2024 Home Renovations Wish List

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At the beginning of every year, I write out a list of all the home renovations and projects we want to complete for the year. You can read about my list from 2023 here and from 2022 here. When I look back at these posts, I am always way too aggressive with what we can actually get done. You have to live life too! And now that Sloane is getting older, we also want to do fun things with her on the weekends (this is the year of fun after all!). So I decided to change it up a little this year. And I actually planned out what I want to accomplish by month.

I think this will be so much more attainable moving forward. And I also kept in mind the best times of year to do home renovations. We typically can knock out so much during the winter and early spring months. When it starts to get nice we want to be outside and at our pool. And then fall is always a busy time because there are so many events and things to do so you will see we won’t be accomplishing as much during that time. I think this is so much more realistic and hopefully it means we will actually get a lot more done this year!

2024 Home Renovations Wish List

January

January is all about home organization and finishing our powder bath that we started last fall. A lot of this we have already gotten done! We also don’t do much in January so I plan to tackle a lot of projects this month.

Finish powder bath wallpaper, hang sconces, hang mirror, hang towel bar and source someone to make a shade. I’ve gotten all of this done except sourcing someone to make us a shade. I found someone I think will be great, I just need to fill out the form and see how bad the quote is and go from here. Here is the fabric I plan on using.
Organize and clean hallway closet- I did this already. Nothing like a clean and organized linen closet!
Clean out cabinets in bathroom- I added these trays to the drawers and these canisters and I’ve never been more organized. It feels so good! I also threw away so much stuff I no longer used- it was kind of awakening.
Organize and clean kitchen cabinets- Things just get out of place so I re-organized everything.
Clean out pantry- I try to do this every few months, but it was in need of a good clean badly. Already got this one done. See how I organize our pantry here.
Clean out my closet- I did this the other day and I was ready to get rid of a ton of stuff. So much stuff that I haven’t worn in years! So it was time. I plan on listing a lot to my Poshmark if you are interested in checking it out.
Deep clean whole house. By this I mean, move all of the furniture and make sure everything is clean under the rugs and what not. Kurt has started this but we still need to do our second floor.
Label bins in attic. We moved all of our holiday décor to our third floor over the summer and I want the bins labeled so it’s easier to find things. I did this the other day and used my label maker which comes in handy a lot!
Buy a shoe rack for our back door/pantry. We ended up adding this one to our pantry. There is no closet by our back door so there is no where to throw shoes. It looks so much cleaner back there now.
Start getting quotes on blinds. We’ve lived here for almost three years and still have no blinds on our first floor. We keep putting it off, but we really need them. I’m not sure if we will go the DIY route or have a professional install them. Either way, I want to start with some quotes and see how outrageous it is. This is what I want!

February

I am going to Mexico for a long weekend and we have my best friends 40th birthday party the following weekend, so February might be a little busy which is why I’m going easy on myself and not putting a lot on my to-do list.

Replace light switch covers around the house. This is what I plan to order! I’m in love!
Update our spice rack. We have a cabinet that pulls out which is really nice except it is really hard to see what you are grabbing. So I plan to order these bottles and add the sticker to the top of the bottle to make things a little easier when I’m cooking.
Wallpaper the vent cover and light switch covers in our play room. We had this room professionally wallpapered and I’m a little upset I didn’t ask the guy to do this. So now I am going to learn to do it myself! I don’t think it will be that difficult….This is the wallpaper we used.
Fix pantry door. The one door doesn’t close and it drives me nuts. I need Kurt to look at it and if he can’t figure it out, I will need to hire a handy man.
Organize cords in messy drawer. I am going to order this to organize and label all of the cords. Every time I go to look for a cord, I can never find what I am looking for and I get really frustrated!
Paint Sloane’s closet and add a new closet system. This will be our big project of the month. I plan to paint in the inside of her closet and then have this installed. It will give her so much more closet space and organization. I really can’t wait for this!

March

I have one big project I am going to concentrate on this month so I am giving myself all the time to not rush it.

