All of the year-end and year-beginning craziness is over. Thank goodness! I love the time from Thanksgiving through New Year’s but it leaves me completely exhausted. And then January is no cake walk either getting all of our projects back to moving full steam ahead after the holiday break and making sure everything is zipped up and ready for tax time. Now that the dust has finally settled and I’m feeling energized and mentally recovered, my mind can focus on all I want to accomplish for the year coming up. Reset time, right? This goes across all channels for me- food, family, finances, travel, home, etc.

I won’t bore you with details of all of those areas of my life- we’ll just focus on the home part. You know, we should all think about what we want to accomplish for our homes at the beginning of each year. If you don’t, time will just just slip away and nothing will ever get done because it keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the list. It takes serious thinking, planning and DOING!!

I take stock on what all I managed to get done the prior year and then figure out what projects I want/need to tackle in the coming year. Many variables come into play when I start processing what I want to do- investment amount, difficulty, timeline, how will it enhance my day to day, can we do it ourselves or do we need to hire out, etc etc etc.

We’ve been in our semi-custom home for 4 years now and we’ve done a lot. Heavy emphasis was placed on the outdoors first because we spend sooooo much time out there. Big tip that seems obvious, but it’s not- make sure you’re prioritizing your projects based on how it affects your lifestyle and your happiness at home!! Don’t spend money on a living room you barely use before focusing monies and effort into a family room you use ALL THE TIME!

My Outdoor SPace

Our yard was barren when we moved in, only the standard builder plantings, which we all know are basically placeholders until you can do something better. We’ve added a deck, a large patio, planted 23 trees, planted lots and lots of things I love (hydrangeas, peonies, lilac, forsythia, cherry laurels, ornamental grasses), added a raised garden, changed out our sidewalk and added a stone wall around our mulch beds out front. We’ve focused heavily on the back living area thus far so this year we’ll be giving the front a little curb appeal by replacing all of the builder plantings with something more intentional. We get pounded with afternoon sun, so I want to focus more on layering in different types of greens with sculptural elements and a few flowering whites mixed in. Not too many flowering because they will get burned up with the late afternoon summer heat. I’ll share before + afters of the outside later this year once things are pretty and green again. This is the inspo for my front of the house plantings:

Also on the outdoor-goal list we plan to add another garden bed (since last years garden was a huge success), an herb garden in a semi-shaded area on the side of the house and to complete our outdoor projects for 2023 we’ll be finishing off our firepit area. You’ll be seeing the behind the scenes of all of these projects if you’re following along instagram.

Now, let’s move inside. Our indoor projects are going to be focused on making better use of a couple areas based on how we live. Turning our current mudroom into a scullery is priority #1 and taking what’s currently our dining room and turning it into a home bar/entertainment space is priority #2.

Mudroom to scullery project (priority #1)

One of our current pain points is that our counter-depth fridge in the kitchen doesn’t hold enough food for my family of 4. I’m sure many of you can relate. I hate constantly running in and out to the garage where the backup fridge is located. And I’m not planning a full kitchen reno any time soon since the house is so new- that would be a complete waste of money at this point. Because of our daily habits we have no need for a true mudroom. We all enter and exit using the front door and my kids aren’t little anymore with backpacks and such to contain. Since we don’t need a standard mudroom, why not take that space and turn it into something more useful for our particular needs?? A scullery will be so incredibly helpful. It will have a back up fridge/freezer, large sink, doggie feeding area, and loads of storage to house all of my entertaining pieces. I also plan to set up a juicing station back there. I don’t currently juice, but guess what- I will be the second half of this year! See, my health depends on this project!

This is our preliminary design but I’ve already changed it. Instead of a shelf, we’ll be installing uppers cabs that extend the length of the wall to the ceiling. And there will be fridge and freezer columns, rather than a fridge and a tall storage cab. We’ve not had a chance to draw it up so you can see the first go for now. Seriously can’t wait for this functional improvement.

DIning room to home bar project (priority #2)

Another area we don’t use in the traditional sense is our dining room. We have a very open floor plan with our daily dining area located about 25′ away from the “formal” dining room. Why on earth would we need another dining space so close and within eye shot?? We enjoy entertaining and would love to create a space that’s designated to housing and serving booze. We’ll have some cabinetry, wine/beer fridge, wall shelving for bottles and glasses, and a table with seating to hang out. Being ready to entertain at the drop of a dime means it will happen. How many times do you want to have people over but don’t because you don’t feel prepared? Setting yourself up to be able to live the way you want means you finally get to live the way you want! It’s really that easy. I tend to do more when things come about spontaneously vs planned. So this will work beautifully for me.

 There will be some other projects mixed in here in there. But these are the big ones planned for the year. 

Feel free to reach out here if you need help tackling your big projects. We’re pretty good at helping you get things done rather than dreaming about things being done.

xo- Erika