2019 Project Roundup & M.V.P.

I cannot believe 2019 is already coming to a close. This year has been a whirlwind for our little family. Much of this year was focusing on healing after the loss of our baby in April, and pouring our energy into working on our home with our unexpected free time.

We accomplished twice as much in our home as we expected to, so I thought it'd be fun to round up everything we did this year and share our MVP for 2019 -- Most Valuable Project!

1) We painted our house! Thanks to an unexpected windfall last spring, we were able to fast track having the exterior of our home painted. This was something we wanted to do as soon as we saw the home, but thought it may be a few more years before we could afford to it. We were so thrilled when we learned we could afford it, and decided to go ahead and do it. I don't think any project we've done in this home so far has made it feel more OURS than this one!

2) We finished off our master bedroom. This was a slow project -- we started in 2018 with scraping the popcorn ceilings, removing the 35 year old carpet and installing something new, but we never painted or decorated. We had water stains, dirt, paint, and holes in all the walls and it looked like a hot mess. We upgraded to a king size bed (hallelujah!), painted the walls, added decor, and really made this space a retreat for us. I don't think we realized how much we both needed that until it was done!

3) We did the same for our guest bedroom. Nothing like having guests come to visit to get your ass in gear! We had the same situation in our guest room as our master. We had previously scraped the popcorn, added a ceiling fan, and installed new carpet, but the walls were covered in water stains and paint. It needed to be finished off. We sold the furniture we had in here, moved our old queen bed into this room, and brought in new decor to complement the fresh paint. It feels so cozy and welcoming now.

4) We re-made our powder room downstairs. This all started with a toilet that wouldn't flush, and things escalated (as I've been known to do!) This was one of my most risky projects to date, but it really paid off and I learned so much. It's one of my favorite spaces now.

5) We removed & reinstalled a slate patio. Oh boy, if we had an award for absolute least favorite project ever, it would be this one. This took months to finish, in the hot NC summer (bad call on our part), and was backbreaking work. We saved about $6000 by doing the work ourselves, but damn was it tiring! The before and afters are incredibly gratifying, but I can't help but curse a little under my breath every time I look at it :)

6) We did a ton of landscaping. Well, Spenser did. He removed 6 car sized hedges from our front entry, and planted a beautiful Japanese Maple tree in it's place, making the front of our home look SO much more inviting. He re-seeded and re-leveled our front yard to improve drainage, installed a beautiful border around our mailbox, and went to T O W N on some really hard to remove Nandina. We have a ton more work to do with landscaping here, but this was a great start that really boosted our curb appeal.

7) We renovated our master bathroom! This was another unexpected update we had not planned to do in 2019, but we are soooooo glad we did. This project has improved the daily function of our lives x1000. Having two sinks to get ready in, plenty of off the counter storage, and a clean, bright space seriously makes our mornings and evenings so much more peaceful. I really can't explain why it affected us so much, but it truly does. It feels like going into a peaceful spa every time we use it.

So out of these projects, which one is our MVP for 2019? 

Without question, the winner is...

Our master bathroom! 

The makeover in this room has been so valuable to us for a few reasons:

We each have so much more space to get ready and can actually share the bathroom and use it at the same time, we doubled our storage space by adding the recessed medicine cabinets, the overall look is so much more "us" than the red and beige look before, and more importantly, it's genuinely cleaner. The previous owners were so sloppy with painting that there was hair in all of the walls, and it just looked dirty and gross all. the. time. We are so happy we took this budget friendly project on and are excited to finish the LAST bathroom in the house in early 2020!

Happy New Year everyone! We will be sharing our 2020 goal list soon!