Feeling Resolute
Happeeeeeeee New Year!!!
And now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, on to the topic of the day: New Year’s Resolutions. Do you make them? Do you loathe them? John and I have embraced the tradition for a while now (here’s our New Year’s post from last year, and thankfully we each accomplished our goal in the last 365 days). We’ll spare you all of the new personal “improvements” that we’re planning to tackle in twenty-ten, but we do have a couple of home/blog related resolutions on our list this year.
I, for one, want to simplify day to day life. From replacing three store bought products with one homemade cleaner that does it all to adjusting to life with a little one by streamlining the way our house functions, I’m all about easy upgrades and smart switcheroos for the next twelve months. John on the other hand has resolved to seriously supe up the site. Nothing too techie and weird, just improved function and usability so you guys can find things more easily and click around to your heart’s content. He’s such a guy isn’t he? But I guess in our own way we want to add function and ease.
Anyway, enough about us. We wanna know what you’re setting your mind to this year- especially if it’s home related. And who knows, maybe commenting here for all to see will help you stick to your guns and accomplish your goals in record time. Here’s hoping it works for us…
Psst- Wanna know what we were up to on New Year’s Day two years ago? Spoiler alert: we were on our way to Ikea. Here’s the full scoop.
Image found here.
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Comments
Happy New Year Sherry, John, Burger & Bean! :) This year will bring changes for our lil’ family ~ my hubby is deploying in June, so our resolution for the first half of the year is to make the most of our time together, and make every minute/memory count!
Among other personal goals, I am sitting down at this very minute (after checking YHL of course!) and planning out grocery lists & exercise routines from my new Biggest Loser books ~ baby #2, here we come! :)
Finally, I’m resolving to do Project 365, where you photograph one thing from your daily life each day for 365 days. With a adventurous but adorable 3 year old to keep up with, sometimes the time just slips away, and I think it’ll be a fabulous way to keep the hubs updated while he’s away in the big “sandbox” as they call it ;)
Happy New Year! I look forward to hearing more about how you streamline the way your house functions.
Instead of specific resolutions this year, I came up with people I want to learn from in 2010. And one of them is you Sherry! You can check them out at http://apaigeinhistory.blogspot.com/2009/12/happy-early-new-years.html.
Wishing you all the best in 2010!
My two home-related resolutions are to follow a systematic organizing plan and to stop reading and start decorating. I’ve been reading decorating books/sites like mad lately and just need to make the leap to putting paint on walls!
Happy New Year guys!
Ok so where do we start with our resolutions for the home:
finish building the extension, get a roof for the extension, plaster the extension, get heating and electrics in the extension, plumb the extension, get boiler and radiators fitted in main house, fit bathroom, tile bathroom, fit kitchen, tile kitchen, paint hall, paint stairs, paint landing, put shelves in cupboard, put a hatch on the loft, put new skirting board through the whole house (and paint of course), plaster living room, paint living room, plaster dining room, paint dining room. carpet throughout. Soft furnish. Move in.
Other than that, oh…just a wedding to organise and about 4 months to organise it in.
Just a quiet one this year at Casa Kate’s ;)
Wow, you guys have really got my wheels turning. Well, first off I’m going to write down my goals, and check them off. For my house…I plan to make it functional and inviting one room at a time, already started the process w/ painting a room, and clearing…. CLUTTER! : -’]
One thing that I would like to share with your readers, which is what my husband and I did on New Years Eve is, discuss the things that we are glad that we did in 2009. That put a smile on our faces and made us realize how much was accomplished during the year. Oh, by the way….I’m getting a new CAR. Whoo Hooo!
Hello Youngsters! Very Happy New Year to you :-)
This is an awesome question!!
Last year I came across an article by Christine Kane (who has a great blog by the way) suggesting a Resolution Revolution and instead of making a resolution, choosing a Word of the Year and letting that word influence and guide you throughout the whole year. I chose Courage as my word and it lead to all kinds of personal and home improvments too! I needed courage to let go of clutter and to paint our living room beautiful Glidden Fennel Green (which is how I found your website oddly enough! looking for Fennel!)
I found it much more satisfying than a resolution, because it really did nudge me when I needed nudging and just became a thread throughout the year of how I wanted to live.
