How We Did Meeting Our 2022 House Goals
2022, what a year it has been! At the very beginning of the year (fine, it was mid-February), I detailed five house projects we wanted to tackle this year. How did we do meeting our 2022 house goals?
Better than I thought!
Although, isn’t that how it always goes when the teacher lets the students grade their own tests?
Let’s dive into those house goals.
2022 House Goals #1: Replace rotten siding.
We did this!
I have not written a blog post about replacing the rotten siding on the back of our kitchen addition but I did detail the journey on social media as it was happening.
Replacing the siding was a lot harder than we thought it would be mainly because weird hurdles kept appearing in front of us. For instance, you wouldn’t think a siding project would result in needing to fix the deck too but that’s what happened. In the end, we spent 4 solid weekends on just the siding aspect of the project.
Was it worth it? Absolutely.
We’re feeling pretty smug now that we know bees won’t be able to make a home in that wall next year.
You take a lot of things about your home for granted, like solid walls, until you realize you don’t have a solid wall and bees can get in through your rotten siding.
It’s also interesting how big of a difference this project made to the warmth of our home. While it was insulated, there were enough air gaps in that the wall that it was incredibly inefficient energy-wise.
Will we want to replace the rest of the siding on the house ourselves?
Want? No.
Will we do it anyway? Too soon to tell.
2022 House Goals #2: Replace old windows.
I believe my house goal as stated was to “start” replacing old windows.
We replaced one.
That’s technically a start, so the goal is met!
*pats self on the back*
I did learn that we have to REALLY plan ahead to replace windows. The windows that we want for this house are not something we can pluck off a shelf and insert into our home. Wouldn’t that be nice though?
Lead times for custom windows can be months out. Months!
We are not the boss of the supply chain. The supply chain is the boss of us all.
P.S. We have not finished trimming out the inside of the window we replaced. No one took away my red pen, which means I’m still grading my own test here. In the interest of continuing to pat myself on the back, I’m ignoring that while the window is in and functions, it doesn’t look pretty from the inside.
2022 House Goals #3: Replace the tub/shower in the main bathroom.
Whomp, whomp. Even my red pen cannot save me on this one. We did not meet this house goal. We didn’t even start it.
However, we do think about replacing the tub/shower every darn day when we step in there to shower. It’s not the worst place we’ve ever showered, but it’s pretty high on the list.
Maybe 2023 will be our year?
In the meantime, we just keep the shower curtain closed when people come to visit. They can look at our pretty sink and faucet instead.
2022 House Goals #4: Fix pool deck concrete.
We started fixing the concrete on the pool deck AFTER the pool season was over.
Hahahahaha. Better late than never.
The real question is did we finish fixing the concrete around the pool deck? Absolutely not.
We ran out of concrete.
The good news is…actually, there’s no good news.
The bad news is it’s going to take a lot more concrete to finish up the section that needs concrete. I’m guessing we’ll try to finish it up after we open the pool in May. Pouring concrete can be messy and the pool cover is in the way right now.
When we do finish this project it’s going to give us so much more flexibilty on where tables and chairs can go around the pool deck.
2022 House Goals #5: Plant some shrubs or plants.
I rocked this house goal. I knocked it out of the ballpark.
And I did all those things mainly because I worded the goal so vaguely in the first place.
My goal was to plant “some” shrubs or plants in our fairly barren flowerbeds.
How many did I plant? Five! I planted five lavender plants. A couple of them are visible in the below photo.
Does our landscaping still look pretty sparse? Yep.
At the current rate at which I’m adding plants, we will be fully landscaped around here sometime in 2042.
Am I okay with the snail speed by which I’m adding plants? Yes. Not everything is a race and I need to be able to take care of what I have before adding more.
It should be noted that I’m not okay with actual snails getting on my plants. Even I know enough to know that’s bad.
Did we do anything else around here this year?
Nope. Not a thing.
Pretty sure we took it easy most of the year.
Although I did write 135 blog posts this year, so we must have done a few other things.
After a hundred-year-long pandemic (or was it three years?), 2022 felt like a normal-ish year.
We worked, we traveled a little, we saw family, and school was more or less back to how we remember it.
Handy Husband and I are pretty deliberate about how we spend our time. As it turns out, we like building things and working on this old house together. We make a good team!
As I’ve said before, we’d do the same projects whether or not I was writing about them but it does make it sweeter to share this journey with friends.
Thank you for supporting us as we muddle our way through fixing up this old house.
We’re so happy you are here and appreciate you more than you know!
Here’s to a fantastic end to 2022 and we’re looking forward to 2023!
P.S. While we don’t do projects just to have something to write about, if you do have a question or want us to elaborate on a topic more, please let us know. We’re more than happy to answer questions!
You can always comment on this blog post, email me here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook.
Thanks again for being here! Here are some of our favorite blog posts from 2022!
The Stress of Refinishing 200-Year-Old Wood Doors
Deacon’s Bench Makeover – A $10 Find!
Refinished Wood Mirror With a Sentimental Twist
2 Comments
Dawn Olsson
The difference between your house now and when you moved in shows how much progress you have made. It’s lovely. Keep up the good work!
annisa
Thank you for noticing!