That you were going to replace the carpet makes no difference. 

Some of the wood siding and trim needed replaced.  

I would bet you have to replace your hvac system due the volume increase or provide supplemental system.   

But these tools don't replace actually physically spending time in the area. 

Is it worth it to replace those two issues?

The back had a second floor balcony that we had to replace as it was entirely rotted.

Its more like, imagine you can use a well established RECF platform of your choice as a template, replace the logo and company info with your own, and wala you have a RECF platform. 

I am an IT professional and I am not looking to replace my day job, but I am hoping to increase my knowledge and find like-minded individuals in my area that I could possibly work with on some projects. 

She now wants me to remove the storm windows and replace them with screens.

I used to go to rilandrecords.com several times a week for links to land evidence records and tax assessor websites for RI cities & towns (Providence, Pawtucket, more recently Warwick, Johnston etc.)It went offline last week (Friday I think) but there is a replacement site with the same info as the old one: https://ripropinfo.com (RI property info).This is one of a small handful of essential sites I have on my "bookmarks" bar for doing real estate in Rhode Island, along with the RI secretary of state corporations database and the RI contractors registration board license lookup, so I hope this is helpful.