Goodbye 2015

I was not going to do one of these posts. I was going to ease my type B self into January 2016 with nary a word about to-do lists, accomplishments and anything else of the sort. Then, I decided to take a peek at the past year on the blog. It was quite a rabbit hole. We did that. It was eye-opening. We did that?! It was motivating. Let’s do more!

Here is the original 2015 To Do List. Beside each item, I wrote whether or not we accomplished the task:

1. Roof & Gutters – Roof YES Gutters NO
2. Repair the rot at the front corner of the porch roof. – NO
3. Repair the rot on the backside of the greenhouse/garage by the bi-fold doors. – NO
4. Wash the house and repair 2 shutters – NO
5. Finish A’s bedroom – NO
6. Finish M’s bedroom – NO
7. Paint Hallways – SOME, but in the wrong color
8. Start thinking about the kitchen remodel for 2016. – Maybe! YES
9. Organize the house. – SOME
10. Start a Garden – NO

At first glance, the lack of accomplishment is a little depressing. However, when I look at each month of 2015, I see what happened. Last year was all about s n o w. The record-setting winter forced us to re-evaluate nearly all of our scheduled projects. Some tasks were set aside altogether (dry rot repair), and items on the master plan (exterior painting) were catapulted to the top as a result of winter damage.

Here is our 2015 in review:

January:
We figured out why only half of the house had heat, and we got it fixed.

We were also introduced to ice dams.

February:
Ice dams destroyed the sun room, damaged our big front door, and ruined the guest room walls.

March:
I was pretty depressed at this point, so my friend Rebecca and I headed to Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas for some much-needed sun and a challenging half marathon.

March ended on a better note when we found original wainscoting in the sunroom after we were forced to tear out the saturated wall board.

April:
In April, we started to believe that spring might eventually arrive. With the ice mostly melted, we had simultaneous projects going. We started on a full makeover of the guest room and the living room. The guest room was pretty straightforward, but we had a ceiling cave-in in the living room.

May was mostly spent outdoors, soaking up the sun after a hard winter, but we continued to work on the living room.

June:
In June, things got real again. BHH got its new roof, and we finally, and I do mean finally, finished the bookshelf in S’s room.

July:
After three months, we completed the basics in both the living room and the guest room.

After working very hard during the months of April-July, we did very little DIY in August and September. During that time, I wrote the most popular post series of the blog all year. It was the story of How We Bought Blake Hill House, told in three parts. Many of you were interested in how we ended up living in BHH.

August:
Due to some damage created by the roofing project, we had to have some exterior trim painting done. They did a beautiful job.

We also discovered that one of our trees is full of honey bees. That makes us happy.

September:
We began repairing and refinishing our huge front door. Unfortunately, that project remains unfinished. We simply ran out of warm enough temperatures to ensure that stain would cure properly. We will pick up where we left off when the weather gets warm and dry enough. So far, the repair is holding up very well.

October:
October 2015 was our most memorable month of the year. Andy and I took a wonderful 20th wedding anniversary trip to Ireland!

I cannot help but use an exclamation point at the end of that sentence. We both agree that it was one of our favorite vacations. We thoroughly explored southern Ireland, and I ran my first international marathon.

After waiting and waffling about it for a year and a half, we moved forward with a project that created a huge positive impact on the exterior of BHH. We had four trees removed from the side of the house. Removing the trees has brightened the interior of the house, and it has motivated us to move forward with landscaping next spring.

November:
The year was winding down, and I took to the basement. Three weeks later our basement went from this:

to this:

And this:

to this:

Andy and I still remark about how nice it is to go down to the basement, find exactly what we need, and then return it to its proper location. Our new good habits are sticking.

December:
There was a little chit chat about Christmas and Hannukah, and we eased into the new year with a trip to Toronto (Pictures on Instagram).

Now I know why other bloggers enjoy creating these posts each year. Sometimes it is easy to feel as if there is very little progress when we focus on the day-to-day of home renovation. This year that felt especially true. We had to scrap most of the original to-do list because of unforeseen circumstances mainly piles upon piles of snow and forking over a load of cash for unexpected exterior painting. Despite that, we did make a nice dent in our master plan after all.

Thank you for reading and being part of Blake Hill House’s ongoing restoration and renovation. We are excited about 2016.