If you've been following the blog for a while, you already know that I like to take annual stock of the progress in the house at this time of year and make plans for the coming year ahead. You will also know that I'm not always completely successful at sticking to my goals, but yet just the act of setting them is motivation to keep going with this project of DIY house renovation.
If you also follow me on Instagram, you will know that the second half of this year was a difficult one for us as I miscarried twins at 11 weeks. I don't often get personal here on the blog, but that was just too huge an experience to omit from my chronicle of 2018. It also meant that work on the house was considerably slowed throughout the pregnancy and aftermath of the miscarriage, so I'm being extra forgiving of myself this year for not meeting goals. That said, my preoccupation with home decor is actually a real comfort to me because I find the creative process very therapeutic. So with that in mind, I do intend to continue making grand schemes for the house ... and sometimes even achieving them!
So let's see what I did manage to acheive this year ...
2018 House Goals In Review
Goal: Decorate the Entrance Hall
Yes, this goal has been on the list every year since I started this blog; and, indeed, every year since we moved into this house. I really hate our pine stairs and boring hallway. The picture above is representative of how it looked for most of the year. So the big question is: had it changed by the end of 2018?
Outcome: Partial Success
Well, it doesn't look much better a year later. So why have I categorised this as a success? Because we are currently working on it and it would have been a lot further along had it not been for our personal circumstances. So this is where I'm being kind to myself and allowing myself to count this as a success.
The nature of this project means that the entrance hall will actually be the last part of this renovation to get done because the logical order of work demands that the other parts be completed first. The staircase runs from the entrance hall up through the first floor landing to the loft at the top of the house. That means we had to finish any work at the top of the house that might potentially mess up any decor below - like the hallway. So although the entrance hall itself doesn't look much different, we have actually completed a huge part of this project already.
Starting in the loft overhead, we removed the ballustrade at the top of the staircase and replaced it with a wall. You can see the Before pictures and read about the whole process here. We haven't finished decorating the loft because the priority is getting the hallway done, so we're parking that for now and moving on. The important thing is that any future work in the loft can be completed without affecting the lower floors.
We have also done a lot of work on repairing and improving poor workmanship in the construction of the staircase itself, and I'll be dedicating an entire blogpost to that once we've finished. Here on the first floor landing, you can see how we changed the shape of the left side of the ballustrade to make the top of the stairs symmetrical. Why it was never done like that day one baffles me! We also replaced the ball newel caps with acorn-shaped newel caps, which I love.
So, while we're not there yet, we have achieved a lot (especially under the circumstances), and I'm confident that I will soon be sharing the After photos with you here.
Goal: Finish the Unfinished Projects
When I set this goal, what I really intended was that we would finish what we referred to as Phase I of the Library renovation. We had already completed the construction of pocket doors, panelled all the walls, and installed the fireplace. What was left was to give the walls a second coat of paint, install coving, and build the integrated bookcases.
Outcome: Failure
We didn't lift a finger in the library this year. If anything, it has gotten more cluttered as we start to accumulate everything in there that we eventually intend to put in the bookcases that we haven't built yet. However, serendipity did deliver us the exact kind of seating we wanted for this room when I won an Instagram competition run by DFS. The prize was this gorgeous tan leather cuddler sofa designed in collaboration with French Connection.
I absolutely love it and it looks like it was made for this spot. Any other work that we didn't get done in this room is because we took on a completely different project instead ...
Bonus!
This was not a goal I set myself at the start of the year, but in early spring it became apparent that I needed to do some work on my Craft Room. This is where I do all the sewing of Roman blinds and curtains and cushion covers that I use to decorate the rest of the house. The problem was that storage in the room was reaching crisis point! So as well as adding storage, I did a cosmetic makeover of the room too in order to make it a more pleasant place to work.
You can see the Before pictures and read more about my Craft Room here.
Stretch Goal: Garden Refresh
I had grand notions of making some progress in the garden ...
Outcome: Failure
As a stretch goal, it was always going to be unlikely that we got around to doing anything in the garden this year. And that's precisely what happened: nothing! However, we do continue to enjoy the seasonal changes in the woodland garden that we established some years ago. You can read more about How to Grow a Woodland here.
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2019 House Goals
OK, so let's look forward to what we have planned for the coming year ...
Goal: Finish the Entrance Hall Renovation
I am determined that this goal will not be on the to-do list again one year from now. Instead I will be showing you those glorious After photos!
Goal: Kitchen/Dining Refresh
This is how our kitchen/dining room looks currently:
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This room was decorated years ago and my taste has developed a lot since then. While I still love that wallpaper, I think it's time to lose the red in this room. It just doesn't sit well with the decor in the rest of the house and, as such, can be a little jarring visually. Also, I want to introduce more of rustic feeling to the space.
On the lesser end of the scale, I would like at least to give it a fresh coat of paint all over, change the lightshades and some of the accessories, and make covers for the dining chairs to change the look. At the greater end of the scale, I would also like to change the kitchen spashback and the configuration of the upper cabinets. I'm guessing the makeover will be closer to the lesser end of those options.
Stretch Goal: Utility Room Refresh
Our utility room has never really been properly decorated. I know I probably won't get around to doing a full-on job this year, but I'd like to see if I can make a start on it. The long-term goal is to completely change the configuration of the room so that the washer and dryer go into the oversized hotpress to create a dedicated laundry room. That would free up the utility room to include a mudroom area. Whether or not that happens in 2019 remains to be seen, but I'd like to at least give the room a bit of a makeover to improve its appearance in the meantime.
So there you have it - all my plans for the coming year. I do also want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for following along our adventures in making this house a home and to wish you and your loved ones a very happy new year for 2019.
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