Elsie’s 2022 Project List

Is there anything better than making a project list for the new year? I love to make a project list for my home at the beginning of each year.

It always ends up changing and evolving in some way by the end of the year (and I never get every item done!), but at the end of the year I am usually surprised how much we completed.

You can see last year’s goals here and last year’s end-of-year recap here. In this post, I’ll share my project list for 2022 and what I decided not to do this year, as well.

Here’s my mood board so you can get an idea of the general vibe and family of colors I want to stay within.

My biggest priorities are that rooms feel super cozy and that they are versatile for my love of holiday decor, themed parties for my kids, and swapping accent colors by mood or season.

Entryway. If you follow us on IG you have seen that I’m already pretty far into this renovation. After much head-scratching, we decided to close in the second story above our entryway.

By adding that new ceiling/floor, we gained an entryway that is much easier to decorate and a little bonus room above the entryway (more on that below).

Currently, we’re adding some moldings to this room and planning to do a wallpapered ceiling. Oh, and we chose herringbone wood for just the entryway when we replaced the tile in November.

Living Room. When you enter the home, this room is just to your left. We are adding built-ins, painting it a moody color (it’s not a dark color, but it feels moody to me in comparison to what I usually choose).

We were originally planning to keep the fireplace, but it was damaged during the tile demo and couldn’t be salvaged. We ended up designing a new fireplace that I love even more. It has a seat and feels really great for the scale of the space.

So, all is well that ends well. I can’t wait to show you this completed space!

Dining Room. This room is being renovated right now. We added a wall with an arched opening so it’s less open (but still plenty open).

I decided to do bookshelves surrounding the dining table and add a faux fireplace. There will be a window seat below the window.

This one is a little more difficult to imagine, but in my brain it is AMAZING and I can’t wait for you to see it.

I was inspired by a restaurant we ate at once that had bookcases everywhere with books and little tea light candles. I think it will be so cozy and fun to decorate.

Powder Bathroom. Augh, finally! This has been out of commission for months since we did the wood floors.

It was surprisingly really difficult for me to design. I still haven’t picked the wallpaper and the paint color, but I’ve picked everything else. It’s going to be cute and blend with the rest of the rooms really well.

Art Room. I have to give Collin credit that he did so much nice work to this room before he left. He built out the shelves to touch the ceiling and they are both more beautiful and more functional now.

Currently, it’s been stuffed to the brim with furniture since we’ve been renovating the other rooms. I haven’t had access to it for months and I really miss it.

It has some drywall holes that need patching (here’s a hack to patch a drywall hole) and needs some minor decor, but it’s close to being completed.

Movie Room. We recently finished this room! Here’s my movie room tour + home theater ideas.

Last year, I decided to buy a pottery wheel and kiln. I was planning to put them in our garage and my husband really wanted me to use this little attached shed instead.

I was hesitant because it didn’t have a water line and or as easy access to our house.

I spent so much time and money in 2021 getting this room ready. Aside from purchasing a kiln and wheel, we had to get a sink added (and they had to make the water tap a freezeproof outdoor one).

I had to get a new roof put on the shed because it was leaking, and I had to get new doors put on because the doors previously had no windows and it was not weatherproofed.

All of that is finally done and now I am just waiting on an appointment to get the kiln and vent installed. We’re so close! By the way, I’m really glad Jeremy talked me out of the garage now.

Landing and Hidden Room. At the top of our stairs, there is a little landing area that leads into our bedroom (as well as the hallway to the other rooms).

Then, where you see the rail here is where the new floor was added above the entryway. So now we have this little extra room that connects to this landing. It’s a small room, basically a large closet size.

I purchased a vintage armoire from Etsy and it will become the door into the hidden room. We decided to make it a kids library inside.

One of my biggest parenting goals for the next 10 years is to encourage my kids to become readers, and I think this will be a good step in that direction.

Main Bedroom. Our bedroom is really big and weird. When we first moved in, it freaked me out because it made all our furniture look shrunken. We had scale issues for sure. It took me a long time to get ideas for the best layout, too since it’s closer to a square shape than a rectangle.

We don’t have enough room for a full living room setup (sofas, chairs, coffee table), but it also clearly needs more furniture than just the bed and dresser. I would say it was probably the most challenging room in our 1990s puzzle.

I’m excited to show you what I have planned, but I’m also still crossing my fingers that we can make it feel how we want it to feel. I’m the most nervous about this room.

Other plans: A few more rooms we have our our list this year either as a “hell yes” or a “maybe” are: Jeremy’s office (it’s almost done, but needs an annoying drywall patch job that would disrupt his work), main bathroom (if our contractor can meet our budget we will probably go for it this spring!) and our home gym (currently functional but needs work to feel complete).

The other thing I am contemplating is adding a playhouse to our backyard. We really loved our last one and if we’re going to do it I don’t want to wait too long since kids grow fast. On the fence with that one.

What’s not our list: I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but we decided not to do our big kitchen renovation this year. The reason why is because if we wanted to finish it by the end of the summer, we need to start now to be on schedule.

Since we just renovated through the holidays I am not in the right headspace to plan my dream kitchen this season and I don’t want to have any regrets. So, we decided to hold off until 2023 for that project.

If all goes well, we will wrap up our renovations and I will spend next fall and Christmas enjoying our new spaces, using my functional ’90s kitchen to make Christmas cookies and planning our dream kitchen.

As of right now, I think January of 2023 would be a good time to start demo. It’s a huge project that will put us without a kitchen and laundry room for months, and I’m just not feeling that for 2022.

Plus, when I looked at our list of what all we have going this year, it felt like we already have more than enough renovations for the blog, so no harm in spacing out more for the future. I don’t want to stuff my schedule too much or rush through this since it’s truly a dream project.

I’m really excited to share this year’s renovations with you! Which room are you the most excited to see? xx- Elsie

P.S. Click here to read more about my open floor plan.