Household repair priorities decision. non LMS post

Roommate and I have decided the house repair priorities. This has been a 6 month discussion.... focusing on visible/pretty and invisible/practical. We'll be getting the house painted. Now I need to decide on a color. That's the pretty option. The invisible option is replacing the water pipes and vapor barrier. I'm now living in a manufactured house.... cheap, but reliable shelter. I've learned a lot about the differences between manufactured and 'stick built' aka real houses.

Vapor barrier: Another difference between stick and manufactured housing. Attached to the bottom frame of the house is a plastic or canvas or Tyveck sheet, which keeps dust and dampness out. Over time, it disintegrates.... and when you take pictures under the house (you don't think I crawl under there, do you?) You can see the shredded (it's 30 years old, even if it wasn't exposed to the Florida sun, it has seen hot days.)

Painting Interior walls: There are "battans." Basically, to keep it lightweight and flexible, the walls have seams covered with a ruler type stick. When painting the options are:

to tear those out, spackle, sand, then prime, then paint. Lots of work. But I've seen the results in other homes in the park... Nice.

Paint over the battans, same color as room. Paint over battans, contrast color. Paint over battans contrasting color, then add equally spaced and sized stripes, (I've seen this on pinterest.com)

Cover the battans: Bead board is popular, pretty AND adds insulation. Here's the advice from someone who has done it:

Gray PVC Water Piping: This was built in 1986, they used the best (or cheapest) that they had at the time. Now after 30 years, it is brittle. We've replaced the kitchen sink piping, and the piping in one bathroom.

Critters living under the house: About the same as a crawl space. We've got a black racer snake (he and I scared each other last Spring). I've heard they are good because they keep the rodent population down. The neighbors behind us have citrus trees.... and they attract mice, fruit rats and assorted other unwanted furry critters.


Don't expect these to be done quickly. I'm hoping to throw some money at this and get the icky stuff done fast. He's worried about plumbing and problems (and high water bill .... the last repair was $140 and the additional water bill was about $150...both from his side of the budget.)