Projects on the Docket for 2020

Everybody get pumped! It’s planning time! I am always really over ambitious about the projects I can accomplish each year, but I’m really trying to rein it in to the projects that are possible for one person to do in a year.

The Upstairs Landing

The first thing I’m planning on working on is finishing up the stair landing on the second floor and installing an antique door in the opening to the dormer. And I’m planning on attacking that this weekend! First there will be a little bit of touch up on the trimwork. I built a box for the heater vent over the summer and now I want to build a small lower cabinet with open shelving above it on the right side of the dormer door.

After searching high and low for over a year, I finally found an antique door that coordinates with my existing doors for the dormer. I really wanted the new door to have 3 lower panels with a half-lite window above it. The window will let the light in from the dormer, but I’ll frost it to hide the storage space from view. Now that I have the door, I need to install and trim it out!

The Office

I’ve had people staying in my house since I first bought it! I finally decided when a friend moved out, to turn the extra upstairs bedroom into a true office space that could moonlight as a guest room with the addition of a blow up mattress when needed. I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect desk for the space for the past couple of months. My budget for a desk is super low, so I’ve been looking at Facebook Market Place. It’s a bit of a waiting game, but I’m hoping I’ll find it soon! This room looks out over the backyard and in the spring all of the trees are in bloom. The views are stunning and super inspiring, so I’m hoping to put the desk in front of the window to best enjoy it!

The Master Bedroom

This room is my catchall room right now and it is no fun. If I could do anything over, I’d paint my room and furnish it as a mini-oasis the first weekend I owned the house. Especially in the middle of the renovation, I really needed a place of calm that was construction debris free. Since I painted the room, the space has been a little bit of everything: storage, office, closet, dressing room, dark room, etc.

If you follow me on instagram (click the sidebar if you don’t!), you already know that my bedroom has been in the dark for the last 6 months to a year since my pull string light fixture broke (I am the actual queen of procrastination, someone make me a crown). The string popped out and I kept thinking it was an easy fix, but realistically the whole fixture needed to be replaced. Since I didn’t have a budget for a new one, I ignored it… for too long. Over New Years I switched it for another I had on hand from demo around the house. It’s not a permanent replacement, since it’s truly hideous and I didn’t even bother installing the glass cover, but it’s amazing to have light in my room again. No one likes getting dressed in the dark.

The new year is inspiring my creative juices! Now that I can offload things into the new office and basement (thanks to a recent purge), I’m hunting for the perfect furniture to bring function and style to the space. I have an antique armoire, but it’s not working out so I’m hoping to find a better one. Right now a bunch of my clothes are stored in bins on the floor in front of my window. It’s not classy!

Master Closet

The clothes bins on the floor strategy is not cutting it in my bedroom. The current Master Closet is actually just outside the room, which isn’t convenient to start. Then there’s the fact that the closet is a disaster itself. Too deep shelves, awkward doors, and a single, too-low hanging bar are creating a situation that isn’t working for me or my clothes. I don’t have a super current picture, but here’s the space when I first moved in. It hasn’t changed much. I still haven’t even painted those walls!

I want to rip everything off, including the doors here. I think it would make a lot more sense to just have a curtain, since right now if I open the closet door, it blocks the bedroom door. Behind the doors the shelving will all need to be redone and the hanging bar needs to move way up so my full length dresses have somewhere to go.

Living Room

The living room is full of hand me downs and cheap thrifted finds, it’s totally functional, but it’s not really my style. I want to bring more drama and color to the space and make it more cohesive with the rest of the house. I’d love to bring in more storage as well. This is the year I finally buy myself a sofa too!

Front Yard

When I bought my house the front yard looked like this. It was totally overgrown and you could barely see the house. I’ve made a ton of progress in weeding and cutting back over the last couple of years, but I need a serious plan for the space. Oregon is the queen of growing and weeds come up, just as quickly as the plants I want blooming. There are a lot of established plants that have grown too big for their space.

I’ve planted a ton, but I’ve yet to get a handle on the weeds. I’m in the process of weeding and mulching now (in the middle of winter, I know!). So hopefully that helps. Then I want a small table with two chairs to be nestled in with a bunch of edible plants on the right and evergreen plants throughout, so things look good year round. I also need to get the planting in the median tamped down so you can get in and out of vehicles easily.

The Backyard

Oh boy. I’m not going to be able to completely conquer this one this year, but I do have a few hopes, dreams, and plans for the space. See, this backyard has the amazing ability to grow four feet tall in a matter of days. See below for what it looked like when I moved in. This past summer, I built a fence and knocked down all the greenery. The yard slopes slightly behind the garage, so I want to work on re grading that area. I’ll be working on weeding more and more, but in the meantime I want to tackle the right side of the yard along the fence, adding plants and defining garden beds. In the middle of the yard, I’m merely working on a temporary solution to hold me over until I can demolish the right addition to the garage and open up the yard even more. I might mulch the whole thing to keep the weeds out, but I don’t even know if that would work!

Most importantly, I want to build a shed in the backyard that will function as storage and as a chicken coop! I’ve wanted chickens for years and this is finally the year! I’m hoping to work on this for the spring One Room Challenge and get chicks in April. Fingers crossed I can get their home completed by the time they’re ready to live outside.

Bonus Project #1: The Side Yard + Outdoor Bathtub

If I can really get my act together, I’d love to built a little wetland garden in the side yard complete with a small pergola that can hide the bathtub I took out of the main bathroom when it was demo’ed. I’d love to get the hook ups for hot water out here, so I can take take baths under the stars! I’m a huge bath person and not having a tub of my own is killing me!

Bonus Project #2: Install a Radiant Heat System

This one is definitely a big maybe. I’ve been looking at new heating systems to replace Berrybrier’s 100 year old oil burning furnace. After getting quotes on new gas furnaces this past spring, I decided to put off the new heating a little longer. My furnace isn’t efficient, but it’s also not broken. Upgrading to radiant floor heating would be amazing and I’ve been reading lots of tutorials on installing pex systems. It would be a GIANT project to tackle, but I have some contacts in Portland that might be able to help walk me though it. I’m definitely nervous, so there’s a huge chance, I’ll change my mind or push it to next year.