Honestly the last few years, prior to 2020 happening, we were traveling a lot.  Hardly sat still!  And when we were home, it was pretty non stop.  So while its’ been a weird last 12 months in a lot of ways, one thing I’ve loved about this is improving our home slowly.  I love, and still love, our home.  I honestly think it’s our forever home.  Not without its quirks for sure.  As old houses come with A LOT of them.

But I’m ready to make a few changes.  So we are inching our way to make some, some that have been on our minds since we moved in and some that I’d just like to change up to reflect my style better, and be a bit more timeless.  My amazing, real life friend, Kate, who is probably one of the most talented people on the earth – is helping me so much with all of these updates.  She’s also the one that designed and hand painted my logo!  She has been a tremendous help!

I thought I’d share that list here, and update y’all when I cross something off the list.  Warning you now, this is a long list!  But these have all been on my mind for so long.  We’ve had a savings account ear marked for updates for a while… but like I’ve said, I have a hard time getting off the dollar.  My Scottish heritage shines bright!   Sometimes in the best of ways, and sometimes I just can’t stomach paying for certain things.   (:

1.  Reupolster some Ballard design chairs.  Done! These were $0 (long, wonderful story for another day thanks to a great friend!), but needed some love.  I bought krylon matte white spray paint + used my dads spray paint handle, which made spray painting actually enjoyable!  My dad cleaned the seats and stripped them of their upholstery.  Then we went to town with a staple gun.  It was really fun, and as my dad reminded me after we were finished:  “you can do anything!!”.  Too many times I’ve thought something wasn’t in my wheel house just because I hadn’t done it before.  Note to self:  try!  The chairs are in the space, and we moved the dining table that was in our dining room into the breakfast nook.  And we love it so much already!
2. Get my thrift store table + cane chairs ($175 for table + 8 caned chairs) reupholstered.  This will require a seamstress, and the one my parents used retired.  So I am on the hunt!  They have piping, and I believe that requires a professional.
3. Use my fabric that we bought in December to make drapes for our bedroom.  I love that soft blue, and bought plenty at such a great price for drapes.  In general, our bedroom needs help!  So this will hopefully be a chain reaction.
4. Have our powder room sanded down to make way for wallpaper!  Which leads me to my next thing which is choose wallpaper.  This is SO hard for me.  It’s also hard for me to get off the dollar.  The one I want is just too expensive for me to justify.  We already hired someone to do the sanding + installation.  We also bought this sink for it.  The space is tiny so we were limited on options.  But I think it fits right in with this old house.
5. Paint the dining room and breakfast room which runs into the kitchen.  We have someone hired for this, so should be finished in the next few weeks.  We are probably going with White Dove.  But I need to test samples, and that’s on my list to do this week.  The revere pewter is lovely, but I just feel like the crisp white will lean into what I’m trying to create.
6. Light fixture for breakfast nook.  The one we have just doesn’t fit the space now that we changed the table in here.
7. Drapes for the kitchen.  We will still keep our bamboo blinds of course, but Kate suggested drapes to really warm up the space.  I’ll probably just do white Ikea drapes.
8. coffee table for playroom.  and some additional storage that looks cute!
9. Paint our china cabinet.  Maybe something lacquer.
10. Thrift or facebook marketplace a buffet for dining room.  
11. Rearrange the boys room to be more functional for them.  Put a desk in there.
12. The biggest one on the list – switch out the countertops and remove the bar counter to have a counter height.  This is SO intimidating to me.  I’d love marble, because I am good with patina and imperfections.  But JB knows it will really irritate him to have rings of this or that.  I think of it more as like “oh remember that time so and so spilled his wine, awwww, what a fun night”.  We’re different.  LOL.  So I am on the hunt, I guess for quartz, and need to get a few quotes.  I don’t mind our cabinets at all, so they are staying put.
13. Have crown molding put up in our breakfast area.  The only room in the house that doesn’t have it (it’s not original to the house) and really needs it.
14. update our laundry room.  Over quarantine last year, I fell in love with this laundry room, that has a similar set up.  The same contractor that’s doing the powder room, is going to work on something similar.

So that’s it!  Here’s to hoping putting it out there to y’all lights a fire on my hind end!