Hi friends! Today just wanted to share some of my goals with you for the new year, specifically related to renovations and my work for this blog. 2017 was a great year for me, I felt the most fulfilled in my work that I ever had and worked so hard. It was a lot of fun and it feels so good to look back and see all my hard work in the form of our bnb home (which is 90% completed) and our own home (which is 100% completed, even though as any homeowner knows, you are never really finished).
Here are some projects I am looking to check off in 2018!
First, a few goals for my own home:
-Add a deck to our backyard and landscaping.
In the past two years, we have completed our interior renovations, but we haven’t done much to the outside besides having it painted white, adding the flowerbeds and building two playhouses (this is one, we haven’t blogged the second one yet). In 2018, we would like to add a deck and complete the landscaping in our yard.
-Tweak our kitchen for our new lifestyle.
Since bringing Nova home, we are eating (quick) meals at home constantly. This is a big change for us as we used to eat out a lot and when we cooked it was more leisurely before. Now I want to reorganize and completely redo our small pantry. I feel like this will really help me keep up with the daily tasks of food prep and the constant rotation of doing the same dishes over and over.
-Maximize our closet space.
We love our closets, but ever since we built out Nova’s closet custom I have been dreaming of how I could rework our closets to better fit what we have. I am planning to make a few small tweaks this year.
-Tweak Nova’s nursery for her toddler years.
Since we designed the nursery before we were matched, I always knew we’d need to do a round of tweaks once we came home with our child. For the record, I do not regret fully completing it before meeting Nova. It gave me something positive to do during one of the most difficult seasons of my life and it’s MUCH easier to tweak it now than it would be to design it from scratch. And since we plan to adopt another child in the future, anything Nova doesn’t use can be stored for them.
I’ll leave the full list of modifications for the post (I’ll be done by next month; already working on it now), but I’m so excited to keep using this room for her all throughout her childhood. I feel like it can definitely grow with her!
-Complete tours.
I still need to photograph our den, the hallway bathroom (also known as the “kids” bathroom or Nova’s bathroom for now), our master bedroom and my office.
-Film a before/after home tour.
When we first got the keys to this home, the first thing we did was film a “before” tour. I am SO looking forward to taking new footage of all the rooms and cutting it together with the BEFORE footage. I think that will be so satisfying after (coming up on) three years of hard work!
-Finish these bookshelves.
Working on this right now! I am really looking forward to completing this project. It’s one of my favorite projects of all time.
And next, a couple of goals for my bnb home:
-Tour the laundry room and living room.
I only have two tours left in this home before it’s completely done. Should I do a video tour for this one too?
-Landscape the exterior.
I am still deciding what to do in the backyard. It has a nice, big yard. I’m thinking of adding a playset and a willow tree to start with! And I still haven’t decided whether to paint the brick exterior. I know a lot of people are against painting brick, but a lot of the nicer homes that have been remodeled in this area are painted. I’m still on the fence.
Other goals for the blog in 2018 …
-A decor product line.
For years it’s been a goal of mine to do a product line in the decor category, but it has always fallen through or not felt right. I think this will finally be our year. I’m hopeful!
-Invest in a new property.
Not sure what kind, but I had such a great experience working on the bnb this past year that I’d like to invest in another property (and we’re definitely not moving, at least for a while!). I love the idea of doing a tiny home or a cabin. Right now, I’m just looking at options and dreaming.
Well, that’s all for my goals! Since becoming a mom I definitely have less time to run in infinite directions, so I am planning to pour all that I have into ABM, A Color Story (which will be launching a sister app in early 2018) and Oui Fresh. Here on the blog, I plan to mainly focus on my decor content, but I will still share other things I am passionate about like green beauty and occasional snapshots from my personal life.
If you have requests for anything you’d like to see on ABM (be it from me or one of the other writers), we’d love to hear it.
I can honestly say that after 10 years of blogging I am loving it more than ever … maybe even a lot more than ever. And I believe that the secret to our staying power is continuing to change and evolve each year and follow our passions.
I hope your 2018 is off to a great start! Love, Elsie
Credits// Author: Elsie Larson. Photography by Elsie Larson and Amber Ulmer.