At last I've sat down to get my plans and goals for the house this new year onto (digital) paper.
Last year I moved into a brand new-to-me house with a long list of things I wanted to change and fix. In my opinion, the first stretch was a sprint to get rid of the worst offenders. All of the green and yellow paint had to go, along with some of the light fixtures.
Now I feel like the house is in a good place. The worst areas have all been updated, but there is still plenty of work to do to touch every space. And trust me, before I'm finished, every space will get a change.
I still haven't touched our master bathroom (other than paint), our laundry room, guest bedroom, dining room (other than paint) or playroom. I've only swapped the light and mirror in our powder bathroom so far. So there are still plenty of changes headed your way.
I love watching home decorators who move into a new house and dive into huge renovations. Those are so much fun to follow! But I'm more of a let's-make-everything-likable-first kind of person, and THEN we'll go back in for the major renovations and makeovers.
A lot of that comes down to time. It's just me doing the work while juggling motherhood, running the house and cooking dinner each night. AND with my family home most of last year, many of my home projects got pushed to the back burner.
Then there's the budget. I don't have a huge renovation fund. In this house I'm trying to strike a balance between budget-friendly decor and buying quality pieces I love that will last a long time. I think we'll be here for many years, so I want pieces that will stay with us a good while. That isn't always cheap.
Last year I tried something new with my goal setting for home projects. I revisited them every 3 months and set new goals for the next quarter. Since the holiday season is such a wash AND it's almost February now , my plan is to revisit my goals every 4 months this year. So I'll have January through April, May through August & September through December goals.
How I did on my Home Goals for 2020
I won't go through each one, because I just shared my Before & After Home Tour and most of what I did is covered in detail in that post! So take a look to see how far this house has come in a year.
And you can see all of the original goal posts here:
My 2021 Home Goals, Part 1
January to April
My goals for these next four months focus heavily on the outside of our home. We mostly neglected the garage and the exterior last year, but with warmer weather on the way, it's time to tackle it!
1. Get Quotes for Painting the Trim & Shutters
This is the first real look at the exterior of our home. It's a cape cod style house with beautiful real shutters and lots of small details. Like the inside, the previous owners loved their yellow and green. It's not as obvious in these photos, but ALL of the trim is painted yellow. #notmyvibe
Side note – I think a power washer would do wonders on those front steps, don't you?
Even the back porch is painted a pale yellow, as you can see in these photos.
I'd like to paint the back porch ceiling haint blue. If you aren't familiar with the Southern tradition of painting porch ceilings a light blue, it might seem strange. But it's a common thing in the South.
I'm thinking of painting the white trim my favorite white: Simply White (Benjamin Moore). And I'm considering Graphite (Benjamin Moore) for the shutters and front door. It's a soft black or charcoal and looks really good on the outside of a house.
But before I commit to either color, I'll do my usual test: paint samples on a poster board and hold them up outside in a variety of spots and lighting.
I'll make a mock-up of what it might look like with the charcoal shutters and front door. I'd also like to swap out the front porch light.
I didn't change the trim color in the mock-up because it looks close enough to white in the photo, but I think it'll look much better in person. It isn't a drastic change, but it's a phase 1 update.
Phase 2 will be to paint the brick someday, too. We'd love to use Romabio masonry paint and have all of our brick limewashed. I've made a mock-up of that as well.
I know, it's gorgeous. I LOVE how this looks, and I'll keep this dream photo on my wall until it happens! But for now, we're just going to handle the shutters and trim and save up for a full makeover later on.
2. Fix the Grass
Thanks to an unfortunate incident last summer, our grass got fried. We hired a company to help control the weeds, and instead they killed our grass. Womp. Womp.
It was a whole thing, and they never fixed their mistake. So we were left with a half-destroyed yard and no budget to repair it. We've since hired another company to manage it, but they advised us to wait until this spring to fix it.
So while it's not a super fun makeover, it'll make me so much happier to pull into the driveway to a beautiful green lawn instead of a brown, burned-up one.
I'll be sure to share our experience and how we fix it!
3. Finish the Kitchen Makeover
Whew! This makeover has dragged on for a while. If you need a refresher, this is the vision I had for my kitchen makeover last July.
And you can see how far we've come in my Christmas kitchen tour.
But my biggest holdup was finding the right counter stools. I was on the hunt for a:
- swivel counter stool
- with a back
- that had a weight limit of more than 250 lbs.
- not upholstered
- AND that I loved
Of course, the only one I could find that fit the bill was out of my price range. So I kept looking – and kept coming back to those chairs.
I finally decided to save up and buy the stools of my dreams. But the budgeter in me HAD to wait for a sale. Well, they went on sale earlier this month and I ordered them STAT! As with all home goods right now, shipping is slow. But I know they'll arrive before March, and I'll share them ASAP!
The only other item I need for my kitchen isn't really in the kitchen, but it leads into it, so I'm including it. It's the stair runner.
I shared this inspiration pic and goal in last year's goals. But with the craziness at the end of the year, I just didn't get it done. So I hope to look at stair runner samples later this week and get one ordered!
And then my kitchen makeover will be done – for now. I'm really thinking about replacing the faucet before I do a reveal. But the faucet I want is a bit pricey, which means putting off other projects. So, we'll see.
4. Organize the Garage
This project made the list because I'm not sure I can handle my disorganized garage one more second! And I always try to pick projects for spring when I'd like my husband's help. He's more available in the spring because of his work schedule.
We've organized a garage before. I've even shared tips for organizing a garage. And now it's time to put them to use here!
I think we'll do a mix of cabinets, open shelves and wall-mounted storage. Something like this, plus more open shelving…
The thing is, we have a rather large 2-car garage and plenty of room. But we just dumped everything in it when we moved in and really haven't touched it since. I think my husband's truck might fit in there if we actually get it organized!
What's Missing?
If you've been around here a little while, you might notice that finishing my master bedroom makeover didn't make the list. That's because we've reached a good stopping point, and I wanted to focus on these outdoor projects in the spring. I just don't think I'll have time to finish it. Maybe this summer!
It's so funny. I've been going back and forth all month trying to decide what goals to set this year. And as soon as I wrote these down to share on the blog, I immediately started taking action.
I've already called about an estimate for painting the house trim & shutters. And I've already started planning the garage organization. All I needed was to write down my goals. It proves that WRITING them down makes a difference.
I'd love to hear some of your home goals this year! Feel free to share them below in the comments!
