I’m not one for New Years resolutions, but in the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about some of the goals I have for 2021. I have a lot of projects up my sleeve and some personal goals as well. Now that we’ve talked about the projects we completed in 2020, let’s talk about upcoming projects that we’d like to accomplish for 2021!
I’m calling 2021 my year of storage. When we built our house at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020, we eliminated all shelves in the closets during the build process for two reasons. One, the builder puts in inexpensive builder-grade wire shelving. There’s nothing wrong with the wire shelving, I just knew I wanted something more custom. Two, if we had wire shelving put in, we’d have to take it down, fill all the screw holes before we could reconfigure and add something we customized.
We have an IKEA Pax closet system in our walk-in closet and I absolutely love it. The cost, the functionality, the organization…everything about it! We originally planned to install Pax systems in all the closets, it was just a matter of time because we needed the budget to purchase them. Anyways, here’s our first project.
Closet Storage
After 11 months in our home, our closets are driving me bonkers. Wait, that’s an understatement. I’ve been wanting to order Pax systems for the 3 upstairs bedrooms for a few months now, but they have always been out of stock online. I checked last week and they were fully back in stock, hooray! I quickly ordered 3 closet systems – for the boys’ walk-in closet, Avery’s closet and Addison’s closet. We will be customizing these and adding some of our own shelves so stay tuned! Here’s some never before seen photos of our horrible closets. They need help!


We also plan on adding tongue and groove to our walk-in closet. So excited for this!

Basement Closet
This bedroom will double as a guest room/Nate’s office while he’s working from home. The closet is the size of our walk-in closet so I’m pretty excited to use this for storage. I bought 3 large metal shelves from IKEA and this will house all of our off season items, totes and extra home decor that I have.
Finishing the Basement
This is our biggest project yet! We plan on finishing the basement the first part of this year. I’ll talk more about this in the upcoming weeks with our final basement plans, fun built-ins, etc. We have a spare bedroom, bathroom, family room and a workout room coming soon!


Mudroom
Did you know we have a mudroom? It’s small, but it definitely needs some functionality added to it. This is where we come in from the garage and the kids can take all their snow gear off. My plan is to add some sort of accent wall with hooks so the kids can easily hang their winter gear up (again storage) and of course, this area is kind of blah right now so I want to make it look pretty and calming.
Office
I’ve mentioned this a few times and the thought hasn’t gone away. I want to add some sort of sliding doors to our office between the living room. I’m not sure on the logistics just yet, but I feel like this room needs some division from the living room. I don’t want to give up all that natural light so it will have to be doors with windows. More on this to come in 2021!
Kitchen
Our kitchen has always felt a little incomplete to me. I honestly couldn’t figure out what was missing and thought it just needed a tile backsplash. It dawned on me the other night that our kitchen is missing up cabinets! When we built, I debated eliminating the upper cabinets and a few recommended that we could always add them in after the fact if needed. Well, now I’m thinking we need some cabinets on that back wall. I’m not sure if this will happen this year or if we’ll even install cabinets, but I’m adding it to the list with hopes that we figure out something for this space in 2021.

Laundry Room
Okay, our laundry room makeover probably won’t happen this year, but a girl can dream, right? Our laundry room is constantly a mess. There’s no storage or countertop. I’m dreaming of a tile floor, built-in cabinets, and a sink (if we can add one). This room is on our 5 year list, but I’m bumping it up because we use this room every day and I would love for it to actual work for our needs.
Outdoor Space
Working on our backyard and landscaping was always on our year 2 list, but I’m unsure if this will happen in 2021. We bumped up finishing our basement, so we will have to wait and see come spring. Ideally, we’d love to add a large concrete patio in our backyard with some lounge furniture, maybe an outdoor dining table and a fire pit area. If not this year, it will definitely have next year!
Wow, that’s a long list. Nate and I have a lot to work on in 2021. Think we can do it?
Personal Goals
Because I want to hold myself accountable, here’s a few personal goals I’m working on for 2021.
- Read – I used to love to read books, so my goal for 2021 is to read a book a month (12 books total).
- Blog – Even though I just started my blog a few months ago, I want to continue blogging with a new post 2 – 3 times a week.
- Grow – I want to continue to grow my knowledge and learn something new every week. Even if it’s how to take better photos, something blogging related or even DIY related.
Well, that’s all I have for now. Happy New Year to you and thanks for being here!
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