First up, the room I want to redo from the ground up. I've had this on my radar for years now -- I actually planned to get this done last year and instead I focused on the kitchen renovation. I keep lying to myself in my head and saying it won't be as extensive as the kitchen, but…I'm lying. To myself. I want to do a lot. :)
Here's how our loft looked last year when I showed you the plan:
I've made some minor changes since, using what we have to cozy it up a bit and make it more functional:
I took the sconces off the wall and the cord hiders took some drywall with them. I haven't touched that up yet because I'm not positive you'll even be able to see it when I'm done anyway.
Here's a view the other direction:
It's a large room and I want to make better use of it. It gets GREAT light so it's really a perfect space for arts and crafts. My hope is that it will be an office for the kiddo and I -- I lost mine when we expanded our family room and although I haven't missed it, I wouldn't mind having a central location for everything.
Here's the plan I drew up a year ago and most of it is staying this way:
The BIG thing is the most expensive and that's the hardwoods. Man, the carpets are so awful. You can't tell (thankfully) in the pics but they are bad. I've almost torn them out to live with the subfloor -- sometimes I think that would be nicer. ;)
Thing is, I can't move forward on anything in here till we get the floors down. I hope to have that done in February or March. Then I can start installing the cabinets along the left wall. I had planned built in bookcases flanking the windows, but I'm not sure I want to do that now. I'll decide when I get to that point.
I'm SO excited about the potential for this space -- it could be so more functional! I also hope to add a sofa of some kind up here so it can be a lounging space too.
The next room on the list is another I've mentioned before and one that I haven't done much with in years. (The kitchen took over 2015!) My son's bathroom has been stuck in an in-between state for some time now:
I talked about this and my big plans for it here -- I hope to tear that wall out that separates the vanity area from the shower and toilet. Many of you who have multiple kids talked about how you loved this set up -- and I can definitely see why. It's nice that someone can be using the sink and someone can be taking a shower, both with some privacy.
But because we don't plan on moving any time soon I want to make it better for how we use it, and I loathe that wall. I'll just put that right out there. ;) It makes the whole room feel so dark and tight.
I have removed the baby decor, sadness. We have a new shower curtain up and the last I showed you I had started painting:
But I only got a wall and a half done. See? I see a squirrel and don't finish projects. :) I'm tired of doing that. It annoys me. So my plan for this year is much simpler than the big plan in here -- I'm still planning to add a window over the shower to brighten the space. Then I'll paint ALL of the walls and leave it at that for now. I want to see if the natural light changes my mind about taking down that wall (but I don't think it will).
Talking about finishing -- I shared the master bedroom progress with you earlier this week. I absolutely LOVE the direction it's going. Again, not all of the walls have been painted for quite some time. (As a side note -- we've had numerous people in our house with halfway done rooms and no one ever notices the paint stuff -- it's me that sees it. And it obviously has never bothered me enough either. It doesn't embarrass me to have spaces halfway done, that's life. It's just something that has started frustrating me as I get older.)
So anywho, other than finishing the painting in the master, I have plans to add trim to the wall above the fireplace and update the fireplace itself a bit:
Other than the few projects on that wall, there's not really that much left to do. The furniture is staying -- I just want to figure out accessories and art on the large wall with our dresser. I WILL get this done this year. :)
One more that I'd love to tackle if time and money allows -- we have dreamed of adding a built in fireplace in the basement for years now:
We already have the electric fireplace and you can see where we have it in that bump out area. I've always imagined a floor to ceiling fireplace there with stacked stone -- it will happen eventually, just not sure it will be this year. It's not a huge project, but it's not high on the priority list.
This year I'll be focusing on the bigger stuff earlier in 2016. I usually plan for the first part of the year, lay around all summer and then hit stuff hard come school time. But that leaves me with a messy house and stressed out when the holidays hit. This year I'm determined to have any major projects wrapped up by the time school starts. I want to plan for the holiday season much better and feel a little less frenzied. Is that even possible? :)
I don't do words for the year but if I did mine would be finish. OK, maybe I am doing a word for the year. Finish the projects I start, that's my mantra! Do you have any fun house plans this year?
Here are some projects from these rooms/photos that you might enjoy:
