Round about a year ago, I was feeling really ambitious and made a list of fourteen house-related goals to accomplish in 2014. And now it’s time to revisit the list and how see how we did. I don’t take the goal list particularly seriously; I like making plans, and I like making lists, but if we get sidetracked and don’t make it to some of the stuff, it doesn’t bother me. I also like very low stakes goal list making.

The stuff I said a year ago is in italics.

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

As I mentioned, there’s really not much to this. It’s just a matter of prioritizing it, finding a little time, and making it happen. So we will! By golly.

Done! We checked this one off the list early on. As mentioned, there wasn’t really all that much to do. Things look pretty much the same in there now, except I wasn’t feeling the duvet cover anymore, so I put a new blanket on the bed. Eventually, we’d like hardwood floors and a nice rug in here, but we have no immediate plans to make any big changes.

2. Move Abe to his own room:

(Right now the nursery is in half of our bedroom). We’re thinking around now is a pretty good time for this for a few reasons: we’re working on the master bathroom, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to work around Abe’s nap and bedtimes for that. Also, I’d like for him to have more room to play and for toy storage. His new room (our current spare room/guest room/office type space) is almost exactly the same size as his part of our room, but it should have more wall space to play with and it has a good sized closet.

We’ll pretty much be moving everything over there as is, but we’ll need to make a few changes and additions….there’s an ugly ceiling fan in there right now, so we want to swap it out for a cool light fixture of some sort. And we’re hoping to build a nice shelf for his toys, so that they’re easier for him to access than when they’re all piled in a basket like they are now. Eventually we’d like to do something fun with the (small walk-in) closet, too, but that’s probably a ways off.

Done! Full post here. Abe’s original nursery (in a curtained off part of our master bedroom) was one of my favorite spaces, but I think I love the new one even more. Mostly we just moved things over and painted this room the same color as his old nursery, but we also built a toy shelf, hung up some book ledges, and made some new stuff for the walls. We spend a ton of time in here playing and reading; it’s a smallish room but there’s a good amount of floor space to spread out and have fun.

3. Replace obnoxious cabinet with open shelves:

See this cabinet? The one I exed out?

I hate that cabinet. It sticks out in a really weird, awkward place, and people are always hitting their heads on it. I don’t like the way it has its back to the breakfast area as if it’s screaming, “I am the boundary between you and the cooking part of the kitchen! We are not the same room!” Also I love the way open shelving looks in a kitchen. I’m probably too timid/dusty to have all open shelving up top, but I think just one area right there would be a nice compromise and a nice place to put pretty things.

Nope. I still really hate that cabinet, though, and we did come up with a Fabulous Plan for the proposed open shelves.

4. Master bath!

Stuff’s going on in there, as has been hinted at here and on Instagram. More on that next week. I expect this to be very slow build to any sort of big reveal, but we’ll get there.

Well. We’ve done a lot in the master bath. We tiled, and painted one wall, and took down our old mirror and put up new ones, and gave the vanity light an update. But there has not been a big reveal yet. It’s a VERY slow build.

5. A new deck:

I hope! If we can find the money for it. Our old deck is a definite eyesore (fortunately, the only eyes it’s hurting other than ours are the neighbors on either side, since it’s not visible from the street) and having it rebuilt is the first step in our grand outdoor space master plan.

Nope. Deck still looks exactly the same, i.e. not so hot. I go back and forth about how passionately I want to do something about this (vs. doing other things instead with our money/time).

6. Coffee table for the library:

make or buy. This one should not be too hard to accomplish.

We finally bought a coffee table a couple of months ago, but it still is very much in need of painting. So halfway accomplished?

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

I know it’s already pretty nice with that collection of mismatched and/or broken shelves with a bunch of assorted crap stuffed on them right now….but we’d like something EVEN NICER. Dave keeps destroying my dreams by pointing out that this space isn’t as big in real life as in my imagination and that the attic stairs need to be able to come down right where I wanted to put a giant shelf….but we should be able to do SOMETHING up there anyway.

Eh. We made this sort of mini-office/print station up there, but nothing else yet.

8. Clean out garage and have door openers repaired:

We’ve lived here a year and a half and never parked in the garage. This is kind of sad. Sometimes it’s raining.

Funny thing about this. It turns out the garage door openers were never broken to start with. They just weren’t plugged in. So, yeah, now our garage doors open. But we definitely still can’t park a car in there. Sigh.

9. Kid clubhouse:

This is kind of a big one that I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned here, even though we’ve been planning it for awhile. But, yeah, by summer we’d really like to have a fun for all ages fort/clubhouse/playhouse kind of thing built in the backyard.

Yep. We totally rocked this one.

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

I think this year’s a good year for this, since Abe will (presumably) be walking around by spring, and having a garden out there will be an excuse for us to get outside more often. The dogs are a little too interested in our lone garden bed right now, so some kind of simple fence around the garden area is in order, too, I think (oddly, we didn’t have much trouble with stuff like rabbits and squirrels. Maybe the scent of hound dog kept them away).

Well. We planted two blueberry bushes that weren’t there last year.

11. Curtains for the sunroom:

Another one that’s pretty easy and straightforward (although pricey, since there are SO MANY windows in there). Right now I’m thinking of something velvet that will block a lot of light, but I’m not sure.

Yep. We bought Sanela curtains from Ikea during our annual Superbowl Sunday trip.

12. Paint kitchen chairs:

I’m reasonably sure this is the project that’s going to make me finally buy a paint sprayer. Three of them also need to be recovered. Which I was hoping to avoid needing to do by buying non-upholstered chairs, but, now that I have them, I’m kind of excited about picking out fabric (and being able to splurge some on that, since I need a pretty small amount of it).

Done! We actually bought the paint sprayer before this, to paint Milo and Gus’s new beds.

13. Do something about the den:

I’m not going to say that we’re going to redo the whole thing this year….although that would be nice. But I already have our bathroom plus a new deck on this list, and that seems like enough ginormous projects, if we’re being realistic. It’s really getting on my nerves lately, though, so I’d like to at least take some steps to make it more user friendly. The main thing I hate about it, that you can’t see in the picture, is that there’s an enormous loveseat (like that sofa, only loveseat sized) perpendicular to the sofa that really makes the room feel small and closed off. I’d like to replace that with a couple of arm chairs. I think. It’s a tricky room to work with, as far as furniture placement. It’s decent sized, but there are three doorways, a big fireplace, and a big bay window to contend with. Anyway. More on that later in the year, too.

My mom got us this awesome rug for like $15 at Goodwill a few months ago. And there’s one more big update that came in just under the wire that I’ll tell you about next week :). I’ve got big plans for this room. Things may really start to come together for the den in 2015.

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

Almost the whole house was painted the same neutrally yellow when we moved in. We’ve gotten rid of a lot of it, but some of it lingers. It’s still in the den, for example, as you can see up there. And then in the center hall downstairs and in the stairwell, upstairs hallway, and guest room. I’m hoping to say goodbye to all of it this year. It’s not horrible or anything, but it’s not what we want, and it doesn’t fit in with the rest of our colors.

Sadly, no. Everything that was yellow before is still yellow.

I’m counting something like 8 1/2 out of 14? That’s not quite passing, but close enough.

Next up: 2015 goals! I don’t think there will be fifteen of them this time.

And, oh, hey–Happy New Year, everyone!