2023 Winter Project List

Our winter 2023 Project List. Next Sunday our 2022 recap post is coming out and PHEW! It was a big year for us. Maybe as big as it gets with the wedding, the honeymoon and the reception. It took us months to get caught up before Lodi and I felt like we’d financially and emotionally entirely recovered. It was all wonderful and I wouldn’t change a thing but returning to boring life and back on track to our financial goals (and house projects!) feels like Heaven!

My new workshop / office combo that I mentioned in our last post has been a big booster for my motivation around here. It helps that the majority of the work to complete it are small projects that are going to make a BIG difference in that room.

One shelf unit and two custom shelves are going to eliminate lots of storage issues and give us a lot more organization.

I really need a desk lamp so that gives me the excuse to run to the thrift store which you guys know is my happy place.

I have the paint I need to fix up my “new” desks and that’s going to make a huge difference in how the whole place feels and looks.

Speaking of lamps I brought home a thrifted floor lamp for our living room the other day that I’m going to paint out and cant wait to show you guys!

Another “project” that I’m excited about is something I haven’t yet mentioned here.

Until recently we had our island I had made out of my great grandpa’s radio stand in our kitchen nook. It remains one of my proudest DIY achievements (and certainly one of my most popular projects here on the blog) but sometimes its just time to do something different.

I mentioned it in my kitchen reveal way back when I made the closet bigger and moved the hutch out of this nook and over by the stove that this little area just screamed something different than the island…

2023 Project List

The island will find a home somewhere else someday but, for now, we have an empty corner in the heart of our home that I am so excited to tackle because I really miss it!

Every morning I would get up and have my coffee at the island, looking out over our deck and yard and our big old barn. Every night I would come home and have a minute there after my work day.

It was my spot.

I need my spot.

I’m a little lost without it lol.

The plan is for some formal sitting chairs either found at a thrift store or even bought new. Think of that wonderful scene from the movie up where they had their own chairs…

We’ll have a small table between them as well for a “new” lamp etc.

I plan on definitely thrifting the table and want something really in keeping with the style / age of this home that I can refinish and stain dark to match the floors and our other antique furniture… I’m also considering a stencil on top of it might be kind of neat!

The entryway is now very different with my whole office and a table moved out of there.

Whereas we had been using furniture to “separate” the space into a dining room and entryway / office now we’ve moved the separation out.

The room feels kind of huge now!

2023 Project List

As with everything what works for awhile can get old and its just time for a change.

With the opening up of the whole room though I’m considering a change of our rug situation. For some reason the moving of a few pieces of furniture made me look around and realize that my turning into my Grandma in this case might not be the greatest…

Do we really need fifteen different rugs on our main floor?

Our house really isn’t that big lol yes we have a lot of entrances but seriously…

And the fact that somehow every single rug is wildly different in color and style…

I’m not matchy matchy by any means but its a lot!

So I’m going on a bit of a rug binge and replacement. I’m going to take out five crazy colorful rugs and replace two of them with black rubber mats (for the kitchen) and another flat black mat for the front door.

This replaces both of our runners, the rug in front of the sink, the rug in front of the closet, our current entryway rug and takes out some of the crazy extra colors we had going on.

I also want to purchase a large round rug for the center of our newly opened up entryway and, maybe, a much smaller round rug to go in front of our new little seating area I just mentioned.

I’ve been drooling over Sisal rugs on Amazon but they can be expensive!

Another “project” I haven’t mentioned here yet is a gift Lodi has had his heart set on to give to me.

I built our countertops in our kitchen back in 2015 knowing full well I didn’t have enough material to do it correctly.

But I had no money and I needed counter tops!

When I built the butcher block for the island I really hoped I would have enough of the same wood out in the barn to do the same for our kitchen counters.

I didn’t.

Which meant laying the boards down to get as much “width” out of them as possible even knowing full well that they would warp and split a part eventually…

Oh and they really did.

So apparently I’ve just been living with them like a bad knee – as if there wasn’t anything that could be done about it?

When Lodi mentioned getting new counter tops I was like, “HUH? What are you talking about? What countertops? Oh THOSE countertops?!”

So, yeah, we’re going to get new butcher block for the kitchen and I am very excited about it!

It isn’t a huge project list for us but I’m really liking a smaller to do list!

Also I’m planning on a throwback series for the blog all of February.

Did you guys know I’ve been blogging here for almost eight years?!

I’ve written over 400 blog posts!

(Including the link party and contributed posts we’re over 900!)

So every Sunday next month I’m excited to update / republish the very first posts that began Grandma’s house DIY. And I’m not going to stop at the end of February either – I will be reposting one old post a month from now on.

I’m looking forward to the trip down memory lane though I know some of it isn’t going to be pretty… I’ve clearly learned a lot over the years lol.

But I think this is going to be fun!