My Goals for the House in 2020

I’m a little late in writing out this post – sorry! We’ve had the most perfect Christmas and New Year followed by a few days of holidays, and I’ve really tried to embrace being away from technology and spending time with my family. It’s been amazing. I can’t say I feel especially refreshed, but I feel a bit brighter and like I’m itching to get started on a new project in the house. I’ve got goals for the house in 2020!

 

Unfortunately for me, I have a huge tax bill due at the end of January. Once this is paid, I can start saving for the next job. That’s the trouble with not having a bottomless pit of money! Our renovation is taking place at a snails pace, but do you know what? I’m OK with that. This is our forever home, so if it takes forever to get it how we want, it doesn’t matter.

 

 

Last year we overhauled the bathroom and painted the kitchen as a short term fix. The whole house had a lick of paint and we panelled the bedroom wall.

 

 

This year I’m going to accomplish three jobs in the house (and hopefully more, but if I only say three it’s not that big a list).

 

Firstly the back wall of the house needs repointing. This is a rubbish job, and we’ve had some sky high quotes in for it as it’s quite labour intensive (and rubbish). It’s not an overly skilled job, so Mr R is going to tackle this with his builder friend on hand to give advice and help out. It’s a job for warmer weather though, so will have to wait until Spring for this.

 

In conjunction with this rubbish job, we need to resurface our back yard and install a french drain between the yard and the house so all the water from the wood runs away rather than soaking up into the stone. We’ve got damp on the back wall and installing a drain and a more permeable yard surface should help alleviate this. Some previous owners have made effectively a concrete ramp, which soaks up the water and draws it onto the wall of the house like a sponge. It doesn’t help that we get all the water from the wood at the back, or are so near the river (it’s why our cellar floods and we end up with frogs down there!).

 

This job also impacts on the big job number two, which is flooring in the kitchen. At the moment the damp on the back wall would ruin any wooden flooring we put down, so we need to wait until the damp is rectified before we can install flooring. I’m going to use parquet (perhaps reclaimed, if I can be bothered with cleaning it all up and it’s significantly cheaper!) throughout the kitchen and dining area, so will remove the existing quarry tiles. They’re not original to the house, so I have no qualms about that! This will hopefully make the room seem warmer and lighter. We currently have a temporary painted concrete floor which is, to be frank, ugly AF.

I’d also like to give our hallway a makeover. We started to panel the walls (by adding a dado rail) but need to finish this off, give it a lick of paint and get a new stair runner and landing carpet. I’ve got a Pinterest board full of inspiration for Victorian hallways, but can’t decide whether to leave the floorboards as they are or to tile the hallway with Victorian style mosaic tiles. More pinning required!

I also want to change all the door knobs, light switches, plug socket covers and radiators, and have the one in the lounge moved to the centre of the wall. Who would put a radiator off centre on the wall?!

 

So those are my plans for the house for 2020. I’ve got 12 months to make them happen, and now I’ve written them down I need to!

Have you got any goals for 2020?