Home Projects

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We Did It!

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We have a lot of dreams and ideas when it comes to our house. Some of them we’ve managed to accomplish, and some we’ve pushed off. Sometimes we change our mind after living with a space for a while. I’m a big fan of making your house work for your current life, and being willing to edit it as life changes. Houses aren’t meant to be perfect. Try that weird paint color, give yourself grace over the messy floors (and counters and bathrooms and and and), or turn your dining room into a guest room if that’s what you need right now.

When we first moved in, we brainstormed every possible thing we might like to do, change, add or accomplish while we live here. On that list, but way down the line, was to finish our attic. It was a large empty space that was open with possibilities, and we thought about doing something with it in ten years or so.

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A Home Project!

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On the surface, it feels like you should be able to get all kinds of things done to your house, now that all we do is stay home. In reality, nothing is happening. Finding time to clean our floors seems impossible, let alone do all the home improvement projects my brain can dream up. So it is a VERY BIG THING that we somehow scraped together lunch breaks and half days and minutes here and there to get a big project done.

It’s way scaled back from my original plan, but we’ll call this Phase One. It’s a big improvement from what was there, super pretty and definitely functional. But I might put a hold on any other big projects for a while. It turns out doing these things in a pandemic with two small children is not easy.

We’ll get into the details, but first, a before and after!

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Chasing That Feeling

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I am riding a high.

The type of high that can only be achieved by checking something off your list. Something that’s been on the for way too long and has been hanging over your head for too long. It’s one of those things that you end up thinking about multiple times a day, worry about before you go to bed, and just want it taken care of. It’s times like these that I often wish we weren’t the adults here, and someone else would just come along and do it for us.

But when it’s done? Boy it feels so good.

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Goodbye Sun

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I realize that we’ve been in a drought, so maybe I shouldn’t talk about how much I’ve loved the weather lately, but I’ve really loved the weather lately. June was full of sunshine pretty much every single day, and it was amazing.

While we haven’t made much progress on a lot of things on our interior to do list, we’ve managed to make some real improvements to the outside of our house this year. We’ve completed a lot of maintenance stuff that needed to happen - cleaning the gutters, getting the septic pumped, even pressure washing the fence and front porch. But more than that, we’re completing a lot of big projects we’ve been dreaming about for a while. Our shed, while not here yet, has been purchased and the land is prepped, so we’re counting the days. We’ve also finally got our side patio completed, which means we have our gazebo up(!), and it gives us some shade and rain protection on that side of the house. I am fully in love.

Outside!

Once E learned this word, we were done. With his big brown eyes and cute little voice, he jumps up and down and declares “Outside! Outside!” Now that it’s not freezing and a huge undertaking to get us all out, we agree more often. And we’ve been taking steps to make it easier and more fun to be in our yard too.

We recently fenced in our porch, which has become a toddler’s wonderland. There’s a play structure with a slide, and a sandbox, and even a chair for Mama. We’re working on our patio still, but this year we finally did something I’ve been wanting to do since we moved in.

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Finished(ish) Closet!

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There are certain things in life that I have an irrational (or maybe not) hatred of, and that make me incredibly angry. And I’m always puzzled when other people don’t seem bothered by them. One sign that Tom and I were right for each other, was that we tend to agree on which things we hate.

One of them? Those wire, ventilated, closet rack systems. They usually come standard in any closet, and they’re the absolute worst.

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Goodbye Dressers

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Before I had children, baby-proofing seemed like a one time thing you did. Your house wasn’t safe, you baby-proofed it, and now it was. Instead I’ve learned it’s an almost constant state. First you move things out of reach, and then what they can reach changes. They learn to climb, and then more things need to be moved or secured. We’ve done a pretty good job, but it’s getting to the point where we need to do another pass through the house.

First up? Our bedroom.

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Nursery Round II

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It’s been interesting putting this room together. It almost didn’t happen, and then it did, but while we were working on it, we were constantly thinking ahead. Because we know at some point “soon” it won’t be a second nursery, but will be E’s big kid room.

