I hope your holidays were full of love, laughter, and a whole boat load of cookies. In case you're wondering...no, we didn't get an early Christmas present. I'm still pregnant. VERY pregnant actually. We've got about 3 weeks to go now and we're ready for her any day now. If she decided to show up a little earlier than expected, no one would mind!
I'm so excited for a new year (and a new baby - duh!) but before we get started let's have a little heart to heart...ok?
I'm coming up on my 2 year blogiversary at the end of the month and am still trying to figure it all out. Can't you tell? Trying to find balance between the job that pays my bills and the blog is something that I've obviously failed at these past 2 years but it's definitely something that I really want to focus on in the coming year. I don't know exactly what I expected when I published my first post back in 2015 but I think I thought it was going to be easier.
#realitycheck
It isn't. Blogging is hard. Like real hard.
It's hard to find time to photograph our house when all my daylight hours are spent away from it. It's hard to sit down at night and blog when all I want to do is cuddle up with my guy and binge watch something on Netflix. It's also hard to blog when you're 37 weeks pregnant and sleeping just sounds so much more enticing than editing photos. It's.just.hard.
But you know what? I love blogging too.
When I actually dedicate time to photograph our house, or a project, and blog about our life and what we're doing - it brings me so much joy. I want more of that in 2017. Don't you? Don't we all need more joy in our lives? The answer is yes.
The feedback I receive here and on Instagram from total strangers who stumbled upon my itty bitty blog is pretty awesome too! #somanythanks. But let's also address the giant elephant in the room in my belly. This baby is coming quickly (we hope) and I honestly don't know how that will affect the blog. I hope to take a few weeks off to enjoy her newbornness but I also hope to get back at it and not let the silence linger too long here.
To start out 2017 on a good foot, I wanted to share a few house goals we'd like to focus on in the coming year. With a new baby arriving any day, I'm intentionally keeping the list short hoping that the less ambitious I am now will translate into success at the end of the year. #noshame
Our 2017 House Goals:
Living Room + Built-Ins
To refresh your memory, let me remind you what our living room looked like on move in day:
A little after moving in we closed off that doorway you see on the left in the photo above:
And we sorta lived with this situation ever since...
So blogger-y, right?!
But this year not only do I want to finish this space off...I really want to focus on the wall opposite our couch. We're DIYing a 12 ft wall of built-ins! Oye!
The cabinets arrived just before Christmas and we've already made some progress that I can't wait to share!
Guest Bath
Our guest bath looks pretty much the same as it did when we first moved in. Aside from throwing down a rug and putting up a shower curtain, it's still horribly ugly and in need of attention A-SAP.
We already replaced the toilet. We purchased a new sink + vanity combo over the summer during an Ikea sale which puts us ahead of the game already!
Now all we need to do is figure out when the best time is to tackle this sorry excuse of a bathroom because baby's gonna need a bath!
Bedroom #2 - Little Lady's Room
With a new baby arriving any day I really want to complete this room for the other special lady in our life. My step-daughter stays with us part time and it's really important that she has a finished room she loves and can escape to during those first few crazy newborn months.
So far the room has received new flooring, baseboards, molding, and a fresh coat of paint but it still has a long ways to go. We have plans to add a hanging chair in the corner of her room for the avid reader that she is and add in plenty of pops of color to reflect her spunky personality!
Oh, and don't worry...a proper bed frame is on the to-do list too!
Nursery (Bedroom #3)
The now nursery was used as an office by the previous owners and we've been hard at work over the last few months to get this room baby ready. It's actually about 90% complete already as we're just waiting on some art work and waffling between adding doors to that opening or leaving it as-is for now.
Does that mean I'm cheating because I'm adding a nearly finished room to our 2017 house goals list?! Probably. But I don't care. I need all the help I can get...LOL.
Whether we add doors or not, this room will probably be the first in the list above that'll get revealed here on the blog and I can't wait to show you how it turned out!
So? What do you think?!
These 4 spaces complete my 2017 house goals list and I hope you're just as excited about the year ahead as we are! We've already made great progress in 3 of the 4 rooms on this year's list and I can't wait to see what we get accomplished this year and are able to look back on 2017 with success.
Till then...it's #babywatch2017!
