If you’ve ever lived in a house that needs some work, even if it’s just customizing it to suit your tastes, you know it’s important to stop now and then and appreciate how much you’ve done.  It’s easy to focus on projects still hanging out on the to-do list and lose sight of all of the ones that are crossed off.  So, around the end of one year or the beginning of the next, I like to reflect in a blog post.  You can find 2023 HERE and 2022 HERE.

So, I had an ambitious amount of projects on my list for this year and many of them didn’t get done.  We’re in a season of life where we need to buy cars for teenagers, pay for their car insurance (yikes), and pay for college classes.  New windows and bathroom renovations got bumped down the list.  But, we still got a lot accomplished and there’s always 2025 and beyond to get those things done. I’m starting to wonder if I can demo a bathroom and wing it.  (Just a joke, Jeff.)

Here’s what we did work on…

 landscaping

We spent 2023 getting the yard cleaned up.  We removed trees, and overgrown bushes, and tried to establish a bit of a clean slate.  There are some gorgeous mature trees and bushes that we kept, but the rest was really past its prime.  Removing the bushes also gave us easy access to paint the siding, trim, and shutters.

I worked on the grass, applying fertilizer and seeding bald areas, weeding the garden beds, and putting in plants that I love, like lavender and liriope, and those I saw thriving in neighbors’ yards, like Candytuft.

I tried different things to fight my Bishop’s Weed problem (you can read about that adventure HERE)…

…planted my favorite Annabelle hydrangeas in the front…

…and edged all of the sidewalks and garden beds.  You can read more about my gardening projects HERE.

One of my favorite landscaping projects, though, was building trellises to add interest to the large wall of siding on the front of the house.  You can find the trellis plans and tutorial HERE.  I found two espalier apple trees to grow on them…

I started them out in pots but moved them to the ground in October so they would be nice and snug over the winter.  I can’t wait to see how they come back in the spring.

I also built an obelisk for the sweet autumn clematis in the back corner of the yard.

new fence for the backyard

It was evident when we moved in that the backyard fence would need to be replaced.  Pieces were falling off and it was getting worse by the day.

Our family worked together to replace it this summer…

Now it’s safe, secure, and sturdy.  It certainly looks better, too!  You can read about our fence project HERE.

I also added a few new pots and plants to the pool deck and swapped out the blue umbrellas for neutral beige.  It’s so serene and relaxing on the patio and by the pool now.  I just love it!

You can see how far our pool has come over the past two years HERE.

cleaning ivy stains off the brick

This was a small project that made a big difference in the overall appearance of the back of the house.  Ivy stains can make brick look a bit sad and neglected.

After testing out a bunch of different methods, we learned a nylon bristle brush was the most effective while still being gentle.   You can find more details on the project HERE.

I have new shutters to install and paint and we’ll finally paint the trim along the back of the house this year as well.  I had it planned for 2024 and we just didn’t get around to it.

removal of dogwood trees

While we did most of the landscaping work ourselves, we hired experts to remove the dogwood trees and their stumps.  It was the hardest renovation decision I’ve had to make so far because I love dogwood trees!  These were shaded and encroached upon by the larger maple trees and were not thriving.

painting the dining room

After having primer on the wall for over a year, I finally painted the dining room!

I painted the ceiling first…

Added wainscoting and painted it in Oval Room Blue…

And then painted a mural…

It’s not finished yet, but I’ve been living with it through the holidays while I decide what I want to edit or add.  You can read all of the posts about the dining room makeover HERE.

spruce up the boys’ bathroom

After removing the wallpaper, priming the walls, and battling the peeling paint on the ceiling, I decided to spruce up the boys’ bathroom until we are ready for a full renovation.

I embraced the 1970s colors and added a peel-and-stick wallpaper to tie everything together.  You can read about the full refresh HERE.

It’s a departure from my normal style, but I have to say that it’s pretty cute.

removing glue from the basement floor

DIY is rarely glamorous, but this job is tedious, messy, and not very rewarding.  There is satisfaction in having a clean floor, but this space is never going to be in a magazine, even when it’s finished!  It’s a 1970s basement and we’re doing to do our best with it.

Anyway, I’ve been scraping off the old carpet glue bit by bit and hope to have it finished soon.  You can read about removing carpet glue if you ever have trouble sleeping HERE.

I didn’t share these last few projects on the blog because there is nothing beautiful to show, but it is a part of owning a home that needed work, so I thought I would share them here.

We had a new garage door opener system put in a few months ago. The existing garage door opener was installed when I was in middle school, so it was impressive it was still working well!  The problem was with trying to get it to work with more modern technology like a keypad.  We had one installed and had to have it fixed three times in less than two years.  When it stopped working again, we decided to have the entire system replaced so it could be connected to our phones and work reliably with a keypad.

We still have a lot of work to do in the garage, but we at least got it to a place where you could walk around and get to things.  As I’m sure you know, when you are working on projects, the garage becomes a dumping ground and we definitely use it as that!

We also had to have a lot of work done on pipes in the basement.  Starting in the summer, we had five times when water came into the basement, all completely unrelated.  The first time was from over 6″ of rain in a short time that started to seep through the cinderblock.  The second time, the drain on the A/C unit was clogged and leaked all over the floor.  This led to extensive improvements to the system to keep it working well.  The third time, water spewed out of a pipe that wasn’t capped when we moved the washing machine.

This led to the replacement of long stretches of copper pipe, which was fortunate because one started leaking the morning the plumber showed up to work on it.  That was the fourth leak.

And the final water issue we had was when the septic system backed up.  This was my worry when buying a house with a septic system.  We had it inspected and pumped before we bought the house, but that still doesn’t guarantee things will work without a hitch.  There was an issue with the tank draining properly, so it started backing up into the basement.  Fortunately, it was bath water and it just backed up into the unfinished part of the basement, so it wasn’t the disaster it could’ve been.  It was still the fifth time we had water in the basement, thought, so that was getting a little old!

The pipes were augered and everything was pumped and cleaned out, and it’s working properly now.  Whew!

Since we had so many issues with water leaks, we put water sensors in the basement, so we’ll be alerted to any future leaks or water issues before they become a big problem.  We also bought a second wet/dry shop vac to keep in the basement for dealing with any water that does end up where it’s not supposed to be.  That thing has gotten a ton of use so far!

There are days when I wish we were able to do more, but I am learning to be patient with this house and myself.  We have to live our lives here, to have days that aren’t about projects, to give ourselves margin for play and rest, and to be wise with our income and savings.  When I think about what we accomplished in 2024 in those terms, it feels like we did pretty well.  We got a lot accomplished in a balanced, sustainable way.

Of course, my list for 2025 is ambitious, but I am trying to temper it and be a bit more realistic.  I’ll share some of my plans in another post…