House projects

Resolutions and house projects are two things that many people start to think about each new year.  For me I tend not to do the resolution thing, I don't need one more thing that I haven't accomplished to be hanging over my head.  But house projects are definitely something that sparks my interest and every year after Christmas has been taken down and the house is fresh and clean and uncluttered from the holidays, I start to dream about all the things I would like to do to the house.  Some of my projects are small things that I can tackle on my own with no help from Jason, others are bigger and need his help and also input. 

So I went through my house tonight and took pictures of all the rooms that I want to make some changes in.  I stopped my urge to clean everything up before I took the pictures because lets face it I have two little boys who think that it is there job to make a mess in every room of this house every single day.  It is exhausting keeping up with it so some days I just let it go. 

I can't believe that I am going to post this picture, this room has been a "work in progress for 2 years now"  it is also a dumping ground for misc things that I can't decide where to put them or I am going to need them again soon. We really don't use this room much, so I tend to forget about it a lot.

As you can see this room is such an embarrassment, I try not to let most people see it.  We come in through the garage and our shoes come off and get kicked in here.  See the pile of stuff in the corner, paint stuff, stuff to go to DI it is a mess.  I took the hideous wall paper off two years ago and started to patch the holes and things and that was as far as I got.  I did paint a couple of swatches of colors on the wall.  I don't even think I would choose any of them now. 

You can kind of see the ceiling, in this one I did manage to get one coat of white paint on it while I was painting something else last year and had a little left over and decided it couldn't be worse than the creamy color it had.  This will be the most expensive project out of all of them.

Family room, again I just took the picture so you can all see what a mess the boys have made this afternoon.  Actually it could be a lot worse so I guess I can be thankful.  We rearranged it last fall and I am loving how it is set up, now I just need to finish it with some pictures on the walls.  We had our family pictures taken and I want to blow them up and hang them above the couch.  I taped up some paper for a template to play around with them to find what I like the best.  I also want to frame out both the windows. 

We bought these chairs and I can't wait to recover them, I can't quite decide what kind of fabric I want to use, although I am thinking of going kind of neutral and some kind of stripe so I can use pillows as a punch of color.

The Hallway upstairs, I am dying to cover the whole thing with Board and Batten and then paint it the same color as the family room.  Oh and that also reminds me I would love to have the living room painted the same color also.  But I refuse to paint it again, we had to rent scaffolding and it was not fun, so I totally want to hire someone for that room. I guess as long as we are dreaming here I would also love to have the hallway and stairway carpet ripped up and hardwood floors put down.  We had the whole house re carpeted about 5 years ago and it has not held up well, we are not happy about it because we didn't choose cheap carpet we got a good quality and we don't usually wear shoes in the house so we figured it should of lasted better than it has. 

Boys room, I want to get a set of bunk beds for them and then I can rearrange the pictures on the walls.  I also need to finish hanging up Noah's name.

Playroom, I am still loving the decision to put the boys in the same room and make a playroom, best choice ever.  But now I want to paint it and take down all the baby stuff I had in there when it was Noah's nursery.  Oh yeah I also need to hang up the new curtain rod we have the one up is bending from the boys pulling on the curtains.

Master Bedroom, as you can see I guess I interrupted nap time for the cats.  So this room has been very sadly neglected I am happy with my bedding and the colors in here but I would love to have a headboard and maybe some kind of board and batten on the wall behind the bed.  Then there is the slight problem with curtains, I want them but nothing I have tried had been right.  I would love to cover up that half circle window, it sure lets in a lot of light in the morning, but with the ceiling sloping the way it does I don't know how good it would look to have curtains at different heights.  Then there is that awful corner with the two windows, I have no idea how to hang a curtain rod for that.  What I did before was pathetic I wont even talk about it. 
I have also toyed with the idea to have our dresser painted, they are in great shape and there is nothing wrong with them I would just like something lighter, I think.

Those are the main projects that I would love to get done this year, but I am also realistic in knowing that most likely they won't all get done.  But who knows maybe I will surprise myself and be real ambitious this year.  Jason hates when I get on these kicks because he sees all his hard earned money going away along with all his free time helping me get them done :) and besides free time is something he doesn't have much of these days.