One Year Home Anniversary
It’s been a year!
It’s crazy to stop and think about how it’s already been one year since we bought our house. As I’m writing this, it’s actually been e x a c t l y one year since our settlement date. Normally, I would have like to have this post actually go live on this date, but life’s busy & late is better than never.
So lately, I have noticed something whenever a new person comes to our house. They normally say something positive (“Your house is so cozy!” “I love the décor!”, etc). And almost every time my response is the same. “Thanks, we still have so much to do.” Usually followed by a list of everything I want to change. And it’s true. I still have so many visions for our home, but I shouldn’t let that take away from the work we have already put into it. It’s time to focus on all of the positive changes we have been making, instead of looking at what’s wrong.
After settlement, we spent a month working on the house and getting it ready for move in. And thanks to family and friends, we actually got a LOT done in this time frame.
· Cleaned. A lot.
· Sanded down & refinished the wood floors in the entire house (probably the biggest project, took about a week)
· Repainted the entire house (with the exceptions of three rooms, one we repainted later & two are still on the list)
· Repainted our cabinets (again another time consuming project. I guess we wanted to get all the big stuff out of the way before move in haha)
· Bought all new appliances for the kitchen
I guess that list doesn’t look as big as I was imagining it in my head, but I swear all of those tasks were very time consuming and I’m proud of how much change we made in that one month. Since then it’s felt like the work never stopped (decorating, buying, decorating, painting, decorating). We painted/updated our guest room (see previous post) and have just been slowly decorating a little bit at a time. Partially because it’s expensive and partially because I’m just indecisive and need to take the time to decide what I want to do haha. Either way, it’s awesome to look back and see how our time and hard work created the space we have today.
Lately the house work as been on hold with everything else going on, but after the wedding we plan to go full speed back into work. Just to hold me accountable, here are a few of our upcoming projects:
· Start bigger kitchen renovations. This will probably be done in two parts (just for time & money’s sake). First up is replacing the countertops & backsplash. The counters are currently blue laminate that gets SO easily stained by anything we set on it. I am ready for something different! Later on we will replace our floors. I will keep you updated as we start this project (hopefully this fall!).
· Decorate our bathrooms. So far we haven’t done much in there besides paint, because I wanted to wait until we could really tackle the full project. I really want to rip out the medicine cabinets and replace them with some cute shelves.
· Backyard revamp. This is very necessary, because our backyard is looking rough. This year I focused on the front of the house, so I can’t wait to get this space cleaned up. We want to power wash & repaint our patio, switch out the lights, completely change/extend the flowerbed, add a fire pit, & complete the furniture/décor set up (cool string lights and all). Maybe next year we can even create a box for a veggie garden (:
I’m sure there is way more than that that needs to be done, but I think these will be the first projects we focus on. Those first couple of months, we worked to get our main living spaces in order. Other than a few minor décor ideas, our bedroom and living room are pretty much finished (and the kitchen is half done at least). I fully intended to get more updated photos for this post, but again… life. Below I have some before and after photos of our bedroom, so that’s better than nothing. I can’t wait to keep sharing progress as we get back to focusing on growing our home!
Happy Sunday, guys!
