Hey, it’s 2019! 2018 was one of those years where it seemed like we weren’t getting much done, but when I look back at my plan post from last year it turns out we did…not so bad. I mean, it helped that we didn’t have too many things on our list for the year. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Dining room: this was supposed to be our very first project last year, but then we got distracted by Milo and Gus’s room and didn’t get back to the dining room until just a few weeks ago. But now things are buzzing along in there! I’ll tell you about it in my next post!

Downstairs bathroom: we did this!

Milo and Gus’s Room: we did this, too! And, bonus: we put in new bamboo floors at the same time. Not even on the list!

Thinking about a finished basement: Well, yes, I’ve thought about it. I would still like a finished basement. Actually, we had a plumber out here yesterday to look at a leak in the kids’ bathroom (everything in my life is leaking right now, incidentally), and I asked him about the logistics/pricing for getting a bathroom down there (since it would mean pumping water up to street level)….he just gave me a general figure, not an actual estimate, but it’s on the lower side of what I was expecting and makes it seem like it’s possible we’ll actually be able to start on the basement….sometime. Really, as long as we had a bathroom down there it would be a very reasonable place for someone to sleep (in fact, people do sleep down there from time to time on the sleeper sofa). The temperature stays pretty reasonable  year round, but we could also put in one of those hotel unit things maybe….Anyway. Something to keep thinking about.

It’s so easy to get most of the things on your list done when you don’t put much on your list! Let’s do that again this year! And every year until Abe goes to college? I’m not even going to talk about the blogging and personal lists I made last year, because….not a lot happened with those. I was supposed to blog more and read more and hike more and watch more movies. I did….some of all of those things anyway.

So on to next year! Wait, no–THIS year! Did you know it’s already like a third of the way through January?! You might not even believe me, but you should check your calendar.

Speaking of calendars, don’t anybody try to make plans with me in February, because I won’t be able to see what they are:

 

This is the Atlas Obscura calendar I got for Christmas. More like Calendar Obscura, amiright?! But it’s a pretty calendar.

Okay, so….I was talking over this year’s plans with Dave last night, and I realized that we don’t really have a firm idea of what they are. Which is a little unusual. Like with pretty much everything in our lives right now, we really don’t know what the year will hold, house-wise. But here are some thoughts:

Finish Dining Room: This is one of the only things we DO know. Because we’re already in deep now, so there’s no going back. There will be lots more about the dining room coming up very soon.

Minor or Major Things in the Foyer and Library: See? I just don’t know! We recently painted over the silver sharpie squirrels in the foyer:

…and we’ve now repainted the dining room. So the last room due for new paint is the library:

But beyond that, I’m not sure how much I want to do with this whole front of the house space. There are definitely a few things I’m tired of in the library and foyer, but I don’t know if they’re due for some minor changes or a complete overhaul. Like maybe it’s finally time to start knocking some holes in the wall and making a coat closet in that mysterious empty space behind the foyer (we discovered a couple of years ago that there’s just wasted, coat-closet-sized, space right there, between that wall and the basement stairs. But knocking down walls is scary):

Anyway, I’m back-burnering everything except painting the library until we address the next stuff on the list, I think.

Painting/decorating the stairway and upstairs hallway: this is the last place in the house where the old yellow paint from when we moved in still lurks, and I’m hoping to finally get rid of it once and for all! Along with hanging pictures and switching out light fixtures and using the wall space in the hallway as efficiently as possible (right now there are a few mis-matched bookshelves up there. Maybe some….matched bookshelves? It’s not a huge project, but it would (WILL!) be very satisfying to finally get it done.

Laundry Room: honestly, the laundry room doesn’t bother me that much. I’m not one to get super excited about a fancy laundry room. Well, sometimes I see really nice ones and I do get excited…but not excited enough to do anything with mine. But if we get the hallway finished, then the laundry room will be the last space in the house (except for our closet, I guess–which is certainly room-sized) that hasn’t been dealt with at all. It’s perfectly functional as is, and already has a ton of storage space (cabinets above the washer/dryer and a linen closet). But it’s definitely not beautiful.

Goodbye, birdie tile! Oh, wait–more yellow paint! I forgot about this yellow paint.

And if we get to all of that, the whole house will be finished! Ha! I mean, not really. But we’ll have at least made a first pass at everything. And beyond that, things get murky.

Kids’ Bathroom: this hasn’t been done since right after we moved in, and it’s due for some updates. Also, it’s never been blogged about!

New Windows: this falls into the “expensive things that need to be done but aren’t very fun, and I can’t even blog about them, really” category. Most of the house has newer vinyl windows, but there are still several original (i.e. 35 years old or so) single pane wooden windows that really need to be replaced. But windows are so expensive!

More bamboo floors: these almost fall into the above category, but they are a little more fun. And more blog-worthy, since we’d put them in ourselves. We did bamboo in Milo and Gus’s room last year, but still need to do the three remaining bedrooms and our closet. I feel like windows should take priority, though.

What about that basement? With unlimited time and/or money, this would be our big project this year. As is, I suspect we’re not getting to it yet. At the very least, though, we plan to clean a whole bunch of stuff out of there in preparation for the eventual glorious finished basement. In the meantime, we use the basement movie room all the time:

Oh, the grass: I almost forgot about that because I don’t really want to deal with it. But most of the grass in our front yard seems to have died last summer (too much rain? too much heat? old age? some combination thereof?)…unless it makes a miraculous recovery by spring, we’re going to need to replant it. Ugh. Maybe it will be fun! heh.

So on that note….I should probably go off and actually work on some of this stuff!