I wanted to share my list of projects and goals for my house in the upcoming year. I already shared my personal goals here , but this will be a breakdown of what I hope to accomplish in this house and the order in which I plan to do it (don't hold me to it, but I'll try to go in order).
First up is the massive project I've been working on for the past few months (I can be really sloooow. One reason I needed a blog to push me along). I designed a fireplace unit that has a big fancy mantle, two bookshelves flanking each side, and a raised panel that is built out around our obnoxiously big flatscreen tv that hangs on the wall above the fireplace. As of today, it is completely built, except for a couple of little touches of trim that need to be added to the bookshelf section that is slightly behind my Christmas tree....yes, I still have my tree up. Should I add that to this list? Take the tree down....as one my house goals? Ugh. Hate doing it. It's real, it's 11 feet tall and it's completely dead, so the pine needles poke and hurt you and go everywhere. So, yeah....gotta do that. -sorry for the tangent- Anywho...I am in the final stages of priming, caulking, putty-ing, sanding, painting....and painting some more. I actually put the first coat of primer on today....well, on the bottom half. I can show you a sneak peak of how far I am at this point. I think it's going to turn out pretty awesome, if I do say so myself!
It still needs more paint, all of the cracks and holes filled, and the trim added to the top of the mouth of the fireplace. I'm not exactly into the scalloped tile edge look, myself. Also, ignore the dvds on the shelves. They are just hanging out there temporarily since I moved their former home into the garage. They will go in crates under a window seat that will sit off to the left of the fireplace.
So, after completing this project....which is getting closer on the horizon, the next order of business is to make some shallow bookshelves for the wall at the end of my couch.
Here is a simple floor plan of my living room. It is an annoying rectangle, just long enough to make it hard to arrange furniture, but not long enough to create two distinct sections out of.
This is how I have it set up currently. The plan is to add some built in bookshelves to the blank wall to the right of my couch. I'm going to build them to come about halfway up the wall and go all the way between the entrance to the kitchen and end right before the coat closet. I am in desperate need of this storage. I have books in some strange places right now.
The next thing on the roster for the living room is to do a board and batten treatment all of the way around the room and re-paint the walls. I want something just a little bit lighter. I'm very bored with the swiss miss color we have in here now.
Other things to do in the living room are to create a big huge gallery wall on the large wall to the left of the couch, get a rug (I have resisted for soooo long, because my kids were pretty little and still tend to destroy eeeeverything, the hardwoods are so easy to wipe....but I think it's finally time). I'm also going to scrap the current matchy matchy ottoman we have and DIY an awesome one. I'd love to ditch the big chair too and get a couple of pretty smaller chairs in it's place, but I'm not sure how soon that'll happen.....sigh, it's on the list. Maybe I'll get lucky and find something awesome I can reupholster. I'd love to rip out the ceiling fan and DIY a cool chandelier. I also need a window treatment for the one lonely window in this room. I have been pretty lost as to what to do in this window honestly.....the other thing I want to do with that window is to build an L shaped window seat that is basically built in that attaches to the end of the fireplace unit. What do you guys think? I'm still debating that one. I don't want to go too nuts with the built-ins....but I mean, come on! who can resist a window seat. We'll see. I've definitely reserved that for last.
I have vowed to myself that I must finish this room (at least the construction stuff) before I move on to any others. After this, on my list of things to do is:
- rip out the carpet on the stairs and paint/stain and get a nice runner.
- repair and paint the walls in the stairwell and laundry room
- finish the several small things on my list for the girl's bedroom (theirs is closest to being finished) which include art for the walls, headboards, new bedding and building a built-in toybox/reading nook into their closet.
- Completely overhaul and gut my boys' bedroom. Add things like a chalkboard wall, built-in desks a distressed planked wall and build some solid nice dressers for them. The poor boys are using plastic ones at the moment. We play musical furniture around here.
- Rip out the guest bathroom floor and replace with tile. I actually already have the tile for this. The biggest stumbling block to completing this project is the fact that the toilet has to come out to accomplish it....not so sure I wanna try that. I know I could do it, just don't really want to. I am also going to add a bead board wall in there opposite the toilet and I'm pretty much going to copy this in there. I also need a new faucet and I'm going to do something to my vanity...we'll see.
- after that, I still have the spare bedroom, the master bedroom and the master bath to contend with....but this list is long enough for now. I also have my kitchen that needs some sprucing up, but since that room is the closest to "done" I'll probably pepper a few small projects in there, but leave the rest until after the other areas of the house get more attention. It's going to be a busy year! I'll take some before photos of these spaces as I go along addressing them. Wish me luck!
Anna
No comments:
Post a Comment