I sat down to write a new post last Friday — the first new post in a very long time — and I realized there were so many blog posts I never wrote last year. (I also realized, coincidentally, that Friday was the first anniversary of the Create A Home You Love Blog.)
On January 5, 2023, I launched this blog with a notebook full of ideas and big plans to post a new article every week.
But 2023 didn’t unfold as I expected. New years seldom do. I have not nurtured this baby blog like I promised I would. The nice thing about blogs is that — unlike toddlers or puppies — they will wait patiently for you.
Speaking of puppies …
This is our new dog, FlapJack.
Adopting him was the best surprise of 2023!
He does not wait patiently. 🙂
But my home does. Homes and blogs are a lot alike in that way. My home waited patiently for me while the to-do lists and clutter piled up. We did a lot of decluttering last year. Letting go of things we don’t want or need anymore to make room for something new. That doesn’t really make for compelling blog posts.
But it sure felt good.
We did some other stuff in our home last year too. Here’s a quick recap.
Blog Posts I Never Wrote – Kitchen 2.0
We fully renovated our 1970’s kitchen the summer before our son was born. He’s 12 now. It was time for a refresh we call Kitchen 2.0, an ongoing series of mini-projects to make our kitchen more functional and beautiful.
A lot of bowls (so many bowls!) and weird kitchen gadgets we never use piled up in those 12 years. We cleaned them out and the drawers open and close smoothly now.
Exciting? Yes! Blog-worthy? Um … I didn’t think so either
My favorite Kitchen 2.0 project was transforming the front of our island from this …
To this!
It’s another one of those blog posts I never wrote. But this story isn’t so much a DIY tutorial. It’s more about how all of the flaws seem glaring when you are in the middle of something … but as time passes, you really don’t notice the mistakes anymore. In fact, sometimes you forget about the flaws altogether and only see how nice everything is now.
I was planning to write a DIY tutorial about how I painted my boring white builder-grade pantry doors with a blend of colors pulled from the tiles. But I kept forgetting to take progress photos. Here they are now!
Another unexpected surprise of 2023 was that I remembered that I really do enjoy painting furniture (and doors!). I was kind of burned out on painting for a while there. I learned that when I just relax and paint — not worrying about documenting every little step — painting becomes fun again.
I’m free to experiment. When I make a mistake, I just paint over it without fanfare. If I don’t like how it looks, I just keep going until I do. I preached this over and over when I was doing all of those furniture painting tutorials for All Things New Again. But it was hard to actually approach my painting this way when the cameras were rolling.
Add that little life lesson to my list of blog posts I never wrote!
New Front Doors
We got fancy new front doors in 2023.
Wait! I DID write a blog post about this! Woo hoo!
The Great Garage Clean-Out of 2023
This is huge. Also kind of boring to write about.
We cleaned out the garage.
Now, for the first time in over a decade, we can park our cars inside the garage. That sounds so simple, but it took A LOT of work, a lot of weekends, a lot of trips to Goodwill and the county dump to get here.
And an entirely new mindset.
There are many blog posts I never wrote in here. Most of them are about the perils of hoarding old furniture. 🙂 But underneath that, I think, are worthwhile questions to consider like:
- How do you decide what is worth keeping and what needs to go?
- How does discarding physical clutter help you feel better emotionally and energetically? This question is so fascinating to me.
- How do you transition from one phase of life to the next, especially when you aren’t even sure what that next phase looks like yet?
- Will being able to park TWO cars in the garage this winter jinx us so we don’t get any snow? I hope not!
Cosmic Smashbook
Finally, this falls more under the create a life you love category than create a home you love. But I’m really excited about it and I do believe the two go hand in hand.
I completed a three-month training course last year to become a certified Cosmic Smashbook Guide.
Cosmic Smashbooking is a guided art-journaling process where we journal a little, make an easy art project and learn about ourselves along the way. I have wanted to teach art classes beyond furniture-painting classes for years. I am doing it now!
And if you live near Fairfax County, Virginia, I’d love for you to come to one of my classes Wednesday nights at the Pohick Library in Burke.
I realized something else as I was writing this.
The nice thing about blog posts I never wrote is there’s nothing stopping me from writing them now. Why not?
I have a whole year in front of me to do it!
Happy New Year!
Love, Courtney
QUERY: What is something you planned on doing last year that you never go around to do? Can you try again this year? Let me know in the comments!