2012 Home Goals Recap

I completely missed our home goals check in for the third quarter of 2012, but we continued to make progress on meeting our 2012 home goals.  It is awesome to look back now at the end of the year and see all that we achieved.  Some of these goals are of the continuous improvement type and will carryover into 2013, but we have already made great progress on all of them.

Have more company! The goal was to stress less about having a perfectly decorated and clean home.  We wanted to entertain casually and more often.  I think we knew this goal was a success when my younger brother was commenting on our still unpainted second story in the family room during our family Christmas get together.  We didn’t let that unfinished paint job stop us from entertaining.

We also fit in a few other more formal gatherings and guest visits.  My sister and I hosted a “She’s Going to Pop Baby Shower” for our sister-in-law.

My in-laws came for a visit earlier in the year, which prompted a slew of updates to the guest bedroom.

For our littlest man we had a family only bug party…with lots of creepy, crawly guests.

Reclaim the family room! We started going backwards on this goal by the second quarter check in.  The toys kept multiplying in the family room and we struggled to keep them put away and organized.  We didn’t even get close to achieving this goal until December of year with the introduction of the Christmas tree.  This was the first year we had the Christmas tree in the family room.  We had to move the boys play table and Lego storage to make room for it.  Shockingly, they did not seem to mind.  There are no plans to bring them back into the room.  Instead we are looking forward to adding a nice reading chair where the Christmas tree is now.

Commit to the big projects!  In April we started on our basement finishing project.  Our contractor finished up the plumbing, electrical, framing, and drywall by the end of May.  We are finishing the rest and it is still in progress.

We tackled the home gym first with a DIY flooring project, paint, and a few Ikea additions.

I am in the middle of installing the cork flooring, and the carpet will be installed at the end of next week.  We are looking forward to moving in and using this space in 2013!

Raise the comfort level!  At the beginning of the year we had been in our home less than two years.  I think it always takes a few years to get settled and really fill out a home.  We added a large deck onto the house in the fall of 2011 and never got to enjoy it before winter hit.  The first order of business in the Spring of 2012 was deck styling.  We added a table, chairs, and a grill.  We spent every summer evening enjoying that space.

Another neglected area of the home was proper seating for the family room.  In the previous year we got a new sofa and ottoman, but were still in need of a few chairs.  I found a pair of chairs at Home Goods and it took me another 6 months to get them recovered (which I still have not posted about).  Anyway, having the extra seating has been wonderful.

This was also the year of the rug for us.  At the beginning of the year we added the Moroccan trellis beauty to the family room.  At the end of the year, we added some Flor style to the kitchen eating area.

Organize, organize, organize! This will be an ongoing process for me.  Organization takes a lot of work and upkeep.  I have found that making organization cute helps a lot.

Here are a few of the cute organizing updates I made this year:

• Chalkboard Lined Makeup Drawer
• Rearranging Kitchen Drawers to Improve Flow
• Easy Access Kids Dishes Cabinet

The biggest organizational update was reclaiming the laundry room.  I added some pretty laundry containers, some practical cleaning supply storage, and a proper place for the ironing board and iron.

Grow our collection! We definitely added a few furniture pieces to our collection.  We prefer to wait or save up for pieces we truly love.  This year we added a set of 4 vintage Classmate chairs in the kitchen.

We added all new furniture on the deck.  A mix of weather resistant Crate and Barrel furniture and Ikea chairs.

The basement has been a big catalyst for growing our furniture collection.  I picked up these retro dressers, which will become a media stand for the basement family room and storage dresser for my craft room.  For my birthday, my hubby bought me two of these Martha Stewart craft space three-drawer cabinets…there will be no lack of storage in my new craft room.

Create a budget!  I was failing by mid-year and continue to fail on this goal.  We did pay cash for our entire basement finishing project, which we are quite proud of.  In other efforts to control unnecessary spending, I put myself on a Home Spending Hiatus for the month of September.  It completely transformed my spending habits and allowed me to refocus on planned purchases to complete our basement.

Bring it Home! In many respects, we have become a service dependent society.  We pay restaurants to make our dinners, we pay dry-cleaners to launder our clothes, maids to clean our homes, etc.  We personally were spending a lot of money on eating out and dry-cleaning.  We were already (and always have) cleaned our own home, done our own lawn care, etc.

In January of 2012 we bought a new ironing board and a nice iron.  My husband started laundering and ironing all his own shirts.  We completely cut out our entire dry-cleaning bill.

Another big money saver, started with a big buy.  For my hubby’s birthday I bought him a grill.  We grilled our own food all summer and fall and significantly reduced our dining out bill.

Considering the hubby and I both work full-time and have two small children, we are pretty proud of our home accomplishments this year.  In the second full year in our home, it is really starting to feel like us.  Besides just things, our home is filling up with memories.  Here’s to many more good memories in our home in 2013!