A Year of Projects

As 2012 comes rolling in, I thought I'd reflect on our 2011 projects and take a look at the things we got around to (and some of the things we didn't). I jokingly refer to 2011 as "the year of the kitchen" 'cause it feels like most of our time was consumed by demoing, dust, waiting for walls to get taken out, doing dishes in the bathtub, etc. But it was definitely all worth it—something we realized even more when we had friends over around the holidays. We could all stand around the open kitchen, cook, and talk without feeling claustrophobic. It was really great.

And we did manage to get some other projects in as kitchen progress was slowly commencing. We did some sprucing up around the yard, like fixing up our firepit area and relandscaping the bed at the front of the house.

We also got around to our mini office makeover as the kitchen craziness was coming to a close.

I managed to organize some of our closets (somewhat) but never got around to tackling our master closet—something that's still on the agenda. So what else is on the agenda for 2012? There are the smaller, more manageable projects that I'm pretty sure we'll get done over the next few months, like:

• purchasing some bar stools (still haven't done that)

• patching up the thresholds where the kitchen terrazzo meets the living room laminate

• finishing the rock garden project (Robert actually started working on framing out the bed last weekend)

Other things are long-term, big-ticket-purchase kinds of things that we'll have to feel out the timing for over the next couple of years, like:

• buying a comfy sectional that will better fit our living room area

• buying a comfy rug to go with the sectional

• buying a shed for the backyard (it will give us some badly needed storage—right now all of our yard/hardware/painting stuff is crammed in our laundry room off the carport)

• painting the exterior of the house

• replacing our very old windows with ones that are more energy efficient

So we shall see what we get to in 2012. I also did a few small projects over the holidays that I'll be sharing with you soon. Happy new year!