Resetting expectations

We recently had a loss in the family. Our last cat passed away at the first of March. After 19 years of pets, we are suddenly petless.

Odd feeling. We decided we'd get all that stuff done around the house that you don't want to do when there's pets: maybe an addition? Finally -- an office for me?

We kicked that idea around. Nah. Let's wait on that. LOTS of money and would we really get it back on resale?

What about painting? We should really get the interior painted, it's been 8 years, yada yada. And those floors -- get them refinished, right? And maybe put in a new floor in one room that has an ugly rug.

Call painters. Get estimates. Get sticker shock. Call floor people. Get bigger sticker shock.

Okay. Maybe not a whole interior paint job. Maybe just the doors and the baseboards. Maybe just the floors.

Visualize it. Hassle, smell, moving furniture -- you may as well paint the whole thing.

Now we're down to: "I'll touch up the paint and the baseboards when I get time. Let's hold on the floors, because that's such an invasion, moving ALL the furniture, and if we do that, we'd need to paint so .... When we sell the house, we'll give the buyers a discount so they can do the floors. Yeah. That makes sense."

It pays to thoroughly visualize a project. It can sometimes save you a lot of money and bother.