First off, I have a winner in the BLACK+DECKER drill giveaway, and it’s…..Suzy McCowen! Congratulations to Suzy, and thanks so much to everyone who entered!

We’re still settling back in after our trip and spent a couple of days doing not of much of anything (except going through my many hundreds of trip photos of course), but today we’re back to work on some fun house projects. So later in the week I’ll tell you more about the trip and maybe even have a project to show you.

But for today, since we’re halfway through the year, I’m going to check in on the list I made back in January, of fourteen (house-related) goals for 2014.

Here’s the stuff we hoped to get done this year:

1. Finish our bedroom (for real this time):

Yay! Done! Starting off the list with a bang!

2. Move Abe to his own room:

Stop reading right now, and it will seem like we’re AMAZING, because we did this one, too!

3. Replace obnoxious cabinet with open shelves:

Nope, not yet. I’m still hoping we’ll get to it before summer’s over, though.

4. Master bath!

Well, we finally finished the tile in here, but nothing else has happened yet. And it probably won’t until fall. I see this as a cool weather project, for some reason. But having that carpet gone still makes me so happy that not having done anything else isn’t bothering me much.

5. A new deck:

Not yet. Still hoping we’ll be able to afford to get this done this fall or winter.

6. Coffee table for the library:

Nope.

7. Figure out some kind of storage in the upstairs hallway:

We made a start on this by putting in a folding desk in the hallway:

8. Clean out garage and have door openers repaired:

goodness, no. This one’s NO FUN at all. So it’s hard to get around to.

9. Kid clubhouse:

Yes! This has definitely been our biggest project so far this year (although I guess tiling was pretty major, too).

10. Expand the garden/fence it in/plant some fruit trees and/or berry bushes:

Well. We planted blueberry bushes a couple of weeks ago, and they’re not dead yet. Garden is still just the one bed, and it’s still fenceless. We did discover a volunteer tomato plant by our porch steps, so I guess maybe the garden decided to take this expansion project into its own hands?

11. Curtains for the sunroom:

Yep! We’re really good at getting projects that just involve buying stuff at Ikea done.

12. Paint kitchen chairs:

No. We meant to get this done before we went out of town, but then we didn’t. We did buy paint and fabric for the two upholstered chairs, though, so I’m fairly confident we’ll get to it soonish.

13. Do something about the den:

Does continuing to pile thrift store finds that I don’t know what to do with in here count as “doing something” about the den? No?

14. Remove the last vestiges of the old yellow paint:

I keep forgetting I put this one on the list, because I don’t want to do it. I want someone else to, but that’s too expensive. Sigh. We’ll see.

So! I’d say we’re doing okay for the halfway point. My main goal for the fall is to make progress on (finish?????) the master bath and finish up the small projects here and there. I have no idea if anything will really happen in the den, and the deck is entirely dependent on finances/someone else getting it done, so I have no idea about that one.