I am continuing to play with the two attic bedrooms, which will now be our only guest rooms. (If you can’t climb stairs, you’ll have to stay at a hotel.) One bedroom has a queen bed and the other has a full. I am looking for a small vintage bureau for the room that used to be DD’s room, mostly for the few clothes she leaves here and for the extra set of sheets. I talked here a year or more ago about painting the bathroom up there, but I never actually did it. The current color doesn’t bother me enough because I don’t go there much! Someday…this year? Maybe.

Our new home ”gym” (former second floor guest room) is almost done. Peloton bike is there now, as well as our weights, yoga mat, ipad wall mounted for streaming classes, and a new indoor-outdoor rug. It isn’t the prettiest room in the house but both DH and I are trying to prioritize exercise in our old age, and when the gym is 12 feet from our bed, it’s hard to ignore. I’m going to create a gallery wall in there with our safari photos. We have several from our first trip and more to add from our recent trip.

Otherwise, no big plans. We did a lot in the last few months of 2024, with the new dining room lighting and bedroom refresh.

Nothing fun, just infrastructure-type things. A few issues with electrical, plumbing, settling, and a new garage door and driveway. sigh. I would love, love, to replace all the windows, they are so leaky and a pain to clean. Maybe next year.

I need to have my sofa reupholstered but could easily procrastinate on that well beyond 2025.

Sounds like tou have a bunch if fun projects. This year is mostly a maintenance list, but I want to finally do decent drapery in our living room and dining room. The living room has 90’s hand-me-down PB curtains and cheap rods that were aupposed to be temporary in 2004!

I have a long list of organizational issues that must be addressed on the main floor, nothing fun and no real changes. Downstairs in the basement we need to replace the flooring throughout, which is a huge job— the finished area down there is 2500 square feet. I have been stymied with indecision: should we use low pile commercial carpet (warmer and cozier) or the new vinyl wood plank stuff everyone’s using these days? We are also considering putting a second bathroom down there (DH in favor, I am not so much, don’t want a sixth bathroom!). And we need to turn one of the storerooms down there into a dedicated home office as we have two kids who work 100% remotely and one who can go remote for a few weeks at a time and it would make things easier for them to visit. I also want to convert the sunroom down there to an art studio for me. Just reading this list has me paralyzed! No chance it will all happen this year 🙄

Nothing elective/cosmetic for me. Getting the new SZ fridge and cabinet in SC - getting that for functional reasons though it will be a thing of beauty compared to what I have now. I also have to buy a new range for our lake place - the 20 year old oven is non-functional and has already been repaired once. And anything else I discover is worn out/broken at any of my too many homes. I have a lot of 20 year old walkout level carpet in MN that should be replaced with some hard surface but since we won't be there that much I will continue to live with it. I'll probably do what I say I'll never do - replace it when I get ready to sell the house. I always say you should get the new stuff while you're living there to enjoy it.

We just finished an addition that includes a new primary suite upstairs, a new sunroom and remodeled guest room downstairs. We lived here during the renovation and it was much more difficult that I expected, so I'm happy to have a functioning home again. Now I'm getting ready to start decorating--at this point I'll be focused on the primary bedroom and bathroom. Window treatments and bedding. Furniture is in place. So I expect to be reaching out for some advice/support!

Funky, your projects sound exciting. Look forward to following the progress!

Last October I finally pulled the trigger and got rid of the last of the carpet in my three bedrooms (one is an office) and got oak floors to match what I already have in the rest of the house. It took me years of talking about it, and so glad it's done.

My office is a collection of horizontal surfaces that I don't need that much of anymore. I want to get rid of a couple of desk/tables and add a twin sleeper for sitting and overnight guests.

Love reading about everyone’s projects!

I’m continuing in my attempts to turn a tract house laundry room with not much square footage and no personality into a charming 1920s-1930s bungalow/English cottage style room. It’s the path to our garage, which I park in, so used more often as an entry to the house than the real entry.

