2017 Home Goals Recap (Spoiler-it's not looking good)

Well, I’ve been putting this off for long enough. It’s time to look back at how we did on our home goals for 2017 and I can tell you right now that this won’t be pretty. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to cross off even half of the list. Maybe not even a quarter of the list. Yikes.

To be fair to ourselves, we didn’t know we would be conceiving and birthing a beautiful little lady in 2017…and well, that sort of took a lot of our time and attention away from some of these projects. And some other projects that weren’t on the list jumped into the top priority spots…like a nursery. And a giant work project that kept Wyatt at work until 7 or 8 PM many nights of the summer and fall.

But, for posterity’s sake. Here we go.

~~1.Finish the basement family room.~~

So, this project is done I suppose. It’s not fully decorated since I’m still looking for the perfect coffee table and we need a console table for behind the sectional but we’ll probably have to build one to fit the space. And, the walls need some love in terms of art and decor…but the actual room is done. Even the curtains, which I haven’t officially shared here yet.

See what I mean about needing a coffee table? The blue ottoman is just not right for the space…

But this was our biggest win for 2017 as far as the house is concerned. Having this basement family room has been so great for Will to play in and us to relax in as a family.

2. Do at least one concrete project.

We have some concrete mix…but not a simple project was done with it. Darn.

3. Finish organizing the garage.

If anything I think our garage got worse. Honestly, we stacked up materials for a few projects that haven’t been completed, and out local recycling center closed so our cardboard collection got ~~a little~~ a lot out of hand. Add in the winter messes (outdoor toys and yard stuff), and it’s a disaster out there, guys. Maybe better luck this year?

4. Revamp the laundry room.

Maybe the third time’s the charm for this one? I did manage to clean and organize this space…but it’s since gotten bad again. So, nope, not done.

5. Rebuild all or some of the garden beds.

Well, we put a lot of thought into this. And we put a bands around the ones that were falling apart, so I guess we sort of repaired them which is better than nothing. Plus, we got one bed done which serves as a proof of concept I guess…but the rest of them still need to be done. The supplies are in the garage, so I’m hopeful we’ll get them knocked out this winter to be good to go next spring. And to get them out of the garage so we’ll have room to park our cars in there again. (See number 3, above.)

Technically, I could cross this off because my goal left it open as to how many needed to be done to “count,” but I’d feel like I was getting by on a technicality, so I’ll go ahead and admit that this isn’t finished.

Doesn’t the white bed look so pretty though? I’m looking forward to having them all look like that!

6. Maintain no more than 10 magazines in our “to be read” stash.

Um…oops. Here’s the current look.

~~7. Finish 24 books~~.

Thanks to our library’s audiobook rentals, I blew this one out of the water with 45 done. Sidenote, I discovered tracking books on the Goodreads app this past year and it’s super cool to see everything I read all in one place.

8. Finish decorating our master bedroom.

This is another one I’ve been wanting to do since 2016 and still isn’t done. Again, I think it got worse because a few pieces from my office got moved into our bedroom because we didn’t have a place for them and now they are just cluttering up the space. Also, why is it so hard for me to find the right nightstands for this space? I am struggling with the dressers we have and the color of the walls…so many I’d like to change in here…so little time. We did get a new bed…which was a great step in the right direction, but…still a ways to go here.

9. Replace or paint the front door.

We almost bought a door…but then we couldn’t agree on the final style, so we ended up waiting. I’m hopeful for this to still happen soon though.

10. Replace the garage door.

Ugh. Nope. But it’s high on the priority list now with how cold it’s been because it doesn’t seal very well. I have hopes it will even happen this month!

11. Get my office organized.

Well, I made good progress on this room early in the year, and then we found out little baby number 2 was on the way and my office got booted to the basement and that room was turned into our nursery. So, the organization had to start all over again…and let’s just say it hasn’t gone that far yet.

~~12. Take a family vacation.~~

We made it on three little family weekend trips this year..the last one even included Emma! So, I’m counting that a win. We’ve done a lot of thinking and planning for future family vacations, and honestly anything longer than a 3 days is just hard with little kids so I’m pleased we did a few smaller trips instead of one bigger one.

~~13. Take a couple vacation.~~

We did a little getaway to St. Louis in July for one night to visit friends, and we went to Tulsa for a few days in June so I could attend the Usborne Books & More convention. Both of those trips involved some fun dinners out and good couple time. It wasn’t a weeklong stay at a resort in Mexico or anything, but again, we ended up adding a new babe to the family this year and Wyatt was so busy at work he couldn’t really take time off this summer.

~~14. Conquer the toy clutter~~

Ok, I won’t say that we’ve totally, 100% tackled this, BUT, we have made big progress with the built-in in the basement and I am pretty pleased with the results so I’m crossing it off the list. We have bins and boxes of toys, and we have done a decent job of instilling in Will that he can only have one or two things out at a time so we keep that room pretty picked up most of the time. Upstairs, we have our toys mostly put away and only keep things up there that fit into one of the ottomans in the living room…although he does have a few extra things out right now because he got them for Christmas and we haven’t found a great storage solution yet.

15. Finish and order more photo books.

The only books we’ve ordered this year are chatbooks, which I love because they make it easy to at least have some sort of printed photos in our house. Plus, Will loves looking at them. But, I have 3 other photo books started in my Shutterfly account, soo hopefully I’ll get a chance to finish those and order them soon.

Well, that wasn’t pretty, friends. We were only able to cross off 5 of the 15 things on the list.

Still, even with that sense of disappointment, I have to say 2017 was still the best year yet. Growing a family is hard work and sometimes that means other things have to take a bit of a back seat.