In January of this year I made a list of resolutions for our then-new abode (read about them here). It included projects that were begging for attention, projects that had stalled, and projects that I just thought would be fun. Care to wager which of those project categories actually saw completion over the last 12 months? Well, it’s now December and it’s time to come clean and share with you how we fared.
1) Get rid of the last of the wall paper. At first I thought I’d actually did this one, but then I walked over to check and realized that, nope. The closet doors near the garage still have the fuzzy beige wallpaper backing. In fact, the walls in that hallway still have traces wallpaper glue on them, too. It’s funny how when you walk by something every day you just start to accept it and don’t even notice the flaws anymore. FAIL.
2) Paint the kitchen/laundry/half bath. Nope. Nope. Nope. I did paint the paneled wall navy and that made a HUGE difference. I also did some drywall patching. One wall in the laundry room got a coat of primer and half the brick wall in the kitchen was refreshed. Yep, half a wall. Even my toddler pointed this out to me the other day. “Mommy, you painted this? But not this??” This is another FAIL.
3) Address the kitchen and the yellow bathroom floors. Ahh! I did this one! It was a month of pure hell, but we got new VCT floors in the kitchen, laundry room and half bath. And we love them. The yellow bathroom? Yeah, not so much. Every once in a while I look for deals on carpet squares to replace that weird patch of loose carpet in the sink area, but haven’t found anything great yet. And I have no idea what to do about the missing yellow ceramic tiles. For now we just cover them with a bath mat. Out of sight out of mind! I’m going to be generous and give myself a PASS on this one because even though I didn’t complete the bathroom floors at least I’m still actively thinking about it — which is more than I can say about that wall paper…
4) Address the fireplace situation. Another PASS!! This one was actually a pretty fun project. I decided to paint the brick around the fireplace Bermuda Blue and it looks fantastic. We get compliments on it all the time. I even painted the brass fireplace surround a matte black which was oh so necessary. My mom is still getting on my case about doing something with that iron art piece, but I think other than giving it a good cleaning , I’m pretty happy with it as is.
5) Get the guest room in order. Hahahahahaha! Hahaha! … Ha. So yeah, the guest room. Well, for a while there the guest room was looking so nice that it was my favorite room in the house (you can see it here). I love the light that it gets and the vintage furniture I’d gathered throughout the year along with the textiles I’d collected had really brought it together nicely. Then we added a crib and suddenly it wasn’t a guest room anymore — it was an awkward, shared baby/guest space. But, last week we painted it (and finally patched and caulked the baseboards which was a huge undertaking!) and hung curtains and it’s looking lovely, so that’s something. So even though we still need a headboard and updated track lights (new paint made those cans look crazy yellow) I’m giving us a big fat PASS.
6) Finish pruning the shrubs. We did this. I think. Yes, I know we did, it’s just that we now need to do it again. But really, we spent many hours pruning and digging and planting and watering and for that we get a pass (and a round of applause) on our front landscaping. But if you swing by, just don’t mind the leaves that need raking, or the overgrown shrub that needs trimming or the four plants along the back of the planting bed that died. M’kay?
But for all the items that we didn’t get to, there were a bunch of unforeseen projects that we did tackle. Like a thrifted and refinished coffee table, a made over den space, a few new rugs and kitchen chairs, and a cleaned out and updated indoor planter!
As for next year? Here’s what I’d love to get accomplished:
1) Paint the bedrooms and hallway.
2) Paint the kitchen, laundry room and half bath (this would include final wallpaper removal).
3) Figure out the carpet situation in the yellow bath.
4) Install quarter round in the master bath/closet (there’s stills gaps around the sides from when we had the hardwood floors installed two summers ago) and fix busted drawer front.
5) Hook up the water to the new sink the half bath. And to the ice maker while we’re at it.
My plan was to hire out the painting work, but that was before we were planning on paying for two kids in daycare. Guess I’ll have to suck it up!
Mid-Century Modern(ization) 
December 8, 2014 at 12:43 pm
You’ve accomplished SO much in your first year, Olivia. In my book, that’s a definite PASS! I’m glad we didn’t set any specific goals, as there’s plenty we didn’t get round to. I need to pull my finger out and do a similar review post though…
December 8, 2014 at 12:49 pm
Haha, well, I’d actually forgotten that I’d set these goals (or maybe I would have done a little better), but it’s nice to have an easy way to look back and see the progress we’ve made. You two have me by leaps and bounds though! ;)
December 8, 2014 at 1:05 pm
I might set a few goals for next year, or at least post a ‘to-do’ list, so we can measure our success…or otherwise :)