I got the cutest vintage-style vinyl runner for it (Chinacat was my influence on that … in fact, her whole kitchen is), a vintage-style Army green rolling cart (it makes me smile every day), am collecting art, and am this close to getting this light or one like it. Current light is one of 34.7 million boob lights made in 2006.

Rug I got:

Look at this cart! I love it:

Am going to order some sort of lint bin like this (I collect it for the birds):

It’s magnetized and can go on the side of the washer or dryer, but I’m going to hang it on the wall, because my units are crammed into the room and up against a wall on one side and cabinet on the other.

I’m considering wallpaper, but will probably just paint. The door to the garage has a window on the whole top half (cool feature — I can see the car, yard equipment, and other junk right from the kitchen, yay me) … I have a pretty tea towel my DD got me as a cafe curtain on it. Now I just see the lovely garage door motor on the ceiling if the laundry door into the house is open.

I’m looking for a lamp for the “folding” counter (lol, it’s like 2’ x 2’, great for washcloths) … the one in there now is a tortoise patterned one with scrolly resin and metal details leftover from my Texas Tuscan era. Is that vintage yet?

Oh! And we desperately need shelves in there, but that’s DH’s department.

Love that rug Jilly. Reminds me of arts & crafts floor tiles.

Teeda, thank you! Chinacat has a big one in her ultra-charming kitchen, which should be in a magazine. 😍

It’s from Hudson & Vine and it makes me so happy to look at! :)

I love that type of rug for those areas.

Funky, that is quite a list! When do we start? I'm excited.

As for our homes, I'm at our p-a-t today and it's my happy place right now. It's so cozy and pretty and just the way I like it. I added my latest blue/white/chinoiserie find, a huge bowl I got flea-marketing with my bestie last fall (she had been housing it for me since I didn't want to fly with it).

...And then there is our sad empty forlorn beachhouse. "Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories." All my f&f have been amazed at my state of equanimity over the snafu, but DH called it. He said it was simply "Deferred Aggravation" to bastardize a term.

And he is right. I think I was so focussed on the holidays that I didn't care so much but enough is enough. We are out 6 weeks now. Every time I go there to get something, I still smell smoke. So far it has been demo, cleaning the HVAC system, and running these huge fans/filters.They come this Thurs, to clean every single surface. They have already removed every fabric item that was not in a drawer or closet, every rug. I know something will get ruined or lost, we just don't know what yet.

Until this happened, we were 90% done our new back entry, sunroom, DR and LR refresh. The only thing left to do was LR wallpaper, paint the steps, and put in the checkerboard floor in the back entry. Sigh.

Mtn, that bowl is gorgeous! And I continue to swoon over the orange wall color. The blue looks amazing with it.

I hope the beach house will be returned to the state it was in before, and that nothing precious to you will be ruined or lost. I can only imagine your frustration. Hugs!

I agree-the chinoiserie bowl is beautiful and looks so great against the orange. I am so sorry that you are dealing with the fire aftermath, Mtn. "Deferred Aggravation" is a perfect way to describe situations like that. Hopefully the work will go quickly and smoothly and will be back in that gorgeous beach house soon.

I want to replace the carpet on at least the main floor and ideally the second floor. But doing so opens up a whole other project which is that I want to make a doorway (possibly with frensh doors) between my living room and dining room and have the flooring run continuously through them. Ideally I'd like to do engineered wood floors. But all of this feels like it's forever indefinitely on hold because my husband wants to move to somewhere slightly out of the city/suburbs. We bought land years ago hoping to build and then building costs skyrocketed and the dream for that property died. Now we need to figure out what we want to do. My husband and I struggle to find a house in an area we both like and a house we both like in our price range. So I feel like I'm perpetually in limbo with this house and its worn out carpet. Maybe 2025. Maybe not.

Prickly, can you justify doing it for resale, so that it makes sense regardless of your ultimate decision?

We swapped our living room and dining room for Christmas to accomodate putting extra leaves in the table, Everyone wants to keep it that way. It means we need to add lighting and a new rug in the new dining room.

