Most everyone puts off painting.

Exterior painting & roof cleaning. Also a new driveway which will probably never get done.

HI -- The exterior needs to be repainted and continuing with the landscaping when money allows . Landscaping is so expensive .

New siding. I'd rather spend that amount of money in a hundred other ways.

Waterproofing the basement. FINALLY got done two weeks ago! Even replaced the grungy windows down there! Sidewalks and patio for 2015 project!!

Garage reno... Its used as a store room at the moment but it needs waterproofing and painting, as well as some storage solutions (shelving etc). Sometimes the smallest spaces require the most work.

Master bathroom needs major changes.....we have the money saved up now to proceed, but the idea of all the chaos during the renovation has us dragging our feet. Fortunately, nothing is leaking its just cosmetic/functional upgrades that are necessary.

Patio furniture and backyard fix up!

We've lived here 3 1/2 years and for three of those, we have needed to "do something" about the area directly behind the sink...no backsplash in the kitchen, granite counters, no windows (apartment built seven years ago). Meanwhile, the painted area just gets worse with water constantly splashing there.

Prepping, Applying water proof Drylock to the concrete vault room ceiling and/or walls..and DECLUTTERING!

We brought our place with a pre-existing wood deck. Although it is structually sound, it needs repainting like every year. We want to replace with composite boards but it's expensive. My bright idea last year was to replace one board at a time with composite (say 3 boards per week) so we don't "feel" the expense, but guess what.... ???

To add a well needed second bathroom!

Remodel bathrooms. They need it desperately.

Does a car repair count? My husband damaged one of the side view mirrors at LEAST 3 years ago. Our car is white. We could not find white replacement mirrors without going to a dealership. So since the car is trimmed around the windows in black, we bought 2 black ones. He replaced the damaged one but the other black mirror is still sitting in its box. We even moved in that time and moved the box. So our car has one black mirror and one white. Every time I complain about it he says no one notices. Hmmm. I do.

Waterproofing the basement. We had a patio built and our yard regraded several years ago. That helped immensely, but some problems still exist. That became more apparent when we had two 4+ inch rains in two weeks!!

We moved into this house 20 years ago. The side porch has never been very functional. We have wanted to replace that since the first year we moved in but this house has had so many things wrong with it. All the electrical had to be replaced, new windows, a new roof, we had an enormous puff back from the oil burner that destroyed just about everything, The kitchen cabinets were barely hanging on the wall and all the carpets had to come up due to a leaking roof. The hallway carpeting came up first and there were mushrooms growing under it. This is our first home. We bought it as a quick sale when we moved back to Massachusetts from Ft. Leavenworth, KS. We were stationed in Kansas for 4 years and when we came back to this area, the housing market had sky-rocketed. We had to move in with my husbands parents with our kids for a year when we first came back to this area. This home was barely affordable but we didn't have a lot of choices at the time. We needed a home of our own. Our home inspector was terrible and he missed everything that was wrong. We have had to do so many repairs with this house and it seems like almost everything we try and fix turns out to be a disaster. Finally, after years of fixing and redoing things we finally decided to repair the kitchen. We donated everything we could that we took out of the kitchen and we had some family and friends help to put in new cabinets. I wanted to hire professionals so badly, but my uncle insisted he could do it and save us thousands of dollars. Well, that was a disaster too. I was so excited about getting a quartz counter and some storage for all my baking things. I am a pastry chef and I make a lot of cakes from my home. The stone company that my uncle insisted I use for the counter, cut the sink opening wrong and put the seam in right in the middle and the pieces of quartz are two different colors. The cabinets are horrible and cheap and pulling away from the wall. Again, my uncle insisted we get these cabinets cause he gets a discount. We couldn't afford new appliances when we replaced the cabinets and counter so we still have the old ones. I was so excited to finally get my dream kitchen and that was a big fail. Every time we think we can finally have a porch/deck done, something else comes up. We have had to replace the siding on one side of the house due to the puff back because it melted. We had to replace the roof because of excessive leaking. We had water pouring into the upstairs bedrooms and the hallway. We had to have all the upstairs floors replaced and a wall replaced in the hallway due to the water. damage. My husband has been in the Army for 26 years. He now works from home and his office is in the basement. I have always wanted to renovate that space for him. But that and our porch/deck is always on the back burner. Last summer, we actually called a few people to give us estimates for the deck. We were going to move forward with this and the guy we hired, took $400.00 dollars from us and we never saw him again. Another disaster. We would both love to have a porch/deck. It would be really great to have some living space outside. I know my house sounds like a disaster, but with all it's faults, I really do love it. It just needs a lot of attention. I just wish everything it needed wasn't so involved and expensive. I have a folder/wishbook that I started putting together years ago. We actually renovated a bathroom last year using pictures and ideas from your site. I get so inspired just looking around yours site. It just makes me happy to browse through when I need to be inspired. I love it. I have attached a picture of our porch/deck. It is falling apart and it is really not safe to be out there anymore. If you have any advice about what we should do with it, that would be very appreciated. Thank you for your time. Sorry, this is so long.

