Ahhh, it’s good to be back. Happy new year and hope you had a great holiday. I don’t think I ever took so many naps in my life. We relaxed and relaxed some more. I’ll share more about gifts and activities later this week, but today is all about our 2021 to-do list.

We talked so much about what we want to do in 2021 and what we don’t want to do. We want to work with significantly less contractors in 2021. There’s a post forthcoming about hiring a contractor vs. DIY, since we’ve been on both sides of it for the majority of the last 18 months. I’ve come to some interesting conclusions. But the good news is we worked really hard and really pushed it to get all the big structural renovations out of the way over the last 18 months and we are excited to manage less people, invoices and expectations this year and take on a lot more DIY.

Here’s what we have up our sleeve this year:

1. The Kitchen!! Chris has been dreaming up a new kitchen layout pretty much since we walked through this house for the first time. We’ve been planning it for the last couple months and we hope to start ordering everything in February for a March Demo! I’ll be sharing our inspiration images, layout, the WORKS soon.

2. The Mudroom. When we do the kitchen, we’ll be tackling our mudroom at the same time. Right now the two are separated by a walk-in pantry (that we’re removing) to give both the kitchen and mudroom more room. Right now our mudroom is more of a mud hall. And a pretty tight one at that. Living in Idaho, we definitely need more room for coats and boots and backpacks so we’re excited to really maximize that space!

3. Entry & Stairs. To be honest, I’ve already been working on this one a bit over the break and I can’t wait to share more. Our door is off-center in our entry and the arrangement became even more obvious once we got our new (old) front door in place with our exterior renovation. So there’s a big switch happening! I’d also love to add some paneling of some sort to the entry and up the stairs and add a stair runner to all of our stairs!

4. Replace all interior doors. I feel like my mind will be able to relax once I replace all of our knotty alder interior doors and door knobs. We have already picked the doors out (our bathroom got the new ones!) But installing and painting them all deserves its own line item on our to-do list this year!

5. Laundry Room. I showed our laundry room in stories a couple weeks ago and I was told by several dozen people I have never shown it. Oops! It’s a nice laundry room, just doesn’t go with our aesthetic so we’ll be reworking that this year!

6. Dining Room Storage. In March of 2020, we built a fauxdenza in the dining room for a commercial but we never finished it. The storage itself has been great, but we definitely need to revisit that project and maybe build it out a little bit more.

7. Exterior Landscaping. With the exterior of our home complete, I’m excited to tackle the landscaping when the weather warms up. I’m currently researching what works in our zone and cross-referencing that with what feels the most cottage-y. (ie. all of the tiger lilies have to go!)

8. Balcony. Oh how I can’t wait to furnish our balcony this year and install a trellis with a climbing vine!!!

9. There are also lot of nearly finished spaces we’ll be finishing up first– our Bathroom, Polly’s room and Faye’s Room. And a few areas that we’ve only done a simple phase 1 to that we’d like to level up. The family room, our bedroom, greta’s room, and pretty much every room needs vent covers. Sometimes I like going all in and doing a room from top to bottom the first time, and sometimes we’ll go in with paint first and then level it up over time.

10. This last one will hopefully answer your burning question “What are you going to do when you’re done with your house?!” I don’t anticipate us being “done” with our house for a while–there will always be areas we’re improving and sharing! However, we had a goal to be done with major renovations this year and the kitchen and mudroom are the last ones on that list. The truth is we’ve been doing this for 12 years now–living through renovations and sharing about it. And we’re not sick of the sharing about it and we’re not sick of the renovating, but living through it has been wearing away at us–especially over the last year. We don’t want our girls to spend their whole childhoods amid renovation dust and tarps, so we are hoping to…..purchase a small fixer upper this year!

Before we purchased this house, we were looking for a flip and even put an offer in on one! It didn’t pan out because of a major issue found during inspection, but it all worked out because it brought us here and we really love this home. However, the idea of working on a “flip house” has stayed with us. Something smaller scale with loads of potential that would bring us back to our budget-friendly renovating roots while being able to come home to a put together house checks all the boxes for us right now.

I’m hesitant to call it a “flip” because it won’t be a very fast timeline and we aren’t going to use generic materials. It will be the Chris Loves Julia style in a small house on a budget! We want to breathe life back into a small home that needs it and we can’t wait to share that journey with all of you.

I’m not sure the order of this one–we’d love to find something sooner rather than later because people are moving to Idaho in droves right now and it’s definitely increasing housing prices–but we’ll be sure to share more when it happens!

So that’s what we think our 2021 will look like. We’re also hoping to be able to entertain more, go on a trip or two, and take more weekends off! What are you up to this year?