I’d like a new range for the kake house, but this is a low priority. I’d like to change out the art in our bedroom there too. I took a painting from our bedroom at home, and I’ve decided I prefer it there, so I‘m on the hunt for something for the lake house. I’m hoping we can get wallpaper hung in the alcobve where our bar is. I think we can probably do it ourselves. We just need to set aside some time. Our dock needs new decking, and the deck off the house needs some attention. This could be as simple as replacing boards or may need to be completely rebuilt which will be a major undertaking.

You know when I look around I see little projects that my daughter pointed out to me while she was here for Christmas. And it makes sense. Why am I still using a worn out broom, and warped dust pan in the kitchen? Why do I still have a guest room door knob that only turns one way to open it? Why are my Christmas tubs not labeled more specifically to what room they go in? Why am I keeping a throw rug that has lost all it's umph? See what I mean? Money is not a problem with any of these things. I think living by ones self makes you ignore things. So new broom, Christmas tubs labeled with my Brother label maker, new door knob on ( took me 3 hours, but I did it. ) And with all those little things done, I feel great.

Note: One thing I still can't fix. Light bulbs that come out and leave the metal base there. I tried a potato, a tennis ball, and turning off power and using a pliers to get base out. NOTHING has worked. Any help???

We just this morning had two closets systems installed here in Florida. So much neater and organized with room to spare.

Ladypat, I know what you mean! Sometimes those little things can make a big difference!

Hang in there Mtn. You have a great team working on it

Our timeline to downsize is partially defined by the house next door. Remember it used to be owned by the Vietnam vet who died despite my pleas for the police to do a wellness check? The house is falling down and the two acre property had become woods, but not pretty woods. Well, the sister sold the property to a high-end builder who happens to live on our street. He plans on putting one, maybe 2, houses there. The houses will list for $2 mil or thereabouts. The house is coming down soon, but the developer is also an arborist so he is intent on preserving some of the trees.

Clearly we won't move until we have those comps.

In the meantime, I have a long list of things we need to do here. Painting and wallpaper removal, adding a closet to the mbr, new walkway/front steps, glass in the double gas fireplace, probably new runner on stairs ...

It won't all happen this year, that's for sure. And actually, we're in the middle of doing window replacement and siding on our cottage in CT.

It's all about triage.

mtn I think that's a really great question. I think opening the doorway would increase value if I put french doors in place. But my husband thinks that any opening of the wall will decrease value. In our town (suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah). there is a desire for people of the predominant religion to have a small formal living room at the front of the house to meet with missionaries. It seems like they don't want these visitors to have any sight line to the TV. The previous owners used the dining room in this way, so they changed the original house plans to close in this wall instead of having an opening like the original house designs. I'm guessing that for re-sale it would be beneficial if future owners could still repurpose this dining room in this way. I think french doors would do the trick, but I could be wrong. I really should check with our realtor friends on whether I'd be doing harm to resale. I do think new flooring itself would be a big positive for resale, especially switching from mostly carpet to mostly wood on the main floor.

We moved into our 1980's era house about 18 months ago. It needed a lot of outside maintenance(new roof, new siding) which we did immediately. In the past few months, we put skylights in the LR and replaced two chandeliers.

We are just beginning our planning for a major reno involving the main BR bath, kitchen and flooring. I hope we can start later this year. We've been inspired by visiting a nearby houses with the same floorplan as ours.

I ordered a Murphy bed from Bredabeds yesterday for the spare room. It has an attached sofa. I will still need to buy a mattress.

I'm compiling a handyman list for all the little jobs that need to be done. Otherwise, the only thing outstanding is draperies for the living room. I'm undecided whether I want any or whether I want to leave the current shades.

We’ve been contemplating improvements for several years, hoping this year is the one of action.

We do have a plan for the office/mud room/coat closet. It’s the most used room in our house so we need it to function as well as possible. I think we might be able to order the cabinets and flooring this week though. Have wallpaper samples in the way.

We’re also planning to redo our master bath, and as such our master bedroom. I have some inspiration ideas, but lots of decisions to still make on that. But we’re adding a sauna, so the incentive is definitely there!

