Now, this is going to be weird

We are about to move back into our house after living elsewhere for three years. Wow, that's a long time and it will involve three moves total for the round trip since we left in August 2006.

Some observations:

• The neighborhood hasn't change much except that the curb trees have gotten a lot bigger and now need to be cut down and replaced because the city in all it's wisdom specified the wrong ones in the first place. (Then they want to charge you $75 for a permit to correct their mistake.) All of our close by neighbors are the same, just older.
  
• Lawns don't take care of themselves. Ours is now on life support after three years of renters. The landscape guy said to give it six months to see if it comes back with some TLC (like water!).
• Little things mount up. A loose screw here, lack of cleaning and dusting there. Pretty soon things fall off or turn to very stubborn grime. I've always believe that half of life is showing up and the other half is paying attention. When something doesn't look right or sound right, check it out and have it fixed -- now. Or it'll just get worse and cost you more down the road. Deferred maintenance is a prudent idea only for so long.
  
• The house seems so big compared to where we've lived the past three years and especially while it's empty. The temptation will be to overfill it -- again. We got rid of a ton of stuff when we moved, so hopefully we have a new religion on stuff. It will fill up fast and despite all the stuff we purged when we moved out, we are going to need to purge even more.
  
• We've made enough changes that it will feel like a new old house to us. Familiar, but different. We're moving the rooms around to get more value from our investment (are houses still an investment?). No more living room. That was the room that collected dust and little used furniture. People felt forced to go in there when we had too many house guests. The too-small family room will become the just right dining room. And, the living room/dining room will become the very big and comfortable family room.
  
• We're getting more energy efficient with a new 95% efficient furnace (the old one died a year ago) and considering replacing more windows. Already went for the cordless electric mower to pamper the ailing lawn.
  
• We always hated the white cook top, so it's been replaced with a very sleek black model. Ditto on the refrigerator. Black to replace the disappointing stainless steel version. Stainless steel anything seems like a great idea in the appliance store, but our experience is that it's a disaster in the kitchen. Proceed with caution.
• We've already made some new rules about "stuff." The pantry can only be half full of food. The other half is for non-food items and cooking utensils and appliances. No duplicates. If we've got two of anything, one of them gets given away or goes to Good Will.
• Unclutter. This will be a great test to see if we can cut the clutter for real. If there's no place for something then it goes. We're no longer saving/storing things for "someday." The attic is all cleaned out of packing boxes and carpet remnants and non are going back up there.

Well, this is a start. Once we've lived back in the house for a month or so, I'll report back on how best laid plans are working out.