The wildlife have started eating our wooden porch!! We have needed to replace the pillars for a couple of years now but with the newly found chewed wood it would seem a new concrete porch is needed.

It's a tie between bathroom remodel and rebuilding backyard deck.

I did the "non-sexy" things last year- new furnace and a/c, update electrical, new roof. I HATED putting the money into things I couldn't see. I painted all the walls in the finished portion of the house and all the ceilings. I had gutter covers installed.
I would like to put a sealing coat on my basement walls in the unfinished portion, but it isn't something that is a dire need.
I really want to remodel my 1/2 bath and add crown molding throughout the house. I HOPE I don't have anything else that needs to be done!

So with you guys on feeling unsatisfied when the projects are not the visible kind. Makes it easy to put off needed repairs in favor of the ones you can see.

New kitchen. such a huge expense and disruption!

Metal roof scraping & painting. Equal to that...exterior wood scraping & painting.

Both are projects that I cannot physically do. Projected cost...5 to 8k for the 2. :0(

Horse fencing, they just can't be mended much longer.

Painting exterior shutters! House itself is brick and siding but not the shutters!

I've been bad about maintenance for the past 25 years, so I'm paying for it now! EVERYTHING needs to be fixed or replaced or cleaned up. Now that I'm retired, at least I have the time to focus on it. Had a new roof put up last year, and I'm scheduled for full exterior (house and fence) painting and new gutters this summer. After that, a big must-do project is gutting and renovating the hallway bathroom. There's a lot more to be done....**sigh**...but at least for now the house will look well maintained from the outside :-).

Landscaping and re-siding the house. The latter needs to happen first

Shingling the roof. Yuck! As boring as buying tires and insurance.

New roof

We bought a 20 year old brick house 9 years ago and have slowly been remodeling the whole house. We started with the kitchen & put new floors in living room, painted 3 rooms, & recently finished with the main bathroom remodel, taking out the bathtub and making it a large shower. Next is new carpet in the bedrooms. Will we ever be done? Probably not! There is always something to do in a house!

Revamp the carpeting!

Basement parging and attic redo

Back entrance way, husband started two years ago and it's half finished. 20 year old son said he would finish it last summer but it's still the same ....... my vacation project this year when they go camping ....

We have put off getting new carpet the longest. We took the carpet out of the living room & put in laminate flooring, which we love! But we still need new carpet in 3 bedrooms, the stairway & the basement.

Completely new asphalt driveway (about 800 feet long)- the cost is what is killing us! Estimates ranging from $25,000 -$40,000- yikes! We have just been filling in low spots and patching here and there each summer and saying some day we will replace it all....maybe if we refinance the house or win some money someday?

cabingirl13, I can identify! We are in the same boat with our long asphalt driveway.

I've wanted to gut and remodel my kitchen, but it was too expensive. So I've decided to change a few things for less money. Started with the floor, but I still need to change the backsplash and counter. I'm going to go with glass and granite. I will also change the hardware and exhaust fan. There will need to be some painting done too.

This house needs paint!
Can't paint til I put on a new front porch.
Then I can put up new gutters.
Then I need to replace some wood siding w stucco.
THEN I CAN PAINT!

Was all set to do this LAST spring, but slipped and broke my wrist. I'm a hairdresser . After a year of barely working...
It should probably wait til NEXT spring.

Thank gawd we had a dry winter in CA!

Block fencing needs to be painted in one single color. The previous owner had five different shades going. We think they painted around plants (which have since been removed) and now have a weird pattern going on. This will be a long and hot project