I'm taking this like an accountability thread so to speak- and I am relating to so many.

Mtn, I can't imagine. I am very sensitive to smell and each time you mention the smoke smell, I really feel for you. I am confident though that it will be history soon and will vansh.

We downsized 6(!!!) years ago, but and the townhouse really needed a ton of updating. Thankfully, though it does take me a long time to take actual action, I really feel good about my house. We remodeled the kitchen 4 years ago, changed out the flooring on most of the first floor, updated the powder room (but still could use some finishing touchs), and then this year remodeled our master bathroom. I'm very pleased with everything we;ve done.

The first floor is pretty good but I ((still)) have not replaced the dining room chandelier which is still what was there, a 1995 builder basic - because I can't make a decision..

It's one of those simple things, and I know for me it will make a huge difference - but it's going on 7 years and so far, still thinking about it.

I also keep hinking about one of those Ikea Shoe cabinets or a small bench for the ehtry.

We were at Ikea yesterday and I showed DH the shoe cabinets ( for like the 4th time) and yesterday he thought they were great.

I need to measure and remeasure.

Most of the house should be repainted, and I should have carpets cleaned ( stairs and upstairs), and our upstairs hall bathroom could definitely stand some updating and I do intend to do a very mild version of it--

My master bedroom could definitely improve. As it is, I still use ( and like ) a lightweight white quilt with a Waverly comforter ( from Spiegel catalogue 1991) folded. at the end.

Funky, thanks for starting this thread. I look forward to all the sharing and feedback.

Sorry but my space key seems to be taking a break today.

Salon, Spiegel!! I ordered in 1993 (we’d just bought our first house) and still use — ivory scalloped Matelasse coverlet (made in Portugal, feels like butter), “Victorian Crazy Quilt” with matching accent pillow, two ecru crocheted pillow shams, and our bed, a King pecan pencil post. Everything but the bed are guest room items now.

I miss them so much! Getting the catalog every season was such a treat. :)

Love this thread! Funky, that's a very long list. I hope we can follow along with each project.

We did our primary bath this year. The biggest reno we've ever done. It needed to be done a very long time ago but I guess I'm glad we waited as we really did it up big. Bigger than we would have been able to do in the past, and we absolutely love it.

The only thing left to do in there is window treatment on the one window. I just cannot seem to make a decision. We don't need it for privacy so not an urgent need. Hopefully I'll make a decision soon.

The 2 things to do this year --

#1 Replace the carpet in the family room. I would prefer the same hardwood we did in the rest of the downstairs last year but DH is insistent on carpet in there for acoustic reasons. It's a very large room with 20+ foot ceilings and he thinks hardwood (even with an area rug) will make his surround sound worse. OK, fine. It will certainly be less expensive than wood.

We will be away on vacation for the next few weeks, but it will happen soon after we're back.

#2 Renovate the upstairs hall bathroom. It will be nowhere near the level of the primary bath. Gutted and everything replaced but nothing too precious or fancy. Hopefully we can keep the cost of that manageable unlike the primary bath. Hoping to start that in March/April.

As part of that reno, I also plan to replace all the bedroom/bathroom doors upstairs. They are just ugly hollow doors and I hate them. I've hated them for the 28 years we've lived here. We replaced our primary bath and closet door in that reno and the difference is astounding. So while the contractors/painters are here, going to replace all the doors.

A maybe for 2025 is new couches for the family room. Might not happen. I will also be retiring this year so not having a paycheck may stop me from that large-ish purchase.

And almost surely not happening this year, but I would also like to redo my primary bedroom. We want a new bed. However, it's not quite so simple. We have this completely stupid design feature -- a small balcony from our bedroom that looks over the family room downstairs with french doors in our bedroom. It did come in handy a few times when DD had sleepovers when she was young and I could open the door and tell them to go to sleep! But now it's just useless and dumb and limits the size bed and nightstands I can have. So I want that demolished and drywalled. Then I can get a king size bed (have a queen now) and really large nightstands like I always wanted.

