This is a great blog challenge–one where you can sit down and outline what you plan to tackle in your home this next year. We are joining in at The Nesting Place “Home Goals” challenge today and sharing what is topping our  home “To-Do” lists as the new year begins.

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I have three large projects planned for our home this new year.

The biggest project we have planned this 2012 is turning a part of our “L” shaped basement into an office/education room for me and my boys. This project requires some hired help, I wish I felt handy enough to do it all on my own but sometimes you just have to ask and/or pay the professionals. Here are a few shots of our before basement. Work begins this month so I hope to have lots of updates over the next few months on 11MagnoliaLane.

Our second project is adding a bench seat to our kitchen dinning area. The bench seat will offer some additional storage as well as two custom book shelves to store my favorite cookbooks. I love the design our contractor and I came up with. I think it will work well with the half wall that separates the kitchen and family room. I am also super-excited to have cushions and pillows made to add some style and color to the kitchen area.

Our last project is to paint our staircase railing black as well as remove the carpet and add ebony wood steps with a white kickboards. We recently had a flood and had to replace all the hard wood floors on our entire main level. We originally had 1.5-inch cherry planks and we decided to upgrade 4-inch ebony beech. We are thrilled with the results but the cherry railings and tan carpeted steps are an eyesore when you enter into our home compared to the new floors. So that is our final “must do” project for 2012.

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With a brand new house my list of projects is a mile long! To be honest, sometimes I stare at these new rooms and think where am I going to start? This post gave me a good jumping off point, and here are the top priorities on my “to-do” list.

Starting with my kitchen…I have a great new kitchen but it needs some personalizing and some “warming up”. It also needs more storage as I have the world’s smallest pantry (in my opinion…). So here is what I am working on in the breakfast area… new curtains, covering shades for the chandelier, adding open shelving above the desk and I am trying to hunt down a cabinet off Craigslist to help store some of my kitchen overflow. Oh, and we are also having a bench built (just like Terry) for under the window area for more seating.

This is what we hope will be our new kitchen table, I just sanded it down today. I adore my round one (shown above) but it just doesn’t hold the 5 of us comfortably.

This was the table my family used when I was growing up. I actually sanded off some of my younger brother’s childhood “doodling” on it today (from about 20 years ago) which made me glad we were re-purposing it. It is butcher block, so its crazy heavy. Maybe once I make it pretty again my husband will forgive me for carting it along with us through like 20 moves?

After the kitchen, my laundry room is high on my list. I have laundry room envy whenever I see Christy’s gorgeous laundry space! {Notice we have the same chandelier? We do that sometimes, unintentionally, our taste is very similar}. I have a nice space to start with, but need to make it more practical with organization, shelving and some color.

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I’m kind of heaving a sigh of relief because my biggest project, the kitchen, is DONE DONE DONE (not that I’m gloating or anything).  But, there’s plenty more to do.  My  husband keeps wondering what I actually liked about this house when we bought it, since I’m changing everything!  I keep telling him that I saw the potential and I just need to bring it out.  Not sure if he believes me.

At the top of my list for 2012 is the master bedroom, sitting area, and bathroom.  I think we often neglect our master bedroom when we move–first we paint and fix up the kids’ rooms so they’ll feel at home right away, then I deal with the kitchen and the living areas, and then finally (maybe) I get to the master bedroom.  But, really, it should be a room that we love to be in.  I’m almost embarrassed to show you the paint color on the walls now, but you’ll understand why it has to go:

The picture doesn’t really capture the brightness of the green.  My dining room was painted almost this exact color, but that was ten years ago.  My, how our tastes change!  I’ve already painted the master bathroom (Pebble Beach by Benjamin Moore, it’s gray with a tiny touch of blue), and the sitting area got the first coat tonight.  The actual bedroom will be last because I have to find a friend or neighbor with an extension ladder so I can get to the vaulted ceiling.  Good times!  Here’s a sneak peak at the bathroom so you can see the color:

The best part of the bathroom is the rocking chandelier I bought off Craigslist and hung over the bathtub, but you’ll just have to wait for the reveal to see that!

Another task is to put built-in shelves in the bathroom, and possibly in the sitting area.  My chief contractor, aka my  husband, will be starting that this weekend.  Also, my entire house needs crown molding, and I will finally get to use that nail gun I got for my birthday!  Last, but not least, I want to hang sheer curtains on the screened porch.  I scored some gauzy (almost tulle) curtains at Ikea in December that were 2 for $4.99, so once spring is sprung, they’ll get to go out back to dress up the porch.  Maybe in each corner?

I’ll think of more along the way, I’m sure.  After all, give me a can of spray paint and I’m happy!  Meanwhile, we’re all looking forward to sharing with you as we reach our 2012 home goals!

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Don’t forget to enter to win the yummy Toyko Milk handcream and beautiful Ruby Red Ring we are giving away this week! Enter by leaving a comment on the post HERE.

*ALSO*

For those local Warrenton, Virginians…Janet from The Empty Nest is giving an Annie Sloan chalk paint demonstration on Saturday January 21st, check out the details HERE.