2008. What happened?

There's a big blog party going down at Southern Hospitality. I dropped by to pick up some inspiration for 2009 projects and it got me thinking: what exactly have I done since the start of 2008?
Well, there was one big project that we started and finished that year. Surprisingly for us it was drama-free and didn't involve any design dilemmas. OK there was the vessel sink fiasco but the powder room update turned out fine, much better than my original scheme. The fact that I left the day the Handyman started and got back as he was putting the finishing touches on the work probably helped a lot here.


Then there were the projects, like the laundry room, started the year before that we finished up, or almost finished. The laundry still has to be tiled - but we'll get to that eventually. The cabinets were a revelation. For those that have considered Ikea kitchen cabinets and wondered about the quality, I tell you not to hesitate. They have withstood slamming, knocking and cat scratching - not to mention cat food all over the doors - and they come clean with just a wipe. (The laundry is divided into one area for clothes and a cat-feeding station). They also hold many trays of cat food and pounds of kibble and have shown no signs of stress.


We put a coat of paint on the ceiling of one bathroom we remodeled the year before and hung a towel rail in another. That one towel rail caused more drama than all the other projects put together but the end result was (almost) worth it.


We hung new curtains in the master bedroom and re-oriented the bed, again.


A fair amount of maintenance was completed, including filling holes caused by the woodpecker, carpenter bees and rot. The Guy weatherproofed a couple of windows and we patched, sanded and stained endlessly this summer. The siding around the kitchen slider was salvaged and all of this with only minor damage to the house or ourselves.


I restored a family heirloom and was so enthusiastic about the result I went on to spruce up the wood trim in the house. Lots of wood trim. We finally found the right modern card table for the great room. And finally, for some insane reason we moved the garden path. We moved it four inches. I don't think The Guy is fully over this one yet!
Looking back I'm surprised at the amount we accomplished this year; for a long time I've focused on the projects we haven't done (the master bath, three years on the wait list, springs to mind) and I had the feeling that 2008 slid by without anything tangible to show for it. Now I can see that it's not so bad. But that doesn't make the to-do list for 2009 any shorter!