We officially celebrated our 1 year “blog-iversary” this month! Hard to believe we’ve been documenting our house projects for a whole year, but at the same time it feels like a decade’s worth of things of changed since July 2019. The world looks a whole lot different than it did last summer! Let’s take trip down memory lane and revisit our best projects, worst failures, and biggest moments!
July 2019
We kicked off our blog in July of 2019 with our first post about C’s cozy gray woodland themed nursery! This room holds some of our best memories ever and I will always treasure these photos. I was so sad to see it go this year as our little dude isn’t quite a “baby” anymore!
Last July, we also replaced all of our kitchen lighting which made a HUGE difference in the health of our eyeballs. I now enjoy flipping on the lights in the morning without having to brace myself.
We took off the faux shutters on our porch and evicted a lot of wasps. But don’t worry, they’re still finding plenty of places to live around here. Oh, and we still haven’t painted the white vinyl shutters we found underneath.
August 2019
Tyler and I took our first overnight trip together after C’s birth and spent some time in Hermann and Washington, Missouri! It was magical with lots of wine, cheese, and home inspiration. But we still found ourselves racing home to see C the next day :-).
We also spray painted our wicker patio chairs. Still love the black color, but the paint has some chipping issue. *insert reminder to always prime your outdoor painting projects here*
November 2019
We busted our tails on a couple of landscape retaining walls. After 2 years of manual labor, we finally finished the walls and I am happy to report that they are just as stable as the day we laid the last block! Thank heavens. Because I’m not building another one, no matter how many times Tyler suggests it.
We also updated our half bath and built a pair of fun industrial pipe shelves! Still loving this update, though I am thinking about wallpapering in there. Shh… don’t tell Tyler (he’s not totally on board with the whole wallpapering trend, yet)!
We spent a ton of time filling between the cracks of our old paver patio and it preeeetty much did nothing, haha! This was one of our failures of the year! I won’t mention the time we broke our bathroom faucet, flooded the kitchen, and our puny attempt at making a sprinkler… You just gotta roll with it sometimes! It’s all good!
December 2019
In December, we posted about these picture frame ledges which has by far been the most read post on our blog. Who knew? They were super easy and cheap to make! We’re hoping to build a couple shorter ones for the end of the hallway upstairs. I still love them!
Some time in 2020…
Shiz kind of hit the fan, as you recall, in the new year. We managed to get our sump pump installed before the world locked down due to COVID-19. Our basement has been super dry ever since and, honestly, it’s been kind of life changing to not have inches of water down there every couple of weeks.
We also found out we were pregnant in January!!! I was super sick and life got busy, so we took a break from big projects for a little while.
May 2020
When we finally got over the weirdness of being locked down in our house (and I wasn’t green in the gills any more), we found ourselves spending more time outside. C’s toys took up a lot of space in the garage, so we decided to get lumber delivered and build a mini shed to store his big wheels. The shed is still holding up super well and is still so convenient. It’s definitely given us shed fever. We want to build more sheds everywhere. Yes, everywhere.
We spent a couple of weeks trenching under our fence and laying a mulch border. It was pretty strenuous but SO worth it. Tyler pushes the wheels of the mower right up into the mulch border and never has to string trim around the fence pickets which he’s pretty giddy about! We’re also happy to have filled in the washed out areas under the fence that were soon to be dog-sized! It has really made a huge difference to the look of our yard.
Feeling pretty confident after building the shed and laying the fence border, we took on the old basement windows. We busted ’em out and installed some new, energy efficient windows. They actually lock, too, which is a total upgrade from our tilt in single panes!
And if you thought May had seen enough projects, well… you were wrong. C’s room got a big boy makeover! Our wheel-loving boy, and soon to be big brother (!), now has a transportation themed room and a toddler bed!
June and July 2020
As June rolled around, we embarked on our extensive nursery project! Our budget for this room is small and has involved a lot of fun DIY projects like a floor lamp and a giant pegboard wall shelf!
We took a break from nursery renovations at the end of June to take a little family vacation to a nearby lake town! It was the most fun we’ve all had for a LONG time despite the “social distancing” requirements! Something that Tyler and I both struggle with is the need to be busy working on something all the time. Taking ourselves out of the house and into the middle of nowhere kept our minds from wandering to the “next project”. We found out that we actually are capable of doing nothing! I will treasure the family memories from this trip forever (even the time we locked our keys in the car) <3.
This blogging year has been a huge one for us! Our ups and downs learning experiences- they’re all documented here in our little corner of the internet! This space has given me so much purpose and motivation. I’ve always loved writing and scrapbooking, so this has truly been a match made in heaven for this momma!
Our grand finale nursery tour is coming up next! I was going to post a tour tomorrow, but I am waiting on a llama printed changing pad cover and you know what, the show just can’t go on without it! ? So expect a tour on FRIDAY! YAYAYAY! Can’t wait for this nugget to come and make his nursery feel like home <3.
Looking forward to the next 12 months of projects to tackle and memories to make!