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Around the House:Unfinished Projects

By Dawn Sailors In Around the House, General Home Things, Projects

Anyone who’s stopped by my house for the past year and a half has probably heard the phrase “You’ll have to excuse the random unfinished projects around here. We’re in a constant state of remodeling.” While that’s certainly the truth, it’s really only half-true. You see I have a sickness. I love starting new projects and getting this place looking good, but I have a problem actually finishing those projects.

It seems like my creative imagination is both a blessing and a curse in this particular arena, as I can easily imagine what I want every room to look like and plan how to get there. The problem is that once I get about 75% done, I can also easily imagine what the finished product will look like and then I lose motivation to actually finish that project. And have you ever noticed that once you get used to something, you can pretty much live with it looking like that indefinitely?

But I’m trying to get better. So I’m making a list. Here are (mostly) all of the projects I need to just buckle down and finish up around this house. Preferably before I start any new ones, but I can’t make any promises. It’s a sickness after all.

Install Baseboards:
First on the list is the baseboards. Not that it will be the first to get finished, but it bothers me the most. They’ve been like this for over a year and its my goal to get them finished before Vera learns to crawl.

 

 

Paint Trim:
Then we have the unfinished trim work. I want to eventually paint all the trim white, but that’s a big job. I randomly started a few places, so my goal is to finish those first and then move on to finishing the first floor. A lot of work, but will make such a huge difference!

Patch and Paint Basement:
I first talked about this little accident when we bought the couch for our basement. That was quite a while ago, and obviously since it’s on this list, it still looks like this. Basically squeezing a giant sofa down a narrow staircase put a rather large hole in our basement wall, which put finishing the paint on hold until we patch the hole.

Second Coat Railings:
I am actually proud of myself for finishing the first coat of both railings in our home, but then I ran out of paint and that was the speed-bump that knocked me off track.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paint Stairwell:
This one’s kind of embarrassing. Ok they’re all embarrassing, but this one really bothers me. When we were painting the stairwell shortly after moving in, we only got as far as our extended rollers could reach. It’s the give and take of high ceilings I guess. They can look great, but ladders are required. For a while our excuse was that we didn’t have a tall enough ladder to finish the job. Now that we actually do have a ladder though, its pretty much just laziness that has kept this from getting done. Ok maybe a pregnancy in there contributed to my reluctance to climb a ladder propped over a staircase, but regardless of past excuses, I intend to wrap this up very soon.

 

Bench Building:
I started building this bench a few months ago because I wanted a simple and inexpensive piece of furniture to sit in front of our large front windows. /this is as far as I got before our little 7-volt screwdriver failed me. But since we got a shiny new 18-volt for Christmas last year, that excuse no longer holds water. Shouldn’t take long to cross this one off the list.

Bedroom Furniture Refinishing:
These two dressers in our master bedroom were old pieces that were screaming for a refinishing job.So I obliged. But when I got to the last few details I ran out of steam and they’ve been sitting like this ever since. I also need to finish painting around the base of the dressers and I think they could use a little touch up on the rest of the paint too.

Guest Bath Vanity:
Our guest bathroom is far from being finished. In fact it is one of the least finished rooms in the house, right behind the master bath. That being said, it would look at least a little more complete if I get in gear and finish the vanity. A little paint and some new hardware and voilá! It will be totally transformed.

Kitchen Sink:
Our kitchen is close to finished, but this new sink has been sitting on the floor in our dining room for a few months now. I debated putting this on the list, because it is something that we need Brett’s dad and his handy-man skills to finish, but since I see it everyday, I decided to include it. Hopefully now that summer is here, Brett and his dad will have a little more free time to fit this in. Can’t wait!!

 

 

 

Hide Basement TV Wires:
We were so excited to hang our new flat screen in the basement when we got it that we put it up without proper wire hiding efforts. Since its kind of a pain to take it down, its been like this for a few months now. We want to get a second cable box for down here too, so we’ve been telling ourselves we’re waiting on that so we can hook it up at the same time we have the TV down. Time to get the ball rolling I think.

Hide Living room TV Wires:
Since we have our TV over the fireplace in our living room, I am nervous about drilling into the wall to mount the TV and hide the wires. We’ve been talking about having someone come in to look at the fireplace for a while so hopefully we’ll be able to do that soon and I can get a recommendation on those wires at the same time. This one might be a little lower on my list, but on the list it is.

So  there you have it: my embarrassing list of unfinished projects. (Actually as I’m sitting here typing, I can already think of a few more that I forgot to include, but this is a good start at least.) My list of as-yet-unstarted projects is much longer, but hopefully I can force myself to mull through the boring, but necessary, final stages of the unfinished before I move on to the excitement of  starting something new. My plan is to tackle these one at a time until my list is whittled down. I’ll keep you posted on how its going. Wish me luck!!