Tag: home renovations

2021 Home Projects: 9 Things on Our List

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I’m coming at you almost halfway through the year to tell you about our home project list for this year (oops). With baby number 2 on the way(!), we are hoping to get the majority of these projects done by the end of July (which I am not doing the math on because I know that seems impossible). This is a really exciting year for home projects because it will really wrap up all but a few projects (the kitchen and bathrooms will be future projects and probably won’t happen for a few more years). It’s been so fun to watch our house come together and I can’t wait for things to slow down a bit after these projects are done.

I’ve included some notes for each project on where we are now; while we didn’t have anything done on these projects at the beginning of the year, we have made some good progress already! I’ve included a few photos that I just snapped on my phone today, to give an idea of our very current progress on each project.

1. Rebuild Retaining Wall

Our retaining wall was already falling down when we bought our house in 2018, and it didn’t get any better from there. We ended up hiring out this project, which was GREAT – and one of only a handful of projects we’ve paid someone else to do on our house! We used a company that specializes in retaining wall rebuilds, which ended up saving us money. Since they were able to re-use all the natural stone block we already had, we only paid for labor.

Where we stand now:

  • The wall has been re-built – and looks great!

What still needs to be done:

  • Nothing for the wall itself!
  • We may add some additional landscaping or another row of blocks.
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2020 Home Projects: What We Did (and What We Didn’t)

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At the beginning of 2020, Scott and I came up with a list of home projects we wanted to complete. (If you haven’t read our original 2020 house projects post, click here to read that first! You can also find every home-related blog post here.) Today, I’m sharing our “Report Card” for that list: what we got done, what we didn’t, and what grade we’d give ourselves for the work we’ve done so far. I’m also sharing some before and after photos; most show what the space looked like early in 2020 compared to now. (Some photos will be from when we completed the project and a few I took in the past few days!) Later this month, I’ll be sharing what projects are on our list for 2021!

1. Finish the kitchen pantry and doorway: B

What we completed: We finished and painted the pantry and installed the pantry shelves. We prepped the doorway for trim and installed the casing and trim on the dining room side of the doorway. As a bonus, we also painted the kitchen door and replaced the light fixture!

What’s still left: We still need to install the kitchen-side trim and fill and finish all the trim. The pantry doors also need to be installed. The trim work should be pretty quick, but we have never hung a new door before, so that part may be a bit of an adventure.

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Odds & Ends, vol. 4: Autumn Reads and an Easy Home Styling Hack

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Autumn Reads

This time of year always makes me want to read The Night Circus. It’s one of my absolute favorite books, especially this time of year. It’s in my top 3 all-time favorite books and is one of very few that I’ve taken the time to re-read. (Also great for fall: Caraval, Harry Potter, Practical Magic, Bread & Wine (pictured above), and Ninth House.)

An Easy Home Styling Hack

This is the easiest way to make all those random dresser-top things look nicer. (1) Get a nice looking hardcover book or two. (2) Line everything up. That’s it – I recently tried this with my dresser and think it made a big difference! Look at this before and after:

Recent Buys

Target has had some surprisingly great workout clothes recently! I’ve been working out much more often and found that I needed some new things so I wasn’t having to do laundry every other day. A few recent buys have been this workout tee (nice fit, good quality) and this tank top (cute pattern and good fabric, but runs big).

Master Bedroom Inspiration

This master bedroom by Studio McGee is so good! It’s been a major inspiration for our master bedroom refresh. I almost bought this very similar (but much cheaper) bed from Target for our bedroom, but we ended up not using it since it needs a box spring.

An Easy Meal Idea

Grill chicken for dinner and made extra to add to a salad or eat for lunch the next day. (Cold grilled chicken is one of my favorite lunches – which may sound weird but it’s delicious.) A simple but tasty marinade we’ve been using is olive oil + salt and pepper + jerk seasoning + lemon juice. It’s great with hummus and pita for lunch or dinner!

Life Lately

Nothing very new here! Jamie still runs around and talks a lot, and he is at a very fun age where he loves to “help” us work on the house. We’ve been (slowly) working on a few fun home projects; our powder bathroom is starting to take shape after a long leak-related hiatus, our upstairs linen closet has nice new matching baskets, and we rearranged our living room!