So yeah, I realize that it was only yesterday that I was saying that I’m not a “home blogger”, and yet here I am, about to talk about my house.  I’m flaky, get over it.  But I do positively adore home design, and after all, we are in the midst of a major renovation over here – though I’m not sure if “in the midst” still applies after a year and half of doing nothing about the exposed beams and bare concrete, but I prefer to pretend that we are still being productive rather than watching long chunks of Mad Men episodes late into the night.

The Nester posted her 2012 Home Goals today, so I’m linking up to share what I *hope* Lukus and I will be able to accomplish this year.  Though finishing our kitchen was my “home goal” last year…

And this is all the progress we’ve made so far…

Clearly, we got very little done on our house last year, and it doesn’t look like those lime-green countertops are going anywhere anytime soon.  With Lukus finishing up his master’s degree, some health issues on my part, and opening our home to two international students, our home has definitely been put on the back burner.  In fact, our only completed projects on this house are still just our master bathroom…

and our pantry…

But I’m feeling good ‘n healthy these days, and the dust has settled with getting our students situated, so I’m ready to start tackling some projects head on once again.

#1 – Of upmost importance to me on the homefront this year is to learn how to take better photos of my home (and everything else that happens to be in front of my camera – like two little blonde rascals I know).  I’ve been doing a little self-study, and I plan to attend the Blissdom Conference for bloggers in February to hopefully gain some more tips on photo-taking.  Plus, we’re trying to stay a little budget conscious this first quarter, so taking pictures is a nice, free way start out this year’s approach to my home.

#2 – I need to get organized.

Gee, that’s embarrassing.  When our two students moved in with us (Hyung Kun from Korea, and Rusul from Saudi Arabia, both young 20′s males), it really made this big house feel more like a home with more people filling it out (the extra money for room and board didn’t hurt either).  But since the student English program requires that they each have their own room, emptying out closets and built-in bookshelves to make room for their stuff meant a serious loss of storage.  Which brings me to my next goal…

#3 – Have a garage sale!  Can you believe I’ve never had a garage sale?!  I’m a total garage sale virgin, but considering that all of this stuff:

is currently shoved into my garage, while I have that monstrous pile on my desk, I think we’re gonna have to make some more room around here.

#4 – I want to turn my living room, which looks like this…

…into a little more something like this….

I want to cover our black floors in cork, get an enormous plushy rug, a rustic coffee table (possibly a DIY?), and just have an overall infusion of warmth, softness and comfort.  I mean, sure, our kitchen still has lime-green countertops, exposed concrete, five large paint swatches that I have yet to choose from, and no backsplash – but it’s the living room that bugs me most.  I want to walk into my living room and feel like it’s the most comfortable place on earth to curl up with a book, or wrestle with my girls, or snuggle with my husband during a movie.  Right now, it’s just one, big, unenthusiastic, “Meh.”

#5 – This is much less of a tangible goal than the others, but because we now house students, we host a Bible study, have family and friends over, and we often have political groups come over for campaign strategizing, I want our home to develop that tangible sense of “welcome”.  Have you ever watched the show Parenthood?  I just feel like the grandparents’ home has that peaceful, welcome vibe that I want; I can smell the pie in the oven and the popcorn through the t.v. screen.  That’s probably the entire reason I watch the show, because honestly, nothing ever really happens on the show.  But I just know that if I stepped through that screen and entered one of the guest bedrooms, there would be a good book ready to read on the nightstand, some plush towels for my bath, and my favorite watermelon jelly beans in a dish on the dresser.  It would be ready for me.

More than anything, that’s how I want my house to feel.  I want to have a pantry full of snacks for our students and for little friends that come over to play.  I want to have coffee ready for those late night meetings, or wine for when friends talk until 2 a.m.  I want artisan soap in my guest bathrooms, a fire going on chilly nights, or all the windows open on a pretty day.  I want my house to say to my family, to my friends, and to all who enter, “I’ve been waiting for you!  Come on in and feel loved.”  It’s what people try to create through make-overs and renovations, but really, I think it’s much easier than that.  It’s having thoughtful, little things at the ready.  But even more so, no matter how tired I am, or how much I’m in need of some quiet, it’s opening the door with a sincere, bright-eyed smile and a really good hug, and saying, “Come in!  Have you eaten yet?”

