Do you have a love hate relationship with your house too?

Do any of you feel this way? I absolutely love our house; I mean I LOVE IT…but there is a lot I do not like. I know that sounds funny to say, but it is true. I love our neighborhood, I love the size and layout of our house, I love the open floor plan, I love the bones of our house but on the other hand there is a long list of things that I don’t like and that annoy the heck out of me. I would say things I ‘hate’, but I have taught my kids that “Hate is a strong word and should be used very rarely”, so I will keep with ‘there are things I don’t like’. I don’t like the white and grey brick that our house is built with, I do not like the color of my kitchen cabinets, I do not like the flow in my laundry room, I do not like my master walk-in  closet, I do not like my daughter room (just too much stuff and too pink), I don’t like the storage in my ensuite bathroom, I do not like how I have a big kitchen but absolutely no space in the cabinets, I do not like the clutter everywhere! Wow my list of do not likes is far longer than the likes…but I really do love our house. 

Spring has come here really early, so I think I might be getting the spring itch. You know where you want to purge, de-clutter and clean everything. So what I thought I would do this month is try to deal with some of these annoyances. I have not planned this, so I am not sure exactly how I will address my issues or what will come of it, but I thought it would be entertaining (if not embarrassing) to share my dislikes and the horrible little secrets I have hidden behind every photo you have seen. I will do this one annoyance at a time, and show you how I corrected them on a serious budget. I will throw in some crafts along the way but there won’t be a big focus on that this month.

Unfortunately, I will not be correcting major things like the color of our brick (that will have to be minimized with landscaping and there will be a lot to share about this soon… big things happening here). I am sad to also say I will not be redoing my kitchen in the next few months. It is in the plan but it is pretty darn low on my priority list, since I love the layout of it just don’t like the color. See why I can’t justify it? I still would love to paint the cabinets myself but I can’t tell you how afraid I am on doing that.

I really hope to tackle this month:

My master bedroom closet. The closet will need a fair bit of work, but I will not be spending a lot on it. I do not have thousands, let alone hundreds, in the budget to redo a room that no one sees and that is semi-functional already. I am too embarrassed to show you how our walk-in closet currently looks so I will just say we have one upper shelf that has clothes piles at least three feet high. There is loads of potential.

Master ensuite. I shared with you our mini-reno that we did with our master bathroom last year. The framing of the mirror, changing the sinks, counter and faucets made a huge difference but there were things that I did not show you. Joys of bloggers…we hide things. We have some odd shelves behind our door that are filled with crap, the cabinets are overflowing with stuff, we have no towel racks in the entire bathroom! Crazy I know. When we moved in there was 3 towel racks and I thought that was too many. But instead of putting just one back up, I put none. We also have horrible metal mini-blinds in there. I never knew what window treatments to put in there and those are what the house came with so they have stayed. I have tried curtains, faux romans..I still don’t have the answer.

When we bought the house this is what it looked like. Do you see the odd shelves behind the door? You can see one of the many towel racks too.

Really basic builder grade shelves.

See how it they become a disaster? Since I removed all the towel bars, so I now hang my towels with a hook over the door.

The laundry room.  I would love to make our laundry room a peaceful room that is beautiful decorated with a chandelier and fancy jars, but I am far too practical for that. I will be looking for functionality as opposed to glamor, as it is now and will always be a place to do laundry. If I can make my least favorite chore, laundry, slightly easier, then I will do anything. I have a feeling a chandelier and pretty glass jars will not make this horrible chore any easier.

 Here is how it looked when we bought the house. It has never been this clean since!

Dining room buffet.  I have a buffet in my dining room that has a sort of grass cloth front. It has got stained and discolored over time and I would love to find a way to clean it up, whether by recovering or staining. I also hate how I have decorated on the top of it and the wall above it. It seems to be a dumping ground for keys, receipts, school papers, etc.

Kitchen Pantry. We have a deep pantry that is like a black hole. You put stuff in there only to find it after it has expired. I need to find a way to organize it, track what is in there and keep it clean. This is a horrible shot and I am mortified to share this...but this is my pantry

Kitchen desk. I always thought I wanted a desk in my kitchen. I had this grand notion that the kids would sit there and do their homework while I work away in the kitchen. How 1960’s of me. Well, the desk and kitchen are in a direct view of our large screen TV. So if it is on, there is absolutely no work done. As well, the kids prefer to do homework on the kitchen table. So this desk has quickly become a space to drop everything in our house that does not have a home. I don’t think I have cleaned the drawer in this area since we moved in. It is so full, I can barely open it.

That is a mighty long list; I might or might not get to all of it.  I am already working on my issues with our master walk in closet, so I will have something to share really soon. I can't tell you how excited I am about one of the changes..it will light up your life :)

So do any of you have a love/hate relationship with your home? How do you deal with your dislikes or do you just live with them?

Hope to be back with more soon,

Stephanie