The eventual plan, when E is ready to be out of a crib, will be for the new baby to move into E’s crib, and E to move into this room with a toddler bed. It sounds complicated, but trust me there’s logic there. So it’s interesting that as I’m putting it together, I’m thinking more about it as a toddler’s play room than a baby’s room. We already have a perfectly good baby room next door.

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Outdoor Progress

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Our yard is a mess.  It's not quite as bad as it was when we moved in, but that's largely due to the fact we're not currently in a drought - not anything we've done.  There are large patches of dirt, and the green that is growing is weeds, not grass. 

However, a lot time ago we decided it wasn't our priority.  I was going to put some analogy here that my boss used on me yesterday about not tying the laces of the shoe before taking it off or something, but it made way more sense when he said it, than me trying to remember it now.  Anyway the point is, our whole property needs work, and that work will only dig up the lawn more.  So I've decided we'll live with a non yard for a few years while we get everything else done first. 

My New Favorite Thing

Sorry Bubba.

But seriously.  It's an idea I've had for a while.  When the time was right and we were in the right place and feeling settled, it was time to make it official.  Permanent. 

And I feel like I'm finally there.  So I went ahead and bought myself the best present I've gotten in a while.  It's so amazing and I can't stop smiling when I look at it. 

Non-baby Post!

Bet you didn't expect one of those fora while...

We have a long list of projects on our wishlist of things we'd like to do to our house.  Years and years worth of projects.  I wish I could be working on all of them right now, but with current circumstances, that's just not possible.  In fact I'd pretty much come to terms with the fact that we wouldn't get anything done ever again. (Okay that's dramatic, but maybe for the next few years).

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One More Thing to Cross off the List

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Slowly but surely, it's happening.  We're moving in a bit more, decorating and making things feel like home.  For a while now, I've had a stack of picture frames littering the office floor. Waiting to be put somewhere or hung up. 

Finally I found myself with a free day, and decided to start hanging them on the wall by our stairs.  Originally I had a plan to map out where everything was going to go, but I realized that was causing me to delay starting the project since I wasn't sure how to do it.  In the end I just grabbed the drill and started hanging things. 

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The Nursery Round I

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I wish I had a better 'before' picture of this room for you.  Something more than a half painted wall to show you what it looked like.  I don't even have one from the walk through I don't think - it was the previous owner's daughter's room, and they didn't post any pictures of it on the listing, and I never took any.  Once we moved in, it was always just an empty room, so we never went in there.  The walls were a dusty rose (or as I call it, dirty pink) and the only room of the entire house where I hated the paint color.

I think in the back of our mind we always knew it would be a future baby's room, whenever that happened to be.  In fact I often referred to it as the baby's room.  It was better than "the extra bedroom that isn't the guest room, and isn't the craft room, you know the ugly one with the gross pink walls?"

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Missing in Action

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Phew!

So I've been MIA for a bit huh? Where did December go? 

Well first we hosted a mini Colgate reunion.  One great thing about Christmas is that people who live far away come home for a few weeks and give us a chance to hang out.  Then there were more Christmas parties, and a trivia competitions (winning team over here! woot!), and we even found some time to take in Penny for service!

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Have a Seat

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If you've been to our house recently, you've already seen the end result of this project, but I figured it was about time I shared the journey of how we got here.  After all, I only started this project back in July!

As I said before, we needed a lot of new furniture to fill up our house, including a dining room table and chairs.  I spent a day shopping with Nicole and found a table I liked (as did Tom when I brought him back later to look at it) but no one really liked the chairs that went with it.  So we bought the tables and started the search for chairs.  At some point I got the idea that I wanted the chairs to be blue.  Of course I couldn't find what I was looking for anywhere, so shortly after, I decided that I'd paint the chairs myself.

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Someone is Way Too Excited Over a Closet

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And that someone is me. (You probably guessed that already, right?)

We have a spare room in our house that really can't be a bedroom, since you have to walk through it to get to another part of our house.  I think it's meant to be a small office, but it wouldn't work for Tom and I to share, and we've already set our office up in another room. 

That left a craft room as the next obvious option.  If you know me at all, you know that the amount of craft related items I own is ridiculous.  They needed a spot.  The best part about this room, is that it has an okay sized closet.  Not big, but okay.  So it quickly became a fun challenge to figure out how we could maximize the space in there.