Friday Favs: My Project List

Last year, in a fit of despair after our trip to Florida was canceled, I made up a list of the house projects that needed completion. At that time, I thought the trip had only been delayed three weeks, and so I made us a "to do" list for those three weeks. The list contained pretty much all of the house projects that I blogged about last year. So you would be safe in making the conclusion that it took us a bit longer than three weeks to accomplish. :-)

I made the list almost exactly one year ago, and it has hung on our fridge since then. The last item was crossed off probably sometime in the fall, and I left the now completed list hanging there to boost morale. :-) It was nice to look at it and think "look at all that we HAVE accomplished." Especially once we turned the heat on and I had to dust multiple times a day due to the incredible amount of dust the furnace was pulling out of the basement and spewing throughout the house. Let's just say that we will need a spring cleaning this year. :-)

Every once in a while I would think about making a new list. There are some little odd and ends projects that need completing, and then, of course, there's everything that needs to be tackled in the basement. But, to be honest, I didn't want to start another list. I didn't want to think about more projects. So I left the completed one up, and it made me smile every time I saw it.

I blogged Tuesday about how we were seriously needing some encouragement in this renovation process. I think the combination of a large renovation project, the exhaustion of the holiday season, Lover's traveling, and the fact that we had plans to be gone for another month long business trip were really stressing us out. It wasn't fun anymore. We were trying to finish the basement by March 1st, for a visitor, and it just wasn't happening.

So we sat down and had a long talk. We reminded each other of the promise we made when we moved in: this house was for us, and always would be. We'd renovate on our own schedule, and we wouldn't become crazy, stressed out, maxed out renovation people. We told our upcoming visitor that the basement wouldn't be done in time, we took a weekend off, and we both felt better. And the funny thing is, we've accomplished a lot more in the last two weekends than we had previously been getting done. It's fun again!

So now that I've gotten my second (fourth? fifteenth?) wind, I'm ready to make a new list. This crisp new one is hanging in place of the old one, inspiring me to get moving on some new projects. And this year I'm being realistic. I probably won't get them all done in three weeks. ;-) Heck, the basement may take us another five years, for all I know. :-)

You'll notice that the right side, where it says "basement" is blank, with a lot of little boxes. I figured it might get depressing to list every single project that needs doing down there, and if I summed it all up in one, a la "finish the basment", well, that would just be depressing. I've told you before how I like lists, and being able to check things off. One line item for the basement just wouldn't cut it. :-)

Oh, and the old list? It's going into the scrapbook. I want to make sure we document all of the hard work that's going into this old castle. :-)

I've got some fun news coming up next week for the blog. It's something I've been working a ton on, and I am really excited about. Don't forget to check back in with me next week!

Linked to Finer Things Friday @ Amy's Finer Things