News - Home improvement Money is the easy part - Home improvement: Money is the easy part

    If you are fortunate to live in one of the more than 25 Minneapolis neighborhoods that have Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) home improvement loans available, you have a good chance of qualifying for a low interest loan.

    In my neighborhood of Lind Bohanon, I was astonished that we qualified for a four-percent loan, and the process was easy. I called the gentleman who handles the loans for our neighborhood, Jim Hasnik of Center For Energy and the Environment (CEE), filled out the forms he gave us and provided a few documents, and we had the money in a few days. Amazing!

    After we got the money, the hard part began. We are remodeling our kitchen. Doing the work ourselves, we started with tearing out the old kitchen. Not having a kitchen isn’t so bad, since I don’t cook that much, but we still have to eat. So we are microwaving in the living room and washing dishes in the bathtub. Not fun, but tolerable. The hardest part is all the decisions that my husband and I have to agree on. For example, what color to paint the walls? Yes, there are lots of choices other than white, and even many different shades of white. A fight over light blue versus almond. You bet. Another choice is what kind of cabinets to get.  For things like cabinets, you may have to special order them to get what you like, and that can take several weeks. So if your brother-in-law is available to help you install the cabinets in August, and the cabinets don’t arrive until October, you are going to have a problem. What about flooring?  Wood?  Vinyl?  Tile?  What light fixtures to get?

    We are lucky to live in world with so many choices. On the other hand, I have called my sister many times going crazy with all the choices. As hard as it was for me to decide what floor I wanted, it was even harder because my husband and I have very different tastes...  Unless you live alone, there are going to be lots of disagreements. I recommend learning meditation or yoga or kickboxing, and frequent romantic weekend retreats. Definitely have a plan in place to deal with the stress. In the end, I think it will be worth it to finally have a nice kitchen.

            If you want to find out about getting a NRP home improvement loan contact your neighborhood association (see pages 8 and 9), or Kristin DeGrande of CEE at 612-335-5881, or visit the CCE website at http://www.mncee.org. They are really nice people