Kevin and I are notorious for starting things and not finishing them…especially when it comes to home projects. We’re always getting distracted by another project or more likely, getting frustrated when something doesn’t work right the first time and resorting to watching netflix instead. I often joke that we need a mediator in order to get any home improvement projects done, no matter how small, but it’s kind of true. Last weekend, Kevin’s mom came to visit us in Omaha and we put her right to work on both mediation and home improvement duty. 

First up was finishing these distressed shelves in the dining room area. I wish I was joking, but the brackets for one of these shelves have been screwed into the wall since August. Sans shelf. Protruding out from the wall at eye level. I’ve hit my head on them more times than I can count. Occasionally we used them as hooks. But not until our expert mediator showed up were we able to take this project to the finish line. Admittedly I actually stayed mostly out of the way on this one, waiting for my glorious shelves to finally appear. They soon did, and now I have a place for all my cookbooks, and whatever else we decide to put on the top shelf. The cookbooks were previous on a rickety bookshelf in the kitchen, so we were able to get rid of that (actually we put it out on our curb for free, and not 5 minutes later our neighbor took it – everybody wins!), and rearrange the kitchen a bit which I’m really loving.

Next up was installing a new hinge on our storm door and then rehanging the door. In our defense, this is an at least 3-person job, but it has been on the to-do list since a big windstorm last spring blew the door open and bent it. Since then, we’ve had the storm door inside the house, and have moved it from room to room to get it out of the way, and most recently it’s sat in the stairwell and blocked us from using our side door. (Fire hazard – sorry, Mom!). We figured it was finally time to put this project to rest, and after quite an afternoon, the three of us, with help from a giant stack of books to support the weight of the door while we screwed it in, got it done.

The third and final weekend project was putting in the last few pieces of laminate in our basement. It’s been at this stage since June and all we needed to do was buy a new jigsaw blade to cut the last few pieces and snap them in. In the approximately 8.5 million times we’ve been to Ace since June, we have failed to buy this new blade approximately 8.5 million of those times. We finally bought one, and put in the last 2.5 pieces in about 30 minutes. Maybe in another year and a half, we’ll be done with the trim.

We were on a roll so we did a couple other small projects on Sunday afternoon. We needed new hooks in the entryway, so we bought some and got those screwed in.

We’re always misplacing running gloves, hats, headphones, etc., so we bought a shower caddy, hung it up in the basement, and moved all of our running accessories onto it.

And lastly, we’re working on a gallery wall for the basement, and finally got frames for a few of the things we plan to hang up. Still a few more to go, and you know, the actual hanging them part, but baby steps, right?

Feels good to get things done and crossed off our to-do list, especially things that have been on there forever!