ETA: forgot one project for 2025...when we did the primary bath, we purchased a 2nd toilet for the powder room and the plumber was supposed to install it when he did the primary. Of course, the contractor neglected to inform him of this and he didn't have time. He had another job lined up. It turned out OK because we had a lot of leftover floor tile. The plan is to replace the powder room floor with this leftover tile and then replace toilet at the same time. This should happen early in the year since it's a relatively inexpensive update and will make a big difference!

Maybe I should start a new thread on this, but I wanted to mention a regret of mine with our primary bath reno. I considered putting in heated floors. The cost was more than I thought it would be ($2,500) so after asking around (including here) and everyone except my brother said they never use it, we didn't do it. It was the only cost cutting measure we took. And I regret it. I don't know if the marble floor retains the cold more than the old ceramic tile, but the floor is very cold. I wear slippers but being of a certain age and often having to use it in the middle of the night and forgetting the slippers in my sleepy state, I wish we put it in. $2500 was a lot but not in the big picture of how much that room cost. I could put down rugs but I really love the look of the floor and don't want to cover it.

Ah well, live and learn.

Jilly, I love love love the laundry room details. Why don't you put a frosted window film on the windows? You can still do the curtains on the bottom.

Mtn, have they ran an Ozone machine? They work wonders. No one, or any living creatures, can be in the house when they are running.

Skipped down to post this, so back up to read more....

Allison, thank you!

I hadn’t thought of a window film, thanks for that idea!

I was relating on my laundry thread how much I loved your laundry room at the lake house. :)

Jilly, From one of my bird sites: Please don't use dryer lint. Dryer lint seems like a good idea, but it will retain moisture, stay wet, and get compacted into a pile that will encourage mold and mildew to grow endangering the bird family, and it most likely contains fabric softener and other chemicals as well, so it is best to avoid it altogether.

Cyn, thank you for sharing that, I had no idea. I started doing it last year and it was never touched, now I’m glad! They instead strip the cocoa fiber from our hanging pots. :D

jsk, I am with you on the heated bathroom floors! We skipped doing that on our two bathroom renos this past year. My son said to do it and just shook his head when I said I couldn't afford it. Sigh. He was absolutely right. I hate having cold floors. Also, the contractor replaced the fan in one that used to have a heater in it near the shower that switched on independently from the light. The new fan does not have that, but he was so tickled and proud by the new switch which, in addition to the lights and fan, has a WIFI connection that I can use to listen to music (and I guess anything) that I just didn't want to say, no, no, I want the heater element! Just couldn't deflate him like that bc he is a sweetie, does excellent work, and is always willing to fit us into his schedule.

Jsk- I’ll take all your bathroom Reno advice! I’m overwhelmed although we don’t want to change the layout too much, so it’s mostly finishes. So many options though.

We have heated floors at our cabin and we do love them there, but I don’t think we’ll add them here. Ours are super expensive to run and take a long time to heat up. We’re only at the cabin a few weeks when it’s cold enough to run them, the bathroom is small and we don’t have central heat either. So there they are perfect and needed. But I don’t think we’ll add them here. I’m sorry you regret it though.

What a motivating thread this is! I mostly need to weed out overfilled closets and drawers. I did a bit of that in the kitchen in December, adding some dividers for organizing baking pans, and cleaning out the circus of cleaning products beneath the sink and adding a nice new mat inside the cabinet. I still need to finish one last little area of painting in the kitchen, but it's alongside where the fridge sits and isn't visible so it's not been a priority.

I shared my kitchen cabinet repaint job in a previous thread, but here's a before and after. I am so glad I went ahead and did all the cabinets (I initially planned to just paint the island and leave the white cabinets to "accent", but all that stark white had to go.

I also painted our primary bath cabinets in a different shade.

Now... I'm about halfway toying with painting our wall to wall bookshelves in the library. That would be a huge undertaking for me, though, and I'm not sure what color I'd like to live with, so for now I just sort of put that thought out of my mind when it pops in.

