How I’m Doing On My 2025 Home Goals

At the beginning of every year, I make a list of home goals for that year. Since I’ve started doing that several years ago, I’ve never once gotten through the whole list during the year. I always put way too much on the list knowing that it’s impossible for me to get through the whole thing.

But I like to use the list as kind of a general guide to keep me somewhat focused. It’s more like a buffet where I know I won’t eat every single thing on the buffet, but what I do eat has to come from the buffet. That’s the general idea, at least. There have been a couple of years where I’ve detoured quite a bit from that initial list, but for the most part, that’s how I view my list of home goals.

The one thing I know for sure won’t happen this year is tearing down the sunroom. At the beginning of the year, it looked like this…

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Our washer and dryer were still in there. And while those have now been moved to their new, permanent home in the walk-in closet, the hot water heater remains. While I know where the new hot water heater will go (in the current guest bathroom that will soon be turned into a storage room), I’m still completely undecided on what kind of hot water heater I want to get. So until I make that decision and actually get the hot water heater moved out of the sunroom, the sunroom has to stay.

I also have a lot of stuff stored in this sunroom that needs to be moved out, so with less than three months left in the year, I can say pretty confidently that tearing down the sunroom will have to wait until next year. That’s disappointing, but at least I can see a light at the end of the tunnel on this.

I got quite a bit done on my workshop at the beginning of the year. It started off the year looking like this…

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And today, it looks like this…

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The four items still on the list for the exterior are to (1) mark off a planting bed around the building and add mulch, (2) do something to make the garage door look interesting, (3) build a pergola above the garage door, and (4) add exterior lights. I know for sure I won’t get the pergola done this year, or if I even still want a pergola above the garage door. But now that the weather is getting cooler outside, I could easily take a day and the those other three things done in a day, especially if I want or need a break from working on the bedroom. I already have the lights for the exterior. They’ve been sitting in the studio for months now. I just need to find an hour or so to get them up. Of course, they won’t have electricity yet, but at least they’d look pretty!

I had also put on my list all of the inside projects for my workshop. Obviously, those will have to wait until next year as well. As soon as I get the bedroom done, and then do a quick makeover on the studio bathroom and get the current guest bathroom turned into a storage closet, the workshop will be my next big project.

Obviously, the biggest items on my list for the year were the different areas of our bedroom suite. I tackled my closet first, and it’s the only area so far that is 100% finished. I still can’t believe that it started off looking like this at the beginning of the year…

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And other than the flooring installation, which I hired out, I turned that room into this…

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The only thing on my original list that I ended up not doing was building cabinets or shelves above the washer and dryer. And so far, it has worked out just fine not having additional storage there.

The foyer has come a long way from what it was at the beginning of the year. (Sorry, I don’t have a new picture since I painted the bedroom and added trim. I’ll work on getting new pictures this weekend.)

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My original list for this area looked like this, but there have been a few changes to the original plan:

1. Install hardwood flooring, Done! See it here.
2. Sand the hardwood flooring,
3. Stain and seal hardwood flooring, See it here.
4. Finish the French doors to bedroom suite,
5. Install crown molding, Done!
6. Paint the walls, Done!
7. Paint or the gold leaf full-length mirror I found a mirror to purchase instead,
8. Build an upholstered storage bench I’m going to reupholster a bench I alread have,
9. Create a new scuttle hole to the attic This will go in the storage room,
10. Create a new scuttle hole to the crawl space This will go in the storage room,
11. Make or buy artwork I’m going to use what I have.

And then I need to add these items to that list:

12. Hang the grasscloth wallpaper,
13. Wire sconces to flank the full-length mirror,
14. Install the new ceiling light,
15. Patch the hole for the old ceiling light.

I think that’s it for the foyer.

And then there’s the bedroom. It has also come a long way since the beginning of the year. Again, I’ll have new pictures by the end of this weekend with all of the trim finished.

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And here’s what my original list looked like for the bedroom:

1. Install hardwood flooring, Done! See it here.
2. Sand the hardwood flooring, Done!
3. Stain and seal hardwood flooring, Done! See it here.
4. Close up scuttle hole in ceiling It’s staying, but I do need to trim it out.
5. Paint ceiling, Done!
6. Repair and prime walls, Done!
7. Install wainscoting, (Almost finished! Still working on wood fill, sanding, and caulking.)
8. Install crown molding, Done!
9. Hang grasscloth wallpaper,
10. Install wall and ceiling trim in the bedroom entrance, Done! But my plan changed from my original plan at the beginning of the year, so there’s no ceiling trim.
11. Make an upholstered headboard,
12. Build a pretty bed frame to cover the not-so-pretty frame of our adjustable bed,
13. Build two bedside tables I bought bedside tables instead.
14. Sew velvet curtains,
15. Make or find artwork,
16. Create a reading corner (which may include reupholstering a chair), I bought a chair instead, which should be delivered in the next couple of weeks.
17. Accessorize to finish.

And the one thing I left off of that original list was:

18. Refinish the dresser.

UPDATE: I forgot one last category on my 2025 home goals list! I had some house exterior projects on that list as well.

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I think this is where I got a little overly ambitious. 😀 My list included the following:

1. Redo (and finish!) the skirting on the front porch,
2. Re-install the shutters that came down,
3. Re-install the front porch tape lights that fell down,
4. Mark off planting beds and add borders and mulch,
5. Add lighting to driveway and sidewalk,
6. Build the steps to the side studio door.

Obviously, I’m not going to get any of that big stuff done, like the finishing the skirting on the porch, marking off planting beds and adding mulch, adding lights to the driveway and sidewalk, or building the steps to the studio door. Those will have to wait…again. But I do hope to fix the shutter that fell and fix the tape lights that fell down on the front porch. In addition, I also hope to get the new exterior door in the bedroom painted and get at least a couple of new plants in the ground in that area by the end of this month.