Well folks, it’s been just over a year since what we thought would be a few weeks to “stop the spread” turned into a complete and utter disruption of our everyday lives. Many of us left our offices and set up temporary workstations in our homes, expecting to return to work in a short time. If you’re like me, spending all your waking hours within one place slowly started driving me crazy. After two months spent cooking elaborate meals and decadent pastries, I turned to the more productive task of home renovations.
My husband already owned our house when we met and hadn’t ever done much to improve its appearance. I hate bare walls and unpainted rooms so had slowly been redoing the rooms of our house and decorating the downstairs rooms but hadn’t ever changed the upstairs. We decided we needed to rip out all the carpeting on the stairs, the hallway and the bedrooms and wanted to install new flooring. The hallway walls were a terrible wood paneling and we agreed it just needed ripped out and drywall installed in its place. I was 7 months pregnant when we began this project so ripping out walls and old carpeting were a little beyond my capabilities. We hired one of our friends who is a contractor and wasn’t working due to the shutdown to help my husband do all the demo and drywall work. Originally, we planned to just paint the new hallway and one of the bedrooms for the nursery, but I got overly ambitious and talked my husband into letting me repaint all three bedrooms. I had never liked the upstairs of our house because of the old carpeting, wood paneling, and questionable paint jobs done by former roommates. Once we got the new drywall, flooring, and rooms painted it was such a transformation! I felt like I was living in an entirely new house that I loved. Tackling huge renovation projects while being 7-8 months pregnant isn’t something I’d recommend but changing a space you aren’t happy with is so worthwhile.
Since our major projects wrapped up, I have been focusing on smaller projects that are more manageable now that we have a baby, and both still work full-time. My home office has moved to our dining room now and since I spend so much time in there, I have been finding little ways to refresh the space. I recently found a “new to us” dining room set that I loved but hated the
upholstery on the chairs, so I found new fabric to reupholster them for a quick and easy refresh. We replaced our ceiling fan light fixture that only half worked with a new fully functioning one.
Next, I put together a little coffee/wine bar on our sideboard because I am obsessed with coffee and love red wine. I am currently working on repainting our built-in liquor cabinet and bought new hardware to install on it. We are also working on hanging pictures and fun art in our hallway. I want to make a hanging wreath for our front door out of an old bicycle wheel. Fingers crossed I can also talk my husband into letting us renovate our kitchen and bathroom soon too!
Here are a few of my takeaways from my experiences that I hope inspire you to make the changes you’ve been daydreaming about.
• Never underestimate the impact small changes can make
• Loving your surroundings can help boost your mood and productivity
• When your skill set isn’t up to the challenge of creating your vision, ask for help from the experts
• Incorporate things you enjoy into your space
• Taking large projects can be daunting (especially at 8 months pregnant) but the results are so worth the effort
