4 reno projects - say what?

Somehow, we've gone from doing one home reno project - the grass, to 4. I'm not really sure how that happened. But, as best as I can figure it, it all started with the car. We have 5 photovoltaic panels on our roof that we did last year. We knew at the time that was about 1/3 of what we would need to zero out our electric bill. But, we figured, we had time to install the rest. Since we got the car, we then decided, maybe it was better to go ahead and get some more panels put up. Then, I talked to my accountant, and he recommended maxing out the photovoltaic panels, because he wasn't sure if the federal and state rebates would remain the same for 2012 because of the budget/deficit, etc. So, then, the whole thing snowballed into something like this...

And, throw in there the grass and closing off this weird double door thing we have off the guest room in preparation for my parents' arrival (more on that later) and I'm not sure how many more projects we have!

And, we're usually a very slow decision making couple. Hence the pictures on the floor of our house, waiting to be hung, 6 months later. Boxes full of Jeff's childhood things we haven't gone through for 3 years. We don't usually rush into things. But, everything somehow got linked together and now we're getting quotes for all sorts of things and aren't even sure which projects to prioritize first, and which ones are really important to us.

In the interim, here are some pics of the grass. It's sad that it actually looks so much better with black topsoil over everything than the dead weeds we had before. I'll post more pics as the work progresses.

Look who wants to play in the dirt.

And here are some more in progress pics of the tables/chairs from the playroom. After 1 coat of primer and 3 coats of chalkboard paint, the legs are still looking streaky, so I need another coat. And the chairs have only one coat, so they need an extra coat, plus 2 coats of polyurathane. So, still more work to be done. But, when Nikhil saw the tables and chairs, I told him Mommy was making them for him and he turned to me and said "Thank you Mommy", so sweetly and totally unprompted. Of course, I'd be willing to do this 100 more times just for that!