new year’s goals

I’m not one for resolutions – I don’t make them, so I can’t break them.  I do, however, keep a running home improvement to-do list in my head, and I figured getting it down on paper (or .php) might help me visualize the extent of the projects – and the reality of completing them in the next 11+ months.

So herewith are my 2009 home improvement goals, in room/area order (score on already achieving my first goal of writing it down):

1. make a home improvement binder that includes measurements for each room, including windows, closets, floors, etc.  Also include contact numbers for repairmen, hardware store, etc.  (note: this is separate from my magazine ‘inspiration’ binder –  alright, binders.)
2. strategize about deck issue (ugh, long story)
3. add post to top of driveway with better address signage
4. mudroom – a place to sit/put on boots/store hats
5. living room – couches?
6. dining room – reupholster & reglue chairs
7. dining room – table
8. living room/loft – tv solution
9. master – bed and mattress –  no more sleeping on the floor!
10. master – paint
11. upstairs bath – sconces
12. upstairs bath – solution for storing towels, etc.
13. upstairs hall – clean and line drawers of dresser
14. upstairs bedroom(s) – replace trim
15. upstairs bedroom(s) – paint
16. basement bedroom – bed
17. basement bedroom – paint
18. all bedrooms – update window treatments (IKEA?)
19. water heater – wait for it to die?  replace?
20. gutters?  repair?
21. document improvements more regularly, and more professionally (my photos err on the blurry side)

You’ll note that many of these goals are simply furnishing rooms.  It’s true; though we’ve had our place for almost a year, there are still rooms that are nearly empty.  The hand-me-downs have been great – but they only took us so far.  That, and, well, we’re looking forward to replacing some of the pieces we inherited with pieces we choose.  That came out wrong – I love my inherited furniture.  I just mean a girl can aspire to having actual dining chairs and table instead of folding chairs and folding table (remember: those Queen Anne chairs aren’t safe to sit in).

So I guess I’ll check back in around say…December to see how I did.  Works done, right?  I set my goals?  Kudos to me and now all the above will simply fall into place?

white

Here are a few images I came across this week online. Every time I see a room that’s all white, my heart skips a beat. How chic. How clean. How serene. This could be us. Then I remember how impractical an all-white room would be for Anuj and me. We like to put our feet up on the coffee table after coming in from the backyard. We drink wine and coffee on the couch. We leave the New York Times laying around – and that’s one inky paper. We have small children trotting up and down stairs, pulling open and pushing closed sliding glass doors, hiding under chairs and jumping on beds – all with sippy cups of cran-apple juice whose lids have mysteriously disappeared.

Nope, an all-white room is not going to happen for us anytime soon. I’ll remain content to admire these instead:

New York Times

 

Dad project #2, part 1

A few weeks after my Dad installed the interior window, we slave driving-children had him back to help with our next big undertaking: the trim. As I’ve mentioned, this house was built in the 70’s, and when we bought it in January, it was still bearing many of those less-than-inspired architectural and design features like ugly trim around all the doors and along the floor in most of the rooms.

See it here (with the ugly linen cabinet thing Anuj tore down to make room for the interior window):

The doors of our house aren’t real wood – they’re not even particleboard – they’re just horrible. We knew we couldn’t replace them (at least not yet…), so we decided we’d just paint them and replace the trim around them.

Back to our local lumberyard we went for wood that would be our trim. I knew I wanted a more ‘country’ look, but I wasn’t sure it would jive with our 70’s home – but my Dad assured me it would be great. And so we skipped over the fancy moldings you find in the city or newer homes (saddle, quarter-round, t-mold, shoe) and settled on a historic Colonial standard: 1×6 pine for the baseboards and 1×4 for the door trim. Nothing else. Plain, simple, timeless.