Little Updates Around Here

Do you, like me, enjoy watching those wonderful home decor television shows that reveal a breathtaking renovation in a thirty minute time span? As much as I love those shows, they can feel disheartening when you look around at your own space and suddenly feel discontent. I have definitely caught myself feeling defeated or discouraged when a home project takes a really long time or costs a lot more money than anticipated. It would feel really good to have my home look that good in an instant.

But the truth is, I don’t think it would. When I think about it, I actually really love taking my time to decorate our space because it allows me to understand exactly how we need it to function and it allows me to find a lot of joy in learning throughout the process. I have been trying to really intentionally take a step back from any big projects right now and instead wrap up a few loose ends on some smaller things. The small projects may not result in the big wow moments, but when you take a step back, you realize that lots of little steps amount to some big progress.

I decided now would be a good time to share some of the little projects we have been tackling around the Little Reesor House in the celebration of progress. Progress over perfection is one of my life mottos, after all. I have a bigger home project planned for the Fall, but until then, here’s some of what we have been up to.

Front Porch Upgrades

With the beautiful summer weather finally here (something that doesn’t last very long here in Canada), I really wanted to shift my focus from the indoors to out. Last summer, I put my focus on our backyard since we didn’t have any patio furniture for lounging and al fresco dining. But this year, I have been focussing more on the front of our home. Mabel likes to play in our front yard, which makes our front porch a great place to relax while supervising her activities. I already shared about some of the flowers and plants I added to this space to make it feel peaceful and cozy, but since then, I have continued to do a few more small updates.

After

Before

First and foremost, we switched out the dusty and dated porch light that sits above our front door with a more stylish semi-flush mount. The new one we purchased had a black exterior with a gold interior, but once we got it in place, I really didn’t like the gold. If this light lived on a beautiful white house it would look adorable, but on our home, the orange-toned gold clashed with our multi-coloured bricks. I decided to take it down and spray paint the inside to cover the gold with a basic flat black instead (I made sure to cover all the hardware with tape first). It was a quick fix that looks so much better.

Our previous light had clear glass on every side so the light spread far and wide. It was really bright! I love the ambient glow that the new light puts off. It directs the light more towards the door and feels really warm and inviting in the dark. This small, simple swap made a big difference.

In our front porch sitting area, I added a simple runner that I found at Homesense for $25. I love how it defines the space and makes it feel extra cozy. This part of our porch rarely gets wet, but this type of rug could easily be thrown in the washing machine if need be. Plus, for the $25 price tag, I won’t even feel terrible if it gets completely ruined by the end of the season. For now, it has held up great and is another really simple update that goes a long way out here.

And finally, a little outdoor side table project. I didn’t add any plants to one of my favourite old planters this year because I thought I could add some sort of lid to act as a table top. We often enjoy our coffee or a cold drink on our porch, so I wanted to create a little tabletop space for us to be able to set our drinks. All I did to create it was cut a circle out of a scrap piece of plywood and then attached some small pieces on the bottom that sit inside the planter to help hold it in place. I gave the whole thing a couple of coats of flat black spray paint and finished it with a spray on poly. By no means is it perfect, but for a few minutes of work, I think it turned out really cute. Plus I didn’t have to spend any money to recreate a cute little drum-shaped outdoor side table I’ve been eyeing all season. That’s a win in my book!

The Garage

This little project is far from completed, but we have definitely been making some good progress. Last Fall, Curt and I took a week off of work to tackle some projects around the house while Mabel was in daycare. One of the projects on our list was to clean and organize our garage. We definitely got things sorted and ended up building a big shelving unit out of 2x4’s, but it was one of those projects where you think you can devote just one day to it, but the to-do list starts to snowball and spiral until you find yourself with the space looking worse off than when you started. Long story short, we decided to patch the drywall in some areas and insulate and drywall an entire other wall that was stripped to the studs so we could finish it properly and clean it all up. We’ve slowly been working on it, but haven’t made much progress because we have only had a few hours here and there to devote to it.

With all that being said, my Dad came over this weekend and helped Curt finish up the drywall, so we are definitely starting to see the light on this one. My Dad’s help gave us a good boost to keep pushing forward so we can get this project wrapped up soon. We definitely have a dump run in our near future and a couple other shelving units we want to build, not to mention levelling out the broken concrete floor, but we are chipping away at it and feeling good about our progress so far.

Landscaping

We were blessed to inherit some beautiful perennial gardens at our place. The previous owner definitely put a lot of thought and care into the landscaping. Although I appreciate that so much, I’ll be the first to admit that tending to the gardens is pretty low on my priority list. Not from a lack of want, but more so from a lack of time.

Curt does a great job keeping our lawn mowed and cared for on a weekly basis and I do my best with the gardens when I can. I added some bags of black soil to freshen up the dirt and went to town with my hedge trimmers to give all the bushes and hedges a nice summer cut. We have a row of boxwoods along our front walkway and their trim was probably the most satisfying to give - the perfectionist in me finds deep satisfaction in their new, perfectly squared-off shape.

Next year I would really love to plant some flowers in the front gardens and maybe move some of the perennial flowers from the backyard garden so I can make space for a few vegetables, like tomatoes. The gardens are definitely not as nice as they could be, but it felt good to at least tend to them as best as I could. This is definitely a case of celebrating progress over perfection.

Bedside Tables

And perhaps the most exciting - I finally started making over our bedside tables! I found a pair of nightstands on the buy-and-sell last Fall, tried to tackle them earlier in the Spring, and am finally now actually starting mid-summer. Needless to say, I have been wanting to work on these for a long time. A couple of months ago, I decided on a direction and ordered all the supplies I needed, but then I felt overwhelmed about how to actually dive in. It took me a few months, but the other day I had a sudden burst of motivation that made me realize that I was never going to figure out how to start until I actually started.

I still have a ways to go. I want to clean, sand, prime, paint, and switch out the hardware still. But this past weekend I was finally able to tackle the most overwhelming part by removing the skirting and building some little legs to prop them off the ground. I even got to use my new Kreg jig to attach the legs (it was so fun!). I’ll be making a video of the whole makeover process, but I thought I would share a sneak peek of the progress so far. This whole blog post is about the small victories, after all.

Making Progress!

Before

How do you feel about tackling all the little projects? I don’t always love them - they don’t feel as instantly satisfying as the big show stoppers. But I’m trying my best to find the joy in the little victories - one little step at a time.