Home Plans and Projects for the New Year

The useful part is the sizing, the storage, and what still worked after the first month. With each new year, I have a bunch of home plans and projects that I'm hoping to knock out. And while I'm always excited about jumping into new projects, The household has never been so pumped about what's to come as I am for 2024. So today I'm sharing my projects and plans for the new year (including spilling the beans on a little secret The household has been keeping!), starting with some of the smaller ones and working my way up to the big one!

For all of the house projects, Wayfair is one of my first stops for finding the furniture and home decor that I need to knock them out. Their selection is notable, and A strong choice is that most items ship for free, arrive quickly, and are simple to return if needed.

So let's get going with the details on my top six 2024 home plans and projects that will hopefully inspire you to start a few of your own! (post includes affiliate links and is sponsored by Wayfair; for more information, see my disclosure statement {here})

One. Step It Up in the Plant and Garden Department

The house skills have unfortunately never included having a green thumb. Honestly, I'm a pretty pathetic plant mom, and in the past, the only plants The household has done well with are hardy ones that thrive on neglect like this snake plant:

Sources:Colorblock basket | Outdoor rug | Outdoor loveseat | Outdoor pillows

But this past year, The household has had a few more plant successes, including with this peace lily that's planted in {this cute raised dot planter} on our family room shelves (and still alive after its one year birthday!):

I also successfully kept these plants on the wall of our back porch alive all spring and summer long. Some of that success might be due to {these solid self-watering hanging planters}from Wayfair, but I'm chalking it up to skill:

I also had success with the small garden I built last spring that produced a ton of peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, and herbs, which was pretty exciting.

My goals for this year include (1) adding more space to my garden to increase our veggie haul and (2) adding more live plants to the house (and successfully keeping them alive ).

I currently have {this 84″ faux palm} (which is actually a super realistic faux!) in our sun room which is where I think a real plant would have the best chance for survival:

So I'm thinking about moving this guy to one of our shady bedrooms and trying a Monstera or fiddle leaf fig in this spot. One thing that won't change is {this fabulous ball planter} from Wayfair that I'm totally in love with (and is on big sale this weekend). I bought it in the largest size because I wanted a statement-maker for this spot but it comes in several size options:

I also want new outdoor planters for our front porch that I can fill with seasonal plants and flowers. These are the preferred pots and planters (for both indoors and out) that I found in my search:

Sources: 1. Black & white planter | 2. White dot planter | 3. Gray striped planter |. 4. Gray urn