I just recently switched jobs. I was working as a litigation defense attorney for about 10 years when I decided to make the switch and took a job at the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania working at the Human Relations Commission investigating discrimination claims. I am so fresh on this job that I am currently still in training.

I say this just to put out there that due to the job shift, we really don’t have much extra in the budget for home projects this year. So despite our desire to do a primary suite this year, I am not sure it is in the books. Plus, we had a fairly bad rain storm which caused our electricity to go out, resulting in our sump pump’s backup batteries dying, and causing a bunch of flooding in our basement. Oh, and on Christmas! Life. Luckily we have insurance coverage, but any extra money we do have will be devoted to fixing that area of our home, including new carpet, likely a house generator, and remediation for any water damage behind the walls. It became Brent’s home office when we decided to turn his office upstairs into a bathroom. Most recently, it also became our extra lounge area. I had just changed it around and fixed it up right before the flooding. Again, life.

With that being said, we did commence some house projects at the end of the year and here are some thoughts on what we plan on doing this year.

Powder Room

Another fun thing we noticed around Christmas was that there is a leak from the toilet in our powder room. We had started doing some freshening up of the room when we did the kitchen. I repainted the trim, added a sponge paint accent wall, and changed the light fixture and mirror. The tile floor was not something we loved with the new changes and therefore, found some tile on a budget which we purchased last year. Brent is in the process of tiling the floor, and I will share with you those changes in another post.

Primary Bedroom

While in these very tumultuous times in our country, I have been spending more time evaluating my use of words and phrases. One of which is master bedroom/bathroom. Although acknowledging why I did not want to use it anymore, I had a hard time determining what I could use instead. Someone I follow on Instagram started describing it as their primary bedroom and I thought, well duh Melissa, this makes total sense. I’m just grateful for smarter people out there who can help us others.

Because we will likely not be doing the primary bathroom this year, I have been re-evaluating our bedroom. The colors of the whole house when we moved in were a very very light gray with white trim. This was literally each room’s color palette.

One idea that Brent floated awhile back was just painting our ceiling in our bedroom. He had seen it in a house that he appraised and I loved the idea. I admit that I love to paint. I find it very cathartic, fairly quick and easy and a fairly inexpensive way to jazz up a room. If I am brave (and patient enough), which I haven’t been for the last year or so since Brent first mentioned the idea, I will do this, this year. I am inspired to try something a bit more out of my comfort zone and I think it could spice up our bedroom without doing much else. I am interested in incorporating the pink from our kitchen/dining area up there much like they did in this room feature on Apartment Therapy.

Or, I have also been drawn to darks greens as well which could be fun as well.

Funnily enough, today was the first day that I realized in quite some time that I am actually the last person out of the bed in the morning. In the past, I would blame my husband for not making the bed because I was up before him (most of the blaming happened in my head). I just realized today that since we’ve been quarantined, I am normally the last one up and that the burden has now shifted to me to make it. I have failed miserably. But that’s okay. There’s always one room in the house that doesn’t scream “Welcome” to me, and most of the time it is our room. And honestly? Sometimes an unmade bed is inviting to me. I could be alone in this thought.

I really think that a pop of color on the ceiling would help make this room feel just fresh enough to last until we do our primary bathroom.

Office/Reading/Lounging Room

When we originally moved into our home, the listing indicated three bedrooms. The prior owners did not have any kids and they used one of the bedrooms as an additional closet space. We decided to use it as Brent’s office, but now that his office is in the basement it has become an unused space. Well, it’s become the cat’s room according to our son and they don’t need a room for themselves.

At first we decided that it would be fun to make it a lounge space, putting one of our TVs up there with our Nugget and use it as a quiet space. Brent then thought perhaps we could make it my office space along with a hang out space. I’m so excited! I have been doing a lot of couch sitting and dining room sitting during the pandemic for work and it’s just not a realistic long term fix for working from home. My current job will still be from home until at least the end of June 2021. So, now I have an excuse to spruce up another room. Stinks for me!

For this room, we already have some furniture we can use. We previously purchased a dresser that we want to change into a vanity that is currently just taking up space that I plan on using as a TV console. I also found a cheap desk on Facebook Marketplace that will eventually become our son’s desk when he’s a bit older. (I cannot say enough how much I love Facebook Marketplace. If you’re interested in the hunt, you can find some really good stuff on there.) I also have a rug that is currently in our primary bedroom that I think would work great in the new space and also some paint that we used in our dining space that we have since painted over with the kitchen/dining area renovations. I have desperately wanted to use it in our home someplace and I think this is just the spot! Shopping my own home for projects and spaces has been a lot of fun albeit sometimes challenging.

This space is my top priority for now as my training for work ends soon, so I will let you know how it goes. In the meantime, enjoy your days!

xx, M