House Projects On Deck

A friend asked me the other day whether our house in Dublin was finished. Well, sort of. When we moved in we obviously did a ton of work before we moved in. It made more sense to do as much as we could before we moved two kids into the chaos. When we did move in, we figured we had a few large projects on the horizon in the coming years. We initially thought that renovating our upstairs bathroom would be first on that list, but I think we’ve switched our priorities.

We actually made some major improvements to the upstairs bathroom that make it less of a dungeon and more livable long term. I painted the bathroom floor and the shower wall tiles and that made all the difference. I think could live with it for years now.

But the other project that was on our list was adding a staircase to the third level. Our attic is finished, with a skylight and carpeting and lighting, but it only has a drop-down ladder as access from the second floor. We have a bed up there and we sleep there when we have guests who stay in our room, but adding a dormer with a staircase would make it a proper guest bedroom.

So that is our major project that we need to save for over the coming year or two.  In the meantime, we have two other categories of projects. First, I want to finish the finishing touches on just about every room in the house. They’re not big, but they’re keeping each of the rooms from feeling finished. Noah’s room needs a floor lamp for reading, since we only have the overhead for a kid who demands at least five books before every nap and bedtime. Maya’s room could use a rug, the master bedroom needs all the artwork hung on the wall and some sort of solution for the blinds. Downstairs, the bathroom needs to be wallpapered and I need to figure out shelving for both bathrooms so that kids stop getting into every single item every time we accidentally leave the door open.

The second category is the exterior. The house has been painted, but the front garden needs desperate help and the back garden needs personality and functionality. And really, what I want to do is figure out a way to DIY stucco all of the horrible concrete blocks they tend to make everything with in Ireland.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to share the kids’ bedrooms soon, and then potentially the upstairs bathroom with all that painted and stenciled tile. Those are the small goals before I start to tackle the bigger ones. Stay tuned!