Home Reno: What We Have Planned For 2017

Oh.My.Goodness I cannot believe we have reached the end of the year. It doesn’t feel like that long ago since I was writing this post for the last year! Needless to say, it’s been one hell of a year (erm, Brexit, Trump, WTF?). We’ve spent 9+ months without a kitchen AND STILL COUNTING and yes, we somehow had Christmas here without one too. It’s been tougher than I can explain, we’ve spent a heck more than we had ever planned for, and quite frankly I’m quite glad to see the back of this year and look towards a new one, which will hopefully include a freaking kitchen at some point SOON!!

We’ve been renovating our homes for the last six years, completing our first home in 2013. Six whole years, non-stop. We have paid jobs, then we come home and work more. Every. Single. Day. Well, not quite, but almost. But you get the picture – we haven’t been able to fully enjoy life for a freaking long time. We put all our spare cash into the renovation and all our spare time too. After six years, all I can say is – it’s draining.

I’m almost 26 (er-tomorrow) and Grant is 28, we’ve spent our whole twenties saving and renovating and not having any spare time or cash to do or enjoy other things. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve loved renovating in lots of different ways and we now own a house we could only have ever dreamed of, thanks to making a good profit on our first renovation we completed the sale on. But, we’re getting older and there’s more to life than just owning a home. Although that is pretty essential too. We’re in this for the long haul and have no intentions of simply quitting the renovation altogether, but we need some time out. And more than just a couple of weeks holiday.

So, we’ll be finishing the rooms and projects we’ve started – the kitchen, namely. And we’ll be doing any renovation work that doesn’t cost a whole lot (removing ceilings and stripping wallpaper perhaps) but we wont be doing any major renovations this year. Instead, we hope to save money for next year, travel more, live more and have a happier more balanced life. I’d also like to do more smaller DIYs and be able to spend more time creating content for the blog, something that’s become really difficult over the past few months.

So, whilst we don’t have any big renovations and new rooms to tackle this year, here’s what we do have planned.

1. Finish the Kitchen & Dining Room

Well, we simply can’t back out of this renovation now, can we? We desperately need a kitchen, like yesterday. And I’m 110% dedicated to getting this finished pronto! We’re not tooooo far away, but the little jobs take more time than I often appreciate and they drag on… and on. Easter is my aim, I’d like a Christmas Round 2, this time with an actual turkey, sprouts and gravy… Basically, the whole shebang! Maybe I’ll even get a tree in too 😉

2. Garden Updates

You probably know that I love our garden, it’s one of my favourite spots of the house – I love being outdoors, the calmness it brings and I just love creating ideas for the garden. It doesn’t really matter if it all goes wrong, because it’s the garden! Last year I had wanted to complete a few further DIYs in the garden that I never managed to get done. So, this year they’re back on the list – I hope to add flooring around the pallet seating corner, build some decking to make a patio around the french doors and even make a proper sit-down garden dining table too.

3. Add Interior Finishes in the Bathroom

Oh, the bathroom. A room we completed back in 2015 and yet, it’s still not quite finished. I have a cupboard to build, skirting boards to attach, shelves to hang and a feature picture wall to create. It just doesn’t have that stylised homely finish yet. Definitely need to crack on and get it completed this year!

4. Gut the Basement

The Basement is probably going to be the next major renovation project for the following year, so I’d like to get ahead with it whilst I can. It’s a freaking big basement and needs some serious gutting. It suffers from blown plaster, a ridiculous amount of dust, odd redundant pipework, old cables connected to nothing and yep, the list goes on. It costs absolutely nothing to wreak havoc and pull everything apart – so why the hell not?! The money we save over the next year will go towards new electrics down here, a toilet pump system and a lot of plasterboard and flooring. All of which will be on the 2018 to-do list next year. This part of the house is more than just a single room, it’s a whole entire floor and these photos are just a few areas of it..

5. Makeover the front of the house

Our house is potentially the ugliest thing on our street. Granted, at least 50% of this is due to our unfortunate looking car that simply does not have any class. Whilst we can’t fix that, we can add a bit more love and style to the house. A lick of paint and some other little DIYs is all it really needs (although a refurbished reclaimed original Victorian door wouldn’t go amiss – a girl can dream!) to bring it up to date and look just a tad smarter amongst the rest of the street. And I’m sure this project wont be bank-breaking either!

And that’s really about it! Not a great deal, but as I say – we need a bit of a rest, some time together without contemplating which screws we need, and instead experience a little bit of a normal life. Whether or not we can make it through an entire year without deciding otherwise is yet to be seen. But we’ll definitely be taking at least half the year off anyway 😉

What are your plans for the home in 2017?