If you missed the news, we are having a our first baby this month! We have planned on house projects throughout this year but with our baby coming in June, we know we have to be realistic with our plans and goals.
Built In Bookshelves
The one big project we will make sure is done, is our DIY built in cabinets/bookshelves in our spare, art and music room. This will probably be the largest and most involved project we do this year.
We decided to do this project in phases since it is a bigger project and we got a late start on it. We ordered cabinets and the wrong ones came in and one was even damaged so that delayed us starting for a while. We will do the project in two phases and complete the first phase before the baby comes.
The first phase will be the installation and building of the bottom built ins with the desk. The second phase will be the top built in shelves. I’ll be sure to have a blog post up all about the DIY and our experience!
Sodding the Backyard
My husband and brother in law actually finished this early one recent Sunday morning and it already looks so nice! When we first did our backyard, it was completed in the fall and then the sprinklers shut off for winter and the original sod never actually grew. Once Quigley came into the picture, it got even more ruined and had no chance to grow. We decided it was best to just resod and keep him off the grass for a few weeks. We have been taking him outside on a leash to go to the bathroom on our side yard where no one ever actually sees or walks so it has been working out! They picked up sod from Home Depot the morning of and according to them it was a seamless process.
Deck Staining
Our deck has needed some power washing, sanding, and staining so this is something we want to do before baby arrives. It has needed to be done and it’s one of those to-do items that would be best to have done and complete before summer is really here. We have a lot of oak trees around our yard so they drop those stringy brown things all over the place and make such a mess. The day my husband power washed the deck it was immediately covered in them. This may delay the staining a bit so we will see but it will be done this year.
Nursery Set Up
An obvious house project for this year is setting up the nursery. It’s not overly involved in creating anything new but there are some updates that are needed to get it ready. We already painted this room and when I chose the colors, I knew that when we eventually wanted children, that room would be the nursery. I kept the color calm and neutral not just for a baby but for us too! We worked out in that room daily and have the pull out couch for guests so we wanted it to be inviting and calming, which it really is.
We have needed to paint the ceiling of this room. When we took the wall paper off and painted the walls, we never painted the ceiling so thankfully Steve took the time to do that before we really started doing any updates for the nursery. Steve also took the time to steam clean the carpet! After he did both of those updates, I decided I should paint the closet doors the same as the walls because I never did that either when we initially painted that room.
We needed to reorganize the closet since my clothes were still in that closet since we moved in. That was a big and lengthy task. In fact, I am 39 weeks pregnant and just really completed fully organizing his closet.
The one wall that the crib is now against had a tv hung up so we had to take that down and patch/paint the wall. After that, we decided to hang up photos that I had taken at the beach or river in our town and made sure Quigley was involved in them!
There is still a list of things I’ve wanted to update and do since we moved in but those are the set plans we have for now. I am sure more ideas will come up but with a newborn, I’m not sure if we would anything to the mix or just take it easy for the rest of the year. There are ALWAYS updates that need to be done to a house, big and small, so we will obviously take care of those tasks that need to be done. In terms of fun updates or ideas, we will take it one day, one week, and one month at a time once baby boy arrives!