We set goals and resolutions for ourselves, so it only seems fitting that we would do the same for our homes! Even if you work outside the home full-time, you still spend up to 128 hours a week at home. Just like we all make career goals, I think we should make home goals, and so does The Nester. She is hosting another home goals link party, at her blog The Nesting Place, and inviting all of us to share our home goals.
Thoughts on Home
The Nester said she thought of the following questions when deciding on her home goals. I decided to do the same exercise and share it here…followed of course by my home goals!
What’s my favorite room in my house? Why?
My current favorite room is our dining room. It is the only room that I feel is complete and fully reflective of our style and our family. I love all the handmade details that went into the dining room. Too bad we haven’t had more people over for dinner to enjoy the room…
How and where does my family hang out together? What’s working for that room? What’s annoying in that room?
Our family room and kitchen are the most occupied rooms in our house. We recently got new furniture for the family room. The biggest challenge in our family room is the overwhelming amount of toys. I am always trying to organize and purge to keep the room under control. The boys are just getting to the age where we feel comfortable letting them play in another room alone. In the kitchen, I wish it were more airy and open. There is a lot of wood on wood with maple cabinetry and dark wood floors. I am not ready to commit to painting the cabinets white, but I daydream about it often.
Is there something in my home I want to do but I’m afraid? What if I take that risk? What’s the worst that can happen?
Oh there are so many things! I have “crazy ideas all the time”. Here is the short-list of the current ideas floating in my head…paint the kitchen cabinets white, take a bunch of wall cabinets out of the kitchen…replace them with floating shelves and repurpose the wall cabinets for the laundry room, and paint the underside of our guest bath pedestal sink a bold color. That is really just a few ideas off the top of my head. I am usually pretty fearless, because I know whatever I mess up can be replaced. My fear usually comes in when I have to commit to the time and effort it takes to complete my riskier ideas. I am afraid of unfinished projects!
What’s the purpose of my home? Is that obvious by how we use it and what is filling it?
I want the purpose of our home to be a place to gather, a place to celebrate, and a place to grow. We do all of those things in our home, but I don’t know if that is obvious. As a place to gather and celebrate, I think we could continue to make our home more comfortable and inviting for guests. As a place to grow, we need to continue to focus on organization and using our space to the fullest.
Do the objects in my home reflect our family or do I just have things because someone told me it looked good, gave it to me or bought it for me?
I am pretty proud to say, I think virtually everything in our home reflects our family. Our decor may seem sparse in areas, but we don’t ever buy something just to fill space. We only buy things that are functional or things that make us happy. Over the last 7 years of our marriage, we have slowly purged furniture and things from the bachelor days. We have also slowly rebuilt our furniture and decor collections to reflect us. Decorating a home is definitely a marathon, not a sprint.
Am I neglecting my home and not putting money into something that is needed? Am I squandering money on something I don’t need or enjoy?
We are pretty good at prioritizing purchases around the home, but more focus in this area is always welcome. I think sometimes we get distracted with impulse buys and lose sight of our longer term goals. This year we are hoping to have our basement finished, so I more closely scrutinize every penny we spend. I want a finished basement, but I also want to be able to furnish it when it’s done.
My 2012 Home Goals
Wow…that was a great exercise. It definitely helped me flush out some home goals for this year. Here they are in no particular order:
Have more company! Forget having a perfectly clean house or a perfect party theme, let’s just have some friends and family over. I want some more casual and frequent entertaining this year.
Reclaim the family room! I love my boys, but I am not as fond of their toys. I want to condense the collection of toys in our family room and take back the space for hanging out together as a family. We always blame the kids toys for engulfing our homes, but we as parents have control. If we did not make ever-growing space in the family room, then the boys would make do with the toys they have in the room or play in other designated areas of the home (like their playroom).
Commit to the big projects! I have big ideas…that take big time to come to fruition. My goal this year is to commit to completing two big projects; 1) transform the kitchen into our dream kitchen, 2) finish the basement…thankfully most of the dirty work will be contracted, leaving me with the fun decorating part
Raise the comfort level! Along the lines of having more company, we need to make our space comfortable for guests. We need the appropriate amount of comfortable seating for entertaining. We need to finish outfitting the deck with furniture for summer comfort. We need to continue to improve the guest room for our out of town guests (maybe clearing storage out of the closet so they can hang their clothes would be a good start).
Organize, organize, organize! We have a big home. I cringe whenever I catch myself thinking we need more space. I want to use the space we have to the fullest. It is easy to focus on our basement finishing project to add more space for whatever we desire, but I do not want to lose sight of making the most of the space we currently have.
Grow our collection! I want to continue to collect functional and meaningful furniture and decor for our home. This is as much a hobby for me as it is a goal. I want to have patience to hold out for pieces we truly love and the diligence to keep searching for things that reflect our family and make our house a home.
Create a budget! I want to carve out part of our family budget for home projects. We do not do this explicitly. Then we end up overspending in other areas and not realizing all of the goals for our home. I want to determine an appropriate amount to set aside each month for the home. If we don’t spend it one month, it will rollover into the home fund for the next month.
Bring it Home! One additional goal I thought of is all the services we enjoy. I’d like to bring those services home. The top two that come to mind are coffee and dry-cleaning. Shortly after moving in we got a one-cup coffee maker and had it in our master suite. It was wonderful in the morning. It broke and they stopped making Starbucks coffee for it. We need to replace that. All that money spent on coffee could go in the home fund :) Drycleaning is also pricey. My husband pulled out the manuals this weekend to review the settings on our washer and dryer, so he can launder his dress shirts at home. This will necessitate a new ironing board and iron, but that is an investment we are willing to make for all my crafting needs his well-pressed shirts.
How about you?
What are your home goals for this year? Did you meet some big home goals in 2011?
I love this exercise and will have to answer those questions when I get home from work. It seems like many of your goals are similar to my own. I really like the idea of budgeting better for home improvment. Sometimes I’m more interested in sprucing up the place than my husband is so I’m more apt to want to spend our money on those things than my husband is.