I love your cabinets. What a difference!

After painting the exterior, I am focused on the LR/DR. My wish list has expanded from new blinds also to include 3 arches, 2 extra windows, and 1 limestone fireplace 🤣. At this point, I am just considering all the options to connect with the beautiful outdoors, and HOUZZ remains my favorite source of inspiration.

Wishing you all the best with your projects; cheers to all!

PS: I'm not a PRO, and I don't know why my username, lobo_93, is not showing up.🤔

As I continue to read here, I see I also forgot to mention that we really need new sofa and chairs in our living room/ family room. That's going to be tough as there are so few places to actually look and see them. Dreading looking.

I remember Jilly's wonderful sofa that I keep thinking about, even in the olive green which has never been my color but it just looks so perfect.

Otherwise I have always gravitated to navy sofas.

I'm over ALL of it. This past year, we renovated/remodeled our downstairs -bathroom, laundry room, floors-, painted outside and most of inside, put on new decks. I'm still recovering! Only room left- our living room. The couches/chairs are out for recover, and I'm done. I MAY refinish the marble in kitchen in 2025? I'm not a person who loves doing this, but I want it done HOW I want it done. It's a LOT of work.

So many good projects - everyone needs to share along the way.

I have done a lot the past few months. Our handyman/electrician/friend that helped with our last whole house remodel on a daily basis, and helped with this last move too, has been to stay with us 4 or 5 times. He is such a hard worker, and can do pretty much everything.

That said, we already have a list of things for his next trip. The biggest thing on the list is to add to, and organize DH's tool closet. We just redid the carport storage room and he added another set of side shelves (matches the ones on the left) for our step in pantry.

On the decorating side, I plan to order a new living room sofa next week. I've had it selected for at least a year. I'd really love a small sectional, but that won't work in the room.

There are two long storage closets on our third floor (each guest room has a regular closet and two storage closets the length of the rooms) that need an overhaul.

I would also love to replace the onsite powder room sink base with something else. Probably a cabinet with hidden storage since the room is too small to put extra TP anywhere other than the back of the toilet, which isn't going to happen in my lifetime.

@Fun2BHere do you have a drapery company you like? This time I’m going to go custom.

@1929Spanish-GW, How funny that you should ask because I was going to message YOU and ask who you use! My last custom draperies in 2021 were by The Shade Store at the Laguna Design Center and I would NOT recommend them. On the first try, they made them incorrectly. On the second try, they used taupe thread on the pleats against winter white wool, plus they never really lost all of the wrinkles AND the installer snagged my carpeting with the hooks. By then, I knew I was going to put the house on the market, so I didn't ask them to try again. Most people wouldn't see the taupe stitches as they were tiny and high up, but it annoyed the heck out of me.

Funny, not funny

Anyone else in Orange County,CA area have someone they would recommend?

New insulated garage door to be installed Friday. Hope to still get a patio installed in the backyard, daughter will paint porch and install flooring, I picked out a Pottery Barn sisal rug for that porch when finished (delighted to find they'll custom size it), bamboo or similar blinds, when the garage ceiling is done I want a closet out there for additional storage. Also shelves in my spare room closet. I'm almost done completing the room's transformation into my art studio. I've only been waiting 10 years!

Jilly, aw- thank you for the shout-out for my kitchen! I love that runner, and everything else you’ve planned for your laundry!

Thank you, china! :)

Nicole

A few of the siding boards need replaced. We'll set up scaffolding, DH will help. It's just maintenance. It's a rental. Maybe 5 planks need replaced. The rest of the house is fine. This side is West facing. Note: The house is 4 levels. 4/3/2

Oh dear, I didnt accomplish much in 2024, so my list has a lot of carryover.

I did tile behind my stove :)

We didnt do our master bath because we let ourselves get carried away and then didnt want to move forward. That will happen in 2025.

I still want to cozy up our dining nook, but its a low priority.

I may need to make some changes to my office to fit in an exercise machine.

I am thinking of retiring.