Home Improvement Ideas: Home Upgrades for the Coming Year

In this post: Do you have home upgrades on your list of goals for the coming year? These home improvement ideas are topping my list for the year ahead.⇒

Do you make the same mistakes every year?

Or should I say try to achieve the same thing every year that you failed at the year before?

In truth, I wouldn’t call this an actual failure. Just a partial success.

That is, yesterday, I summarized for you everything I accomplished in the past year, in terms of updates to our home.  I also laid bare everything I’d planned to do, but didn’t quite get to. You see, partial success.

And yet, here I am again, as a new year approaches, planning all these ambitious projects for the next twelve months.

It’s kind of scary.  (Ok, that’s over-dramatic.) Or potentially embarrassing.  (Meh, a little closer.) Because I’m putting in writing all I plan to do. That’s like publishing my weight and telling you what I plan to weigh a year from now. (Ha! Like that will ever happen!)

But it’s also kind of fun to try to hold myself accountable. So, for Part 2 of the End-of-Year Blog Hop, today I’m sharing my home decor/renovation goals for the coming year. Next year we can all come back and see how much I got done!

(Good luck getting me to remind you where to find this post when the time comes to look back… ;-)).

Refresh

To start with, I’ve got 3 room refreshes upcoming and I sure hope I get these done, because they’re all leftover from last year’s list of incomplete projects. 

The first is the upstairs hallway, an area I never really decorated.  When we moved into our house, I stuck a small bombe chest awkwardly against the wall with a ‘too-big-for-it’ mirror over it and called it a temporary fix. There it sat for four years.  

I finally have some furniture in the space, along with the antique French mirror (pictured in yesterday’s post). But holding up the completion of this project has been me procrastinating about painting a key piece of furniture. Be on the lookout for this one in the next few weeks, because I’m determined to get to it next!

Next up are two of the bedrooms I intended to update last year. The lilac and grey one, above, will be a complete room transformation, with everything lightened up by a mile. The dark grey walls were a test, which, while interesting, I’m totally over it. This room is already in work, so I believe I’ll really finish it, and likely very soon. 

By contrast, the blue guest room below will be given only a partial refresh. I do still like blue and white chinoiserie, but the cottage look is a little dated. It needs a bit of sophistication and the challenge will be ensuring the two new bedrooms have enough of a distinct identity from each other.

Recover

This next goal is something I’ve had planned since we moved into our home. The living room update has been transpiring gradually, with most of it finished a little over a year ago. The change was significant, but I never got to recovering the large throne chairs placed by the bay window. I still like the chairs, but they’re way too heavy for what’s going on in the room now, so it’s time to tackle this long-planned assignment.

Refine

Before I get to the next upgrade idea, I should mention an over-arching concept that will be important to me this year. Last year, when I went very neutral in my home, I started to remove some of the more formal decorative pieces. I was on the right track in terms of simplifying, using singular pieces rather than clusters (for instance on the coffee table). But I realized I pulled back a little too much from my taste for sophisticated refinement. I truly love patina, but I may have gone a little too rugged in that quest. Expect to see more genteel pieces as I re-embrace my love of French decor.

This perspective will likely be evident in many small ways but I’m specifically looking to refine the entryway.  I will say up front, this may or may not happen, but I’ve never been satisfied with the furniture distribution. The bookcase, below, sits across from the burled wood server and the two dark wood pieces together might be a bit too heavy for this spot. I’d love to add a French settee in place of the bookcase but there are 2 caveats that are holding me back. One is that I’m not sure where I’d move the bookcase and the other is that the settee might be too deep for the space, making it a little crowded to walk through. Suffice it to say, it’s an area I’m definitely looking at working on.

Re-order

I can already hear virtual cheers on this next one because it’s something I’ve been promising for a few years. I’m planning on doing some major decluttering this year with several enterprises already in work. The pantry post is coming in the next few weeks, and shortly thereafter a reworking of my seasonal closet. But the biggie that I’ve been wanting to conquer is one so many readers have asked for. That is the organization of my dishes and tabletop accessories and that one is definitely in the works. It’s such an overwhelming task that I’ve held off, but the time has come to get it done. Look for phase one, hopefully late this week or early next week, the latest.

Refinish

The other exploit I’ve put off for too long is the painting of several pieces of furniture.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, last year was the year I overcame my fear of painting furniture. But after finishing my first piece, I got bogged down with other things, and time constraints became my avenue of procrastination. Along with the hallway piece I mentioned above, I’ve long wanted to paint the corner cabinet in our dining room. It provides great storage but it’s so dark, and I know painting it will make a huge difference in the space.

I wouldn’t mind updating the little chest below, too, as it’s a reproduction piece and the distressing is so regimented that it almost looks like an intentional pattern. I would just love to come at this piece with a paintbrush! (But, admittedly, it’s not at the top of my list…)

Rework

A room I don’t often share, yet use almost daily, is our home gym. Be on the lookout for a few updates in the upcoming months as I’m replacing a few things to make it more functional, and while I’m at it, I hope to make it look a little bit prettier. It remains to be seen how far I get on this one, but the need is definitely there.

Renovate

And finally, let’s talk about real bonafide renovation. With the kitchen and master bath out of the way, the key rooms we have left that could use actual remodeling are the two upstairs guest baths and the laundry room. I’d love to get these done but this will depend largely on available budget.

The larger bath in the center, below, is the one I’m looking at first. The orange paint is already gone and the cream fixtures are not offensive, so it’s possible to make an impact with a tight budget. I’d love to replace the counter and tile floor, along with mirrors and lighting.  I’m not in love with the shower tile either, but that might have to stay in the near term. This is likely a later in the year or next year project, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. 

Ditto for the laundry room, but I’m guessing that one will wait for one of the appliances to go.

It would also be nice to start working on the landscaping, but that will surely wait until spring at the very least.

It’s exciting to research, be inspired and make upgrade plans, but time will tell how much we actually get done. As the saying goes, “shoot for the moon because if you fall short, you will land amongst the stars”.

Or as I said, partial success.

It’s better than remaining stagnant.

If you’d like to see yesterday’s Part 1 of this post, click here: What I Accomplished in Our Home This Past Year. Then scroll down for my friends’ posts!

Please enjoy all the other posts below:

Designthusiasm | On Sutton Place | Maison de Cinq

French Country Cottage | Thistlewood Farms | Town & Country Living

Cherished Bliss | My 100 Year Old Home | Rooms for Rent

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