I’ve shared some reflections on 2023 and my personal goals for 2024, and today I’m sharing our home project list of decorating projects we’d love to complete in the coming year!
It’s crazy to look back at where we started when we bought this house in 2019. I think we hoped we could be in this house for at least 5-10 years if we were willing to take on some major home renovation projects, but with home prices and interest rates where they are now, it honestly feels like dumb luck that we wound up in an older house that had enough square footage for us to expand into and gradually improve as our family has grown.
There are about a million small projects (and probably a billion organization projects after that) that I’d still love to take on, but after several years of welcoming new babies and taking on more disruptive home renovation projects, it probably won’t come as a surprise that something as minor as “order a new desk lamp” made the cut for our 2024 home project list. 🙂
If you’re just tuning in, here are some of the big home renovation projects we’ve crossed off our project list in the past few years! I’ve documented our kitchen renovation, powder room, mudroom and laundry room, my parents’ loft space, our closet, our hall bathroom, our pool and backyard, and I still have to take and share photos from our guest bathroom renovation that we tackled at the same time as our primary bathroom and upstairs laundry room.
We’ve also wallpapered our nursery and our playroom, built an outdoor shower and added boxwood hedges and climbing rose trellises to our backyard, and added wainscoting in our hallway and stairwell as well as our primary bedroom. I have had a project list about a mile long since we moved into this house and despite the stress that comes with all home renovation projects, it’s been extremely rewarding to see these big projects take shape over the past few years!
That said, we’re pretty relieved to have a lot of these large projects behind us as they’ve created much more functional space for our family of five (and my parents who live with us!). There are still plenty of decorating updates I’ve made that I’ve yet to style and share and several more small projects that I’d like to tackle in the coming months, so here’s our (probably overly optimistic!) 2024 home project list!
Our home project list for 2024
1. Replace our family room sectional.
We bought our extremely comfy sectional in 2015 and it survived a cross-country move back from Dallas and two local moves within Connecticut before fading terribly in its current spot. We added windows to our family room when we did our kitchen renovation and somehow it has aged more in the last year or two than it did in the previous 6-7?! I am pretty torn on what to do here — part of me thinks it’s the perfect excuse to order a more aesthetically pleasing white sectional (the rational part of me knows this is insane with three boys four and under) but if we stick with something darker and/or patterned, we clearly need some kind of heavy-duty performance fabric that’s more resistant to fading. I will definitely share my research process once I get the ball rolling!
2. Order a new desk lamp.
This obviously falls into the small projects category as opposed to true home improvement projects, but I am still moving things around in my beloved little garden house home office to accommodate the walking treadmill I bought late last year and I would love to add a pretty desk lamp for these dreary winter days when the sun sets in the late afternoon. I actually found this exact ceiling fixture for $100 on Facebook Marketplace so that helps quite a bit, but I’d love to add something like this or this to make my home office desktop as dreamy as it can be!
3. Decorate and photograph the garden house.
Once I’ve decided on a permanent layout and desk lamp, I’d like to hang a few pieces of art (I’m thinking this and this) that we’ve owned for years but haven’t found a spot for in this house yet. Having my own dedicated home office in our backyard is something I will never take for granted and I can’t wait to have this space looking 100%!
4. Install a stair runner.
We have baby gates all over our house but I’d still like to add a stair runner for a little extra peace of mind on our staircase. I have a feeling this will be one of those home improvement projects where we’ll immediately ask ourselves why we didn’t tackle it sooner!
5. Hang ceiling fixture in our bedroom.
I ordered this ceiling fixture during a Visual Comfort open box sale (definitely keep an eye on light fixtures in the open box section of their site — you can score some serious deals!) but we still need to patch holes from the previous recessed lighting before I can fully check this off my project list. I also want to hang this ceiling medallion around the canopy of the fixture — my dad and I just installed this one in our dining room and while it wasn’t the most seamless installation in the world, it’s amazing how much architectural interest it adds for around $100!
6. Hang art and mirror in our bedroom.
I shared decorating progress in our bedroom a few months back and I have a few tweaks in mind before I’m ready to call this project complete. I’d like to re-hang the wall mirror so it’s visible from the door and then I’ve been keeping an eye on Facebook Marketplace to source some kind of armoire to give us a little vertical interest and add extra storage space on the other side of the doorway to our closet. I’m also eyeing these framed panels to hang behind our bedside tables as I think the colors would really tie the room together! This is really a series of small projects waiting to be tackled in order to be able to fully cross it off the project list.
7. Organize our bathroom drawers and photograph for the blog.
Creating lots of storage was my #1 focus when we did our primary bathroom renovation and it makes me so happy to have a place for everything and everything in its place. We desperately needed this functional space to be more organized upstairs and having ample storage has been one of the higher impact home improvements we’ve crossed off our project list so far. I shared photos of the primary bathroom renovation last year so the bathroom drawer organization is pretty close to being ready to photograph — just need to do a quick tidy and make it happen!
8. Reupholster headboard in Peter’s bedroom.
Our second son Peter is now in the bedroom we originally moved our firstborn Teddy into when Peter was born (three under three definitely meant it was musical chairs for a while there!) and we’ve actually moved the twin beds from these photos into Teddy’s current bedroom and replaced them with this scalloped headboard that I’ve had since I lived in a studio apartment in New York City. I’d love to reupholster the headboard with the same gingham fabric as the curtains in this room to repeat the same pattern on the other side of the room since the frame of the headboard itself is still in great shape!
I think the bigger projects on our 2024 home project list boil down to finishing our bedroom and making the garden house the most functional space it can be, plus some smaller decorating updates in the boys’ bedrooms which have evolved constantly as our family has grown. I’m sure some of these home improvement projects will inevitably get rolled into next year or the following, but hopefully it gives you a glimpse at some of the big and small projects that lie ahead!
And if you happen to be looking for ideas for your own home renovation projects (whether a kitchen renovation or maximizing your outdoor space!), I have all our past home improvement projects grouped together in this category for easy browsing!
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