Our Project List for 2018

I talked about goals for 2018 (here is that post) and I truly appreciated all your kind words.  You guys are the most encouraging people on the planet and I LOVE it.  I love encouraging others, I love being encouraged, I love people who are encouraging!  You guys made my whole world a little brighter.  That being said – those resolutions are still going strong and our blog is going to continue to be about our adventures and we are still obsessed with DIY….go figure.  So I wanted to share with you all the things on our docket this year.  These are the rooms and spaces that we are looking forward to tweaking, sharing, completely making over and I CAN.NOT.WAIT.  I am like that guy on the candy commercial….the one with skittles pox….I have DIY pox and I hope you get it too!  #tastetherainbow

All these rooms are in different stages of doneness…some we have started, some are already almost finished, some we have shared more about, some we are in the planning process, some we haven’t even thought about, some are getting tweaked and some are getting major overhauls.  The point is….if I jump around….from room to room or space to space….I am sorry….but that is my real life.  I don’t focus on one space at a time….and I surely don’t always share in chronological order.  So bear with me.  I struggled with the idea of doing one room at a time, sharing till it’s done but it’s just not the way we operate….we have too much to do to focus and wait on one room to wrap up.  SOOOOooooo thank you.  Thank you for just following along and for jumping from room to room with us.  We promise the end result will be worth it!

Anyhoo….let’s get to it!  Here are the rooms we are tackling and revealing this year!

THE LAUNDRY ROOM

We’re super excited to be getting new appliances for our laundry room.  But let me rewind a minute.  This room started off looking a little bland when we moved into the house and after it got a big makeover, we loved it.  The problem was, it had some problem areas….weak spots if you will for our family of seven.  So after some serious contemplation, we came up with a plan to give it a makeover – new appliances, family friendly rug, more storage, etc. that will hopefully solve those issues.  May this be a lesson for us all….the first boy you meet may be a good looking dude….but if he can’t handle dirty kid clothing….you may want to make a switch 🙂  All dating advice aside (actually just write it down you Millennials!) this room is getting a switcheroo for Twenty Eighteen and I am thrilled to share it with you soon!

ELLA’s NURSERY

Sweet baby cakes Ella Violet (or Evie as we sometimes call her) is four months old and 2018 will be the year for her to transition out of mom & dad’s room and into her own nursery.  I AM SO EXCITED.  This means a GIRL nursery!!!  And yes, I am fairly certain it will have lots of pink.  AHHH!!!!  Guys I really am looking forward to this space (and stressing over making it perfect!!!) more than any other room.  I just am realizing that this is my one shot to do a girly girly room and I want to make sure it’s exactly a good fit….ok ok PERFECT…for my little baby doll!

KITCHEN

Friends following on Instagram and Instastories have been getting the scoop on this room.  I am @bowerpowerblog by the way if you want to follow along.  The kitchen just wasn’t living up to it’s full potential and we shared all the flaws in this post.  We needed more storage, more seating, appliances that actually worked, and we came up with a hair brain idea to tweak the space to make it work harder for our big family.  It’s an odd shape to be sure (13 angles!!!) but we think that in the end, it will be a room that will be great for us!

FOYER

Remember how I contemplated our foyer and then kinda left you hanging?  Yeah…sorry about that.  I bought a new rug, haven’t built the piece for the nook and now we need to just pull up our big girl granny panties and get-er-done.  That way I can share it with you and we all be uber happy.  That being said….I think we may be contemplating refinishing our floors.  We got a quote before and it was out of our budget….but we are getting more reasonable quotes and well….fingers crossed we find someone that we can afford and that will do a great job.  This is definitely on our list for this year!

LITTLE BOYS ROOM

Our little boys – LJ and Max – share a room and it is one of my favorites because it gets great light and it just is all boy with a smidge of baby 🙂  I shared very little of this space in the last couple years and I think that 2018 is a great time to share it all with a final reveal…because I have a feeling that LJ and Max will want to transition out of their cribs soon.  Yes – they are both still in cribs and they double as trampolines for these two little crazies 🙂  This room has been done for a while and I can’t wait to share it with you!

