Quarterly Home Goals Check-In #2

If you have ever been around Corporate America, you may have heard the phrase “What gets measured, gets done”.  There is some truth to that saying.  It isn’t enough to just make goals or objectives…you must check in on them frequently and measure your progress.  At the beginning of the year I jumped at the opportunity to participate in the Nester’s home goals linky.  I shared my 2012 Home Goals.  At the end of the first quarter of 2012, I did a home goals check-in to gauge my progress so far.  Now, I am back for a second installment to share the progress made toward our 2012 home goals in the second quarter.  Okay, enough corporate speak and onto how we are doing…

Here is a recap of each of my goals and progress to date:

Have more company!  My sister and I hosted an intimate and fun gathering for my SILs baby shower.  It turned out fabulous, as you can see from the shots below.

We also hosted my mother in-law and father in-law for a visit, which prompted some big updates in the guest bedroom.  It was also the first time they got to see our finished deck and enjoy it with us (more on that in a bit).

Reclaim the family room!  It is official…we are going backwards on this goal.  The toys seem to just fill right back in and I swear they are multiplying at night.  However, we have stuck with the kids library in the office, which has reduced book clutter in the family room.  We also did a decent toy purge for the garage sale, mostly larger items.  Even though the garage sale was a bust, my mom hauled off the goods to host another sale at her house.

We are eagerly awaiting the completion of the basement playroom (in progress pics here).  Wow, I just said that like someone else is doing the work…nope, it is all us.  We need to get some paint and flooring in there and then deck it out with awesome toy storage.  At that point, the plan is to completely remove all toys from the upstairs family room!

Commit to the big projects!  Oh, how we committed.  We bit off a 1,000+ sq ft basement finishing project.  The contractor started right after the last quarterly update and they are wrapping up this week.  They did all the plumbing rough-in, framing, hvac, electrical, drywall, ceiling texture, and priming in the space.  Over the next quarter we look forward to doing a bunch of DIY projects to finish out the space.

Raise the comfort level!  Hands down the biggest comfort level increase has been with our furnished deck.  I already said above how great it was to enjoy with my in-laws.  It also wonderful for us on a daily basis.  We love our outdoor furniture and we have been grilling out every fair weather day.  The boys love playing on the deck too, although they rarely stop moving long enough to enjoy the furniture.  They do enjoy eating what comes off the grill, though.

Organize, organize, organize!  Over the last month I took a few organizing baby steps in the master bathroom.  I repurposed the candlestick candy jars, into candlestick apothecary jars.  I might have made blogging history, being the first to share (with pictures) how I store my feminine products.  My favorite organizing project was the chalkboard lined makeup drawer.  I love anything chalkboard right now and this happy little drawer greets me every morning!

Grow our collection!  The furniture growth around here has been limited to the outdoor furniture.  But we are gearing up to make a few purchases for the basement and I am stalking Furnishlyst everyday.

Create a budget!  Ahhh…fail.  I still have not created a budget, but we did manage to pay cash for our entire basement finishing project.  I consider that a pretty big success.  But, seriously we need to be more responsible with our money and make a budget.

Bring it Home!   My hubby has totally kept up with laundering and ironing his shirts for almost 6 months now and I can’t even imagine how much we have saved on dry cleaning.  With the addition of the grill on the deck, we have also brought the eating home.  We hardly eat out anymore which is a huge accomplishment for us.

Overall, we seem to be progressing nicely on our goals and it is only mid-year.  Over the next quarter, the basement will consume the majority of our home improvement time and we are very excited to share all the amazing ideas we have.  We’ll check in with another goal update in October.