12 Months of Renovations | What We Achieved in 2017

I’ve done one of these posts for the last few years – a ‘looking back’ on the year behind us and what we’ve achieved within the home and our renovations. This year we haven’t tackled a great amount of stuff, but the things we have done has seriously improved the house and how we use it. Last year we didn’t even have a kitchen and we were surviving solely with the outside garden tap at our only downstairs water source. I’m pleased to say things have changed greatly over the last 12 months and we’ve now officially ticked off the two major renovation jobs within the house. So – here’s what we’ve achieved…

We actually did it! 18 months (and more) in the making and the kitchen is well and truly ticked off the list! Albeit with a few finishing bits here and there, but who’s counting those really? We spent NYE 2016 plastering and by the end of January we had actual kitchen units on order. Although it wasn’t until the end of summer that we had all the worktops in place (major budget issues!) and the DIY kitchen fitting was complete. Buttttt we got there eventually and we now have a kitchen! It looks so bloody different from where we were last year, it’s actually unreal.

Repaired Rotten Joists

One of the second biggest DIYs this year was repairing the rotten joists of the dining room. It was a job and a half, involving supporting the floor, re-bricking parts of the wall and praying we’d done it all right. Full information on what we did and how here, but this was definitely a job we were both very proud to have done ourselves! It hasn’t made any visual difference to the room, but we can now rest assured the floor wont fall in 😉

Renovated the Dining Room

The dining room has also been finished, HURRAH! Earlier this year we repaired the rotten joists, sanded floorboards, did yet more plastering, built a log stack, painted and finally it began looking like an actual room. We now have somewhere to sit, eat, and be warm. What joy! We’ll be updating the table in the future, but it’s looking so much better this year.

Built Decking

I haven’t written about this on here *yet* because it’s not quite finished. But we have in fact built some decking! It was on the to-do list for this year, so I’m pleased we finally got it done and here’s a little sneak peak. Don’t worry I’ll do a full DIY post on how it’s built this Spring 😉

Updated the Inner Hallway Porch

I was really lucky this year to be sent over a box of Karndean Loose Lay flooring to try out, so it was the perfect time and place, to do a little inner hallway porch update. We fitted the new floor (which I totally love!) and painted over the old ugly wallpaper. I even gave the door a little new paint job too (although I’ll be writing about that one soon). It’s definitely not ‘renovated’ but it’s looking a bit better that’s for sure!

Painted a Pattenered Floor

The conservatory wasn’t on the original ‘to do’ list, but with windows from the kitchen looking into it – it was a room that was basically an ugly room that was kinda ruining the nicely finished kitchen. We cleared it out completely and began looking to do a budget makeover – starting with the floor. And what’s more budget than paint? I created a whole DIY patterned floor, which I’m over-the-moon with and I think looks pretty darn good too!

So that’s basically it for 2017! We didn’t get that much done in the way of numbers, but finishing the kitchen was a pretty big job and definitely one I’m glad to see the back of too! We have way more planned for 2018 and I’ll be sharing all that very soon, so watch this space.

What’s your biggest home achievement of 2017?