A home to-do list

I’ve always loved doing a bit of DIY. I can remember being a little girl and watching my dad paint walls and build furniture. As a teenager I loved re-decorating my bedroom, picking out new paint colours, moving the furniture around, changing the feel of the room to reflect my current passions. Not much has changed, my home is my canvas to paint with my personality. Friends often comment on how when they walk in, my home feels ‘like me’. I’m not someone who can just live in a house and not care about how it looks. Wherever we’ve lived, I’ve always put my own stamp on the place. There have been times I’ve been restricted to what I can do due to renting and landlords who don’t want us to redecorate.

After living for years in houses with magnolia walls, questionable carpets, and dated kitchen/bathrooms, to find myself with a house that fits my taste is pretty darn wonderful. I was lucky when I found this house, for it was in the midst of being renovated from a shared house back into a family house. Meaning everywhere was freshly painted {WHITE – no magnolia!!}, the flooring was new as was the kitchen and the bathrooms. While the kiddos have opted for some colour on their walls, the rest of the house is still painted white, I love the fresh, bright background it gives, letting me add colour with art and soft furnishings.

I lucked out too with landlords that are totally happy for us to make the place our own. We can put things up on the walls and paint to our heart’s content while we’re here. While the house is in pretty good shape, there are a few little projects that I’d like to tackle – maybe I’ll add them to my new year to-do list?!

Paint the kitchen window ~ shamefully, I started this in the spring. I painted the lower half, ran out of paint and then never finished it off. It’s a really old window, with gorgeous stained glass panels, but the paint was a little yellowed and I wanted to brighten it up. SO a fresh coat of white is needed!

Reorganise the utility room ~ I’m lucky to have a good sized utility room, but it needs a bit of a sort out. I got rid of our {broken} tumble dryer in the summer as we never used it anyway, and the two shelf units have seen better days. I’d love to replace the fridge/freezer with a big side by side model, and put in a better shelf unit.

Tackle my office ~ my office has apparently become a dumping ground for things that either need to be sold or go to the charity shop. I can barely get in the door, let alone sit at my desk. I actually liked having a dedicated work space, so that is something that I want to sort out!

Replace the skirting boards in the kitchen ~ my kitchen is lovely, large, light, practical… the only down to it is the skirting boards. They don’t meet the floor properly, they’re a little mismatched and they spoil the look of the rest of the kitchen {it annoys me every time I need to take a photo in there!}. I’ve been looking at replacing what I currently have with an MDF skirting board. It seems like the most cost-effective way of replacing the skirting boards.

Wall mount my TV ~ we’re not big TV watchers, but I do like having the big TV for family movie nights – it’s nicer than crowding around a laptop! I’ve thought about switching it for a projector, and I may at some point. In the meantime, I’m planning on mounting it on the wall and finding some kind of cover/screen for it so it’s not the main focal point of the living room all the time.

Paint the bureau ~ we have an old bureau that lives in the entrance hall, doubles up as a shoe rack cum drop zone. I’ve mean meaning to paint it for years, it’s a dark wood and lovely as it is, it feels too dark and I have plans to strip it and paint it in a lighter, chalky paint.