At the end of each year, I’ll do one of these “this is what I’ve done this year” posts. Honestly, I was a little scared to do the post this year because I didn’t feel like I had done much this year. But I was so surprised to see that I was pretty much done!
This is the year things start to come together. I was finally able to move three rooms from the “in progress” column to the “finished” column. I finished the other area a second time, after which it had to be torn a little to make the other room bigger and square. I converted a room from one appliance to another (at Matt’s request). And I was able to make small improvements to the other two rooms, including a fairly extensive renovation. I can say that was a good year!
So let’s look back at each place, shall we?
The Guest Bedroom
Our guest bedroom was the first project I completed at the beginning of the year. There’s not much left to do because most of it will be completed by 2020, but there are some touching finishes that need to be done in January. And here’s what the room looked like when I finished it…
It will look very different from what we started…
It still looks like this “after” photo for the most part, with a few changes. Matt and I are temporarily using this room as our bedroom, and will continue to do so until we are able to build our additional backyard, which will include a large, new master bedroom. So we used the room like watching it upstairs until spring, when Matt got sick with the severe flu that he had to be hospitalized for three days.
After Matt got out of the hospital in the spring, his occupational therapist suggested we get an adjustable bed for him. But an adjustable bed cannot be used with the wooden platform bed frame described above. So now we just have an adjustable bed frame (same headboard), which is not very nice. I wanted to make a bedskirt to keep the metal legs visible, but it wasn’t a priority until this year. That will be on my list next year.
Also, the TV stopped working, and instead of replacing it with the same size, Matt wanted a larger TV. So now we have a big TV sitting on top of the closet. It won’t stay there, but I haven’t taken the time to rearrange that wall and mount the new TV on the wall. That’s another project for next year.
Other than that, the room looks the same. And surprisingly, I got a lot of stuff out of that little writing desk I built than I thought to do.
The Hallway
I initially finished the hallway a few years ago, but when Matt and I decided to move the original master bedroom into the new master bathroom, we decided to square the room, which in turn, affected hallway. The original renovation of the hallway looks like this…
But after squaring the new master bathroom, the hallway narrowed, and we closed the original door leading to the bedroom. (We don’t need the door from the hallway to the new master bathroom.)
At one point, the entire floor of the hallway was destroyed, revealing only the floorboards. But here’s what it looks like with new subfloor, new wall installation, and new drywall.
(The floor was damaged because we decided to also take care of some water damage from a different incident while this change was also happening.)
And after finishing this place this year, it looks like it is now…
You can check out many photos of this finished hallway right here.
The living room
After many attempts (and many failed) to finish this room, I finally got the room right in 2021, and moved this room to the “finished” column.
While this room has been in development for a long time, and I only need some finishing touches by the time 2021, I still can’t post the “finish” photo that doesn’t show you what it looked like when purchased we have the house 😀 …
That’s a change, isn’t it? ⁇
The Music Room
Our music room is another room that has been “improving” over the years, so at the beginning of this year, only those finishing touches were needed to bring it to the “finished” column.
This room is too far away, too! Once again, most of the work has already been done before the start of the year, and all that is really needed is to finish the touches. But I still like to repeat what we started when we bought the house.
The Breakfast Room-Go to the Sitting Room
After returning home from the hospital in the spring, another change Matt wanted to make was to find a space in the house where he could have a comfortable chair during the day. I had already finished the guest bedroom, the living room, and the music room, so the only idea I could think of was to make the breakfast room a seating area for us.
When I finished the original renovation of this place, the breakfast room was like this…
And after transforming this place into a comfortable little seat, it looks like…
This is a temporary solution, as the big addition we are planning for the back of the house will also include a large family room / media room, with plenty of comfortable seating where we can watch TV, and where Matt can play video games. , and where we have plenty of seating for visiting guests. So if that happens, we will return our dining room with a dining table. But until then, Matt and I were very comfortable hanging out and watching TV.
A small change I made just a few days ago was to remove the French doors that separate the seat from the pantry. I love those doors, but they are more troublesome than the useful part.
The Home Gym
I never lived up to my expectations at the home gym this year. I mean, I think it’s over. 😀 But I took (and finished) the crazy task of painting the gradient stripes on the walls to lay the background foundation for the rest of the room, which is expected to be completed early next year.
The Master Bathroom Remodel
The master bathroom is, by far, the biggest project of the year, and it’s just about to be completed.
At the beginning of the year, the room looked like this…
It has broken down to studs, floor joists, and ceiling joists. It’s come a long way, and now it’s like this…
There are many more lists of things that need to be done before this bathroom is finished, but at least it actually looks like a room again! And with the shower tiled (but still needs to be grouted) it really looks like a bathroom. Apparently, this room will be priority #1 in 2022.
So that’s a year for progress! I like to take time to remember the end of each year, because I never realized it was a good year for progress for me. I was a bit discouraged this year, but now I see that there is nothing to be discouraged about!
I really hope that next year is the year we finish the rest of the interior (the interior we have now, that is). That would include the home gym, master bathroom, and my studio. Then I’m ready to deal with troublesome, unfinished projects, and then take on an even bigger addition.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has MS and can’t do physical work , so I do most of the work at home on my own. You can learn more about me here.
I hope you join me on my DIY and decorating journey! If you’d like to follow my projects and progress, you can subscribe below and send each new post to your email inbox. That way you won’t miss a thing!