2011: A Year of Home Improvement

Usually I do a recap of the past year in some form of a 'top ten events' or something. As I thought about our past year, I realized the best way to sum it up would be to label it 'The year of home improvement.' Overall, most of of our time, energy, and money was spent going into our new home. Everyone says that owning a home is a lot of work and money. Then you get a home and realize it's true!

The house we bought was built in 2006 and was foreclosed on by it's original owners. As far as foreclosures go, it was in really good shape. The owners took the ceiling fans, built-in entertainment center, central vacuum system, surround sound system, garage opener system, and the artificial grass with them. It sounds like a lot, but in this market of foreclosures and short sales we had seen everything from kitchen cabinets ripped out, holes in the walls, flooring ripped out, etc. It was evident the previous owners took good care of the home we now own. The carpet was in good condition so we didn't have to replace any flooring. Luckily the bank painted the home before we moved in (all the walls were green) and also replaced the ceiling fans.

Our home was pretty much move-in ready when we bought it but there was a lot we wanted to do to make it our home. While home shopping I quickly realized that unless you build your home, you aren't going to get everything you want. In 2011 we did the following:

• Painted the living room.
• Decorated
• Got an entertainment center. Sanded and repainted it.

• Had our kitchen cabinets painted white. I'll do a post on that later.
• Put hardware on our kitchen cabinets.
• Landscaped the back yard. More on that later also...
• Got a patio set
• Put in a stone walkway going from the side gate entrance to our pool in the backyard.
• Painted Kensie's room
• Turned the extra space in our master bedroom into a reading nook.

Lots of Saturdays were spent working in the yard, going to Home Depot, buying paint samples, etc. Along with all of the major projects we continue to decorate, hang pictures, upkeep, and work on mini home projects.

I feel like we have transformed this house into our home the past year. It's been fun, stressful, and hard work. It's also brought a sense of accomplishment. Our biggest and most expensive home projects are now complete! There are still lots of improvements we want to make to our home but it's a good feeling to have all of the big and expensive projects out of the way. Now onto 2012!