House Goals 2011

So, I've already shared my personal resolutions for this year here.  I've got some goals for the house, too.  Although I suppose these are goals for me too, since the closets aren't going to organize themselves.

1.  Create an organization system that really works for the front hall closet.  I've organized the coat & shoe closet several times, but none of those systems have taken hold.  Currently, we can't put away coats without stepping on shoes. 

I dream of something like this.

But since my reality doesn't exactly match up to Christina's(except possibly the half naked child playing with my shoes,) I'd be happy with this.  Just simple order.

2.  Rebuilding my stairs.  Currently the stairs that lead to our basement are a scary deathtrap.  We were completely oblivious to that until this past year, when I ripped the carpet up off of them.  This change allowed us to see how much the stairs move and bounce when you traverse them.  Scary stuff.  Checking underneath them, there are no stringers.  The stairs are nailed into tiny cleats, not stringers.

I'm not sure if I'm going to go with painted risers like these.

Or something fun like these wallpapered ones.

3. Build more bookshelves.  We're a family who loves to read.  Each of the boys have bookshelves in their rooms, and we have shelves in the family room, but I'd like to build some in the living room also.  Some of the best light is in the living room and it'd be nice to keep my fave books there.

4.  Finally put some $ into the landscaping.  We love our backyard.  We have a deep wooded yard, the deer come right up to the house, turkeys come down off the hill, and it's not unusual to see a rabbit or a groundhog.  Unfortunately all that wildlife means that our grass is patchy, and our flowers and veggies get eaten and trampled on.  We'd like to plant some new grass, put in some hardscaping, maybe a pond, and finally plant a garden that will look pretty year round.

5.  Overhaul my laundry room.  This one is way down on the list, because it might be a 2012 project.  I showed you all my pretty laundry room doors that I created here.  It'd be nice to walk into an equally pretty room.  This is a much larger both CG and myself type project, so it may not get done this year.  DIY remodel projects can be hard on a couple and I'm not sure if we're ready to handle another big project just yet.  We've been discussing how hard DIY remodels are on a marriage over on the Gardenweb Kitchen Forum in this post here.   Sidebar: if my MIL is reading this please, for the love of all that is holy, don't click on that gardenweb link.

Thanks for popping in and listening to my house goals for the year.  I'm linking this up to the Nester's Home Goals Party.