Of course, I’d like to build a real dining room table (instead of the 6′ fold up table we currently use), DIY some concrete countertops for the kitchen, strip the black and gold wallpaper in the downstairs bath and repaint EVERYTHING in that room, make-over our laundry room, rip out all of the landscaping around the house and put in hardy desert succulents, repaint the exterior….and on and on.  But let’s see how things go, shall we?

Whelp, the big, dramatic, sexy, six-month make-over of The Ugly House is still a year and a half in progress, and so far, it feels like all we’ve done is remove a hairy mole when we’ve still got an entire facelift, hairstyling, butt-firming, and Paula Abdul teeth whitening to do.  Figuratively speaking.  I honestly don’t know how some of those DIY/Home bloggers (which I’m not) turn their houses around so quickly, but it quite disgusts me.  And it doesn’t help that I live with a messy (though he makes up for it in good looks) husband, two college boys, and two small girls who could find a way to make a bigger mess out of a hurricane-ravished site.  At least our two international students aren’t messy (though I’m possibly in denial because I haven’t stepped foot in their bathroom all week).  I just keep reminding myself that the extra income from housing them, as well as their cute faces, make it worth it.  The cute faces of my girls though, are starting to wear thin.

After the chaos of Christmas and me being sick for over a week, this is what our house looked (okay, still looks) like:

Wop-wop-wop.  How does anyone get any major projects done (like building an arched wall to cover the exposed beams in our dining room, or DIY-ing some concrete countertops, etc.) in the midst of THIS?  I feel like I’m constantly falling behind – constantly picking up after children, constantly fighting a mountain of laundry, constantly having to rearrange rooms to accommodate a new student, constantly hanging up my husband’s jacket from off the dining room table….the list goes on.

If it just felt like normal chores – like cleaning a bathroom, or mopping the floors – it would be one thing.  Those things can go at least a week without HAVING to be done again.  It’s the dailiness of the massive messes that gets to me; feeling like there’s always a pile of SOMETHING that needs to be faced down.  And those piles are always telling me in such a snarky way, “You can’t even manage to face me, how do you think you’re ever gonna get another real house project done?”  It’s like trying to offer a complete make-over to a bitter, ungrateful hag.  If only my house knew what I was trying to do for it – give her a lighter feel, an updated look, a new self-esteem to compete with all the younger, thinner houses out in the suburbs.  But no, every time I try to detox my house and get it on a healthy diet of regular sweeping, bathroom cleaning and dish-scrubbing, I turn around to find my house gorging on piles of junk.

But no more!  I am NOT going to let those piles intimidate me anymore.  I’m goin’ Jillian Michaels all UP in their bidness.  Either the piles go, or the piles go ignored and I start on my big projects anyway.  We’ll turn this ungrateful hag of a house into a charming Taylor Swift of a house whatever it takes.

Please tell me there are others of you out there with rebellious houses that refuse to clean up after themselves and put on a nice smile for company?  Lie to me if you have to, but please tell me, that in spite of all the amazing blogs I see each week where they’ve renovated an entire kitchen in 4.5 minutes, or built a beautiful wrap-around deck with paperclips and recycled cardboard while blindfolded, that I am not too painfully slow and a total failure at keeping house?  I can’t let this Ugly House get to me.

As Christmas approaches, I’m becoming painfully aware of how un-cozy our living room is – cold, black concrete floors, no coffee table, boring off-white paint through the whole room, and really not even much to do in the living room.  For a living room, it’s really the place we “live” the least.  Here’s what it looked like when we moved in:

Here’s what it looked like at Christmas time last year:

And with a few minor changes, this is how it looks this year:

Obviously, we moved the piano and filled up the bookshelves, placing some inexpensive Ikea chairs in front for extra seating.  We also brought in our other couch for more seating since we host a weekly group from church, and placed our t.v. on the bookshelves directly across from it.  It’s fine.  I can be content for now.  But man, what I would give for some cork floors and a huge, cozy rug, a handmade coffee table, and some added interest and warmth (in the form of which, I’m not yet sure).