:-)
Maggie in Miami
Good luck with your resolutions! Mine include having the upstairs of our house fully renovated (we tore it apart last year so we could re-insulated it with spray foam, then cover it up with new drywall, paint and everything else). It’s stuck in the drywall finishing stage, and it’s killing me! Other goals are smaller… decluttering, new furniture for our TV room, and some small outside projects.
I’m not one for resolutions, it’s too easy to become disappointed when they don’t work out. Instead, I chose an inclination last year, and it worked out so well, that I’m inclinating again! More here if you’re interested!
http://www.candiedfabrics.com/2010/01/01/looking-ahead-long-term-goals/
I did also choose a word for the year : simplify!
Happy New Year – Candy
My home related goals this year include (among other things)- attempting to silver leaf a tiny second hand table (Jenny from Little Green Notebook did an awesome post of silverleafing recently and I was so inspired), redoing the dining area and DIY-ing a headboard for our bedroom.
Btw, you guys are doing amazingly well in the Homies. Well done!
I was just sitting here looking through your site for design inspiration, so I thought I’d leave some feedback for John’s resolution- I’d love to be able to search specific sections. For example, I’m looking for bedroom inspiration, so it would be great if I could search only the Design Dilemmas for “Bedroom.”
Happy New Year!
Love the site and I’m inspired to do several home projects in 2010…and hoping to use your site’s advice along the way! As a huge fan one suggestion I’d like to make is that you can search room makeover suggestions by room type…My next project is a bedroom and I was scrolling through all room types to find the bedroom posts…Thanks and keep up the fantastic work…I always look forward to seeing your latest! Happy New Years!
Hey Nikki and Lauren,
Great suggestion! For the time being you can always search bedroom makeover or bathroom makeover or whatever room you’d like to see more of in our search bar (which will turn up a number of posts on that subject). But in the future we’d love to categorize everything by room for even more easy navigation. Thanks again for the idea!
xo,
s
Hellll-oooooooooo… dying here to know the sex of the bean!!!!! TELL US ALREADY!!!
Hey Sally,
That’s on the agenda for tomorrow’s post, so you won’t have to wait much longer!
xo,
s
This year I want to:
Pray as a family before our meals. I have been neglectful of this, but I find it important to get my 2 year old in the routine.
Go through my junk drawers and purge the stuff we don’t need/use.
Get pregnant! I see the specialist tomorrow, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this can happen in the beginning of 2010 rather than the end! :)
On the home front, I’m being better about catching clutter before it grows out of control (mainly paper things), whether by preventing it from the gitgo … or, say, maybe putting it some attractive new baskets? (no, no! LOL)
Also, I’ve decided there’s no shame in calling in a Mr. Handyman type service to breeze through a series of small jobs in one day, when they’d take me much longer, so I’m planning to do that later this month.
And now that I’ve discovered a good source of broken tile bits at a good price, I may finally make some time in 2010 to do some small mosaic projects that I’ve wanted to do for years but haven’t, partly due to lack of materials.
I’m going to try so hard this year to open mail on the day it arrives! I am terrible at letting it pile up, which makes such an ugly mess on my desk. *fingers crossed* that I’ll stick with it.
Sherry, I’m really excited to hear what the two of you are having. One of my friends had a little girl on December 6th. My husband and I went to meet her yesterday and all I can say is my heart melted. I’m sure whatever the two of you have will be a huge blessing for your family and you’ll be wonderful parents. Best wishes to you both!
Happy new year! I hope you will share your homemade cleaning solution and your thoughts on how it works compared to store-bought products. I’ve been wanting to something similar for a while now. Also looking forward to hearing about how you plan to streamline household functions–always a good thing!
Hey Shannon,
Of course we’ll share any and all streamlining discoveries that we make in the coming year. And to check out a bevy of homemade cleaning solutions that we already have on hand (but many of which we have yet to try) just click here: http://www.younghouselove.com/2009/10/clean-up-your-act-all-natural-homemade-cleaners/
Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Hey Jan’s Camera,
It’s actually not our pic (although we love it). You can follow the link at the bottom of the post to see where we found it (we credit all pics that aren’t ours that way). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Two years ago, my New Year’s Resolution was to start recycling. It’s probably the only one I’ve ever kept.