CLOSETS

My closet, Jeremy’s closet, the boys closets, Ella’s closet….we need a closet intervention on all of them.  We need to be more organized and yes, it is really hard when we are always in a rush and have little time to sit in one space just to organize/hang/sort/donate/try on stuff.  Plus, it seems as if we are constantly in transitions….the boys going through growth spurts, me going from maternity clothing to post maternity to nursing to all the sizes….it just is a monumental task and we are gonna try to use 2018 to make it happen.

GARAGE

Our garage/workshop is one of our favorite spots.  But – just like so many rooms in our house, we need some tweaks to make it more functional and to be able to get some major tasks done….like the build for the foyer and maybe a coffee table for our living room, etc.  So we came up with a list of things we needed….one, we need parking for our Polaris, more flat work space and better lighting just to name a few.  Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

MASTER HALL

I call this a master hallway but really it is mini!  It is about five feet of hallway space that leads from our bedroom to our bathroom and has the closet doorways on either side.  The goal here is to add just a smidge of personality and then also to frost the doors to the bathroom so that it gives us a bit more privacy.  I don’t see this as a big change but a welcomed one.

LIVING ROOM

We already started our living room but it is my most challenging room yet.  It is just awkward and we have different needs in this room and literally no walls for a couch.  I am not good at floating furniture.  I am having major size issues (I’ll buy something too big or too small and things just get more awkward) and Jeremy and I are disagreeing about a lot of the choices so we called in the pros on this one (Modsy is our go-to home design assistant that is stunningly affordable) so be on the look out for details on this space sooner than later.  I’m super excited to watch this room come together because it is where we spend a ton of time and we want it to be the comfy cozy family space that all living rooms deserve to be.

OUTDOOR COURT

Remember that super cute photoshoot we did to reveal our pregnancy with Ella?  Well, we did that on our outdoor court….it is a concrete pad in our backyard that is about the size of a pickle ball court (google that!) and has the setup for tennis (but it’s not regulation length for tennis).  This year, we are talking about transforming the court in a couple ways…making it more friendly for adults and for fun!  Plus, we are looking at ways to make that fence look 110% better.

BASEMENT BEDROOM

Since Ella is going to have her nursery in the guest bedroom, we are planning on giving the basement bedroom a big makeover to make it feel much more clean and welcome.  We haven’t ever done anything down there in that space (well, we washed the walls when we moved in but that was it!) and it has a lot of spare furniture down there.  I know that Jeremy’s parents will probably miss their upstairs room (it does have the prettiest bathroom!) but giving it a big juicy makeover will soothe the wounds of being two floors away from grand kids 🙂

BIG RED

Remember Big Red?  Well, if you don’t….Big Red is our travel trailer we bought intending to make it over.  With the terribly rainy year we had, it got pushed to the back burner and Jeremy has been slowly making some progress (he is learning a completely new way to wire stuff so this is a big task!).  This baby has finally been cleared on the propane front so now comes sealing it up and getting to work making it over on the inside.  This is the year.  I know I’ve said that before.  But this time I mean it 🙂

THE MONROE HOUSE

Last but certainly not least is our house that we own in Monroe.  We bought this pretty girl a few years ago and each year we devote a certain amount of money to it…this means that each year we get limited amounts of work done because once the cash in that envelope runs out, we stop to save some more!  I can’t wait to give you an update on some big work that has been done in the last few years and some of the work that we are doing this year with it.  This year we hope to wrap up the front exterior work on this baby and hopefully we are actually gonna start on the INSIDE this year too if budget permits….ahhh!!!   Can. not. wait!  And for those of you new to the project, you can read this post to hear all about it.

So that is our to-do list this year.  Lofty?  Yes.  Doable?  Definitely.  Kinda intimidating?  I’m shaking.  But in the end, we are so excited to finally get work those DIY chops.  Hopefully by spacing it out a little each month, it will be easier than expected!  So what is on your honey-do list this year?  What are you planning on building or tweaking?  I think the one room I am most excited about is the nursery.  I mean…I am also most nervous about that.  Probably because all that girl stuff is so new to me!  I mean I have literally spent an hour looking at bow-storage…..because that’s a thing y’all. ha!