14 WEEKS TO FINISH 14 PROJECTS

Since we moved into this house I've learned that I'm not a closer - I start projects and don't finish them - and that DIYing an old house into a new home is expensive. 

When we moved I really wanted to make sure that that we lived within our means and that we didn't get into debt to make improvements - and I also wanted to try really hard not to have a 'this will do' attitude - to finish projects and rooms to the best of our ability. We're not going for perfection - just a house that we can be proud of because we have done the very best with what we have. But now a year in, although we have made a lot of progress and our house is starting to feel way more like home, I think we've lost those aims that we had when we started out. So I've set myself a challenge - I won't start any project that I haven't started or haven't already bought supplies for - and I wont spend more than £10 to finish each of those projects. 

The rules are:

1. It has to be a project that we have already planned  

2. We have to have already purchased the supplies for the project

3. We can only spend up to £10 (around $16 US) if we need small items like extra screws, nails, glue, sandpaper, thred etc - if a project is going to cost more than that to complete it will have to wait

I've counted 14 projects that we can do without spending money - some of them are really big, some of them are small but all of them will make an impact on how our house looks, feels and works. So I'm giving myself 14 weeks for 14 projects - my end date will be the 2nd of February 2015 (can you believe we're that close to 2015?! Aaaahhh!). I really hope setting ourselves this challenge will help us get back on track with money and time - and give us some motivation to finish what we start.

There are two things that we'll spend more money on - one is having our master bedroom re-skimmed (we already had a date booked in) and the other is painting the new fence our neighbours put in on the boundary we share (we need to do it asap to protect the wood) but that's it - no other cheats allowed!

Here are our 14 projects:

LIVING ROOM

1 - organise toy storage

2 - repaint the floor

3 - put up curtains 

GIRLS ROOM

4 - make cushion covers

5 - add book storage

6 - add decor

KITCHEN

7 - rehang cupboard doors

8 - paint the counters

9 - lay peel and stick tile

HALL

10 - fill and sand the walls

11 - paint the walls

12 - lay peel and stick tile

13 - paint the upstairs hall floor

MASTER BEDROOM

14 - clear and organise the mountains of stuff

I'm exited to look back at the beginning of February to see how much we have done and how much (or how little) money we have spent. Wish us luck!