I keep finding amazing living rooms on Pinterest that I’d love to just curl up in and read a book, and I’ve been taking mental notes of the recurring themes that draw me to these photos.

I love modern, clean lines mixed with bursts of vintage elegance.  I love strong mixtures between very masculine pieces and extremely feminine pieces.  Neutrals are my cup o’ tea, but I do enjoy a bit of blue or green mixed in.  And I like a lot of natural textures, especially wood, leather, burlap and cotton – as opposed to glass, chrome, or plastic.  If I were Emily Henderson, I’d name my personal style: Hepburn marries Hemingway (Katherine, not Audrey – though I love her too).

I’ve also made a list of all the practical uses for which our living room will serve:

1. Reading:  comfortably, surrounded by books and warm lighting

2. Watching t.v./movies:  low lighting, with convenient places to set snacks & drinks

3. Playing board games:  with a large enough coffee table, floor cushions & storage for games

4. Active play (morning work-outs, wrestling with the kids, playing Kinect):  movable furniture, soft flooring

5. An expression of who we are (family, travel, books, and music):  family photos, maps, travel books, shelves full of books, Lukus’ guitar and my piano

Next, I made a list of all of the big and little elements that make up a sophisticated, homey and functional living room:

Big, beautiful mirror – Fireplace with cut wood – Bookshelves chock-full of books – Candles – Great clock – Blankets & throws – Pillows & floor cushions – Comfortable seating – Coffee table with books, plants & mementos – Side tables for drinks & storage – Pretty lamps & good lighting for all purposes – t.v. & well-designed entertainment center for storage and looks – large area rug – floor to ceiling curtains – wall art – variety of potted plants (succulents look especially clean & modern) – small, personal collections attractively displayed – family photo collections on the wall – all the fun entertainment/hobby accessories neatly stored but easily accessible

Did I miss anything?  Do any of these ideas give you inspiration for your living room?  Are you skipping personal Christmas gifts in lieu of hopefully getting some lovely things for your home like I’m hoping?

This weekend, Lukus and I worked on a simple, cheap little project:  a pair of rustic wood wall sconces.

I had originally wanted to make them to be floating shelves without the little log underneath, but this version was MUCH simpler.  Admittedly, I’m not in love with them, but it literally only cost $8 to make both of them and they can be easily converted to floating shelves on a day when I have more time.

First, I bought one of these (whatever it would be called – pre-cut wood slices?) at Michael’s for $6.99:

And had Lukus cut it in two while he was already cutting up some other items for the house.

We had some pinion wood lying around on our porch (for our chiminea that someone stole right off of our porch.  Can you believe people?) that was already split in two.

So we just centered our little shelf piece onto the pinion wood and screwed it in.

Next, we took some wall-hanging hooks ($1 for a 3-pack) and nailed them into the back of the shelf.

Those teeny-tiny nails can be pretty frustrating.  I kept having to push them in as far as I could with my thumb so the nail would stay in place while I hammered, but then the nail would put such an indention into my thumb that it would stick to my thumb when I pulled it away and I’d drop the nail on the floor.  We just need to buy a teeny-tiny hammer and that should solve our teeny-tiny problems.

Anywho, then we just drove a nail into the wall and hung our little sconces.

For now they’re in our dining room, but I’m thinking about moving them into our guest bathroom when we start working in there.  They’re not really to scale here, and I think they diminish the impact of the archway.

In fact, what I’d really like to do is remove the stems from the bottom that make them look like mushrooms, drill through the back and insert a small, invisible bracket that can be used with wall anchors and create a cluster of little floating shelves on just one wall.  But as they are now, I think they’d be cute in a bathroom or a kid’s room that has a forest theme.

Not all DIY projects are a home-run, but it’s still fun to experiment, use your imagination and some things you have on hand (like useless pinion wood that has no chiminea to burn in).  Have you done any projects where you weren’t totally thrilled with the result, but it felt good just to do something creative and take a risk anyway?  It sure helps if the project only costs $8 and only takes 30 minutes.