Paint buffet in dining room. Ahhhh I’m so excited for this! I bought an antique off marketplace a couple of years ago. And while it is gorgeous, the color just isn’t right (it’s a dark wood). So I am going to paint it and live with it for awhile. And if I am still not feeling it, I will eventually buy a new piece of furniture. I do love the look of the buffet we have so I’m excited to give it a new life with some paint. I am thinking of a light sage green, but I haven’t made up my mind entirely yet!
Work with a landscape architect to come up with a plan for our yard. We’ve talked about this for years now. We want to sit down with someone and go thru things like new plants, planning out a new patio and more. I have a ton of ideas I want to incorporate. We have a really big yard and we want to take full advantage of it. Overall, we want a plan that we can work towards and chip away little by little each year.

April

Buy a white frame for our Frame TV. I still think it looks like a TV above our fireplace so I am hoping this will help change it up.
Set up our sprinklers. We have never been able to figure out our sprinklers on our own so we need to find someone to help us this spring.
Start prepping yard. This is mostly for Kurt haha. He wants to start weeding and ripping out some bushes in the front while it’s still on the cooler (but nicer) side.
Buy pots for my front porch. I bought some cheap ones when we first moved and I now have them on our back patio and they look great and I want to keep them back there. So I want to add some new ones this year to the front. I am also going to buy these faux topiaries…. because less maintenance haha.

May

Add a backsplash to the kitchen. This is tentatively scheduled for May. If we can’t get to it, we will start this in the fall. We don’t currently have a back splash and we have wanted to add one for awhile. This will be a project we do ourselves. It can’t be that hard, right?! haha.
Buy a new kitchen faucet and have it installed. Our current one is so cheap and I hate it so much. I just want something a little nicer until we eventually re-do the whole kitchen which won’t be for many years.

June

June is when we start spending a lot of time outdoors and in the yard so we don’t have much planned for this month.

Add a trellis to the garage and plant climbing roses. I got this idea last year and we are finally going to execute it this year and I’m really excited for this. It will add a nice pop of color too. This is kind of what I have in mind.

July

I don’t have any home renovations scheduled for July! July is always a really busy month with 4th of July. We have family that come in from CA to visit and we go and see my parents for a long weekend in Traverse City. And it is also Sloane’s (and Kurt’s) birthday. Plus, this is prime summer so we plan to spend our weekends at the pool!

August

Upgrade our toilet in the powder bath. The one we currently have is really old and gross so this needs to be done. Plus it is off white which drives me nuts now that the walls are a bright white.

September

Paint front hallway closet. I get grossed out every time I open this closet because the paint is so old and yellow. This should be a fairly straight forward and easy project.
Decorate my front porch for fall. I went all out our first year and haven’t really done much the last couple of years. So I’m leaving time to really decorate it this year. I want to be able to shop around for the best mums and pumpkins!

October

No home renovations are scheduled for this month! October gets a little crazy for us with Halloween. There are so many cute events and we don’t want to miss out on them. Plus we always head up to see my parents in Traverse City for a long weekend this time of year. The trees are always gorgeous. It’s one of the best times of year to go up there.

If we aren’t able to tackle the backsplash in May, we will push it off to October/November time frame.

November

This isn’t really considered a home renovation, but this is where I want my budget for the month to go to haha. I plan to spend a lot more time and effort on our Christmas decorations.

Add bows to outdoor wreaths. This past year we added a wreath to each window and it looked really cute. The bows I had were just too small and because they were navy you couldn’t see them very well. I plan to add new bows this year.
Add garland and lights around our front door. I love the classic look of this so I can’t wait to see how this turns out!
Buy more garland for our staircase. This year I used all of our garland on our mantle so I didn’t decorate our staircase. It’s always so classic to decorate your stairs for Christmas and I just love the look of it.

December

Again we have no home renovations scheduled for this month. Things are busy enough with seeing Santa, Santa brunches, Christmas shopping, wrapping, zoo lights that there isn’t much time for anything else.

Phew, that was a lot. But I feel so much more prepared and on top of things already realistically knowing what we will be able to accomplish each month.

And on the home décor front- this year I plan to concentrate on artwork. We don’t have a lot and we have a lot of empty walls I want to fill. I love the idea of this or these on our living room wall (we have a huge wall to fill). I also want to add a plate wall above our kitchen cart and coffee station. And I think these would look really nice in our kitchen too. I also love this so much for our play room!

And one last project I want to concentrate on this year in terms of home décor is adding a mirror and sconces above the burl wood table I bought in our living room. I don’t plan to hardwire the sconces to save a little money, but I love the look, so I will get rechargeable lightbulbs!

We’ve got a fun and busy year ahead of us!