may be the most shocked.