The worst thing about home renovation is that sticking to a budget is a pain in the ass. You budget out for X, Y, & Z, but in the process of doing X, A needs to be done. Then when doing Y, B should also be done. It seems like you’ll never get to Z and be finished with it all.
We decided to redo our front step area since it was deteriorating and really was a hazard for anyone to use to get into the house. We’d really not have anyone break a leg trying to visit us, thank you very much. That lead to us having to redo the stairs leading to the house as well as refinishing the stucco on the exposed foundation so that it all matches.
All this was of course after we bought The Little One a swing set which necessitated us to have our backyard deck & pool ripped out. In doing so, we saw that the deck around the pool served as a faux retaining wall which meant we needed to have a 25 foot long by 5 foot tall section added, lest my backyard get caved in on by 4-5 tons of dirt [approximately, but not really. alot of dirt though]. It also meant the concrete patio under the deck had to be smoothed out and bricked/paved as well as the backyard itself being levelled. So for the past week ad a half or so, I’ve got mounds of dirt everywhere, I have a Beetle sized dirt over in the middle of my backyard and my bank account is slowly dwindling.
On the bright side once everything is done, it will look really nice and we’ll have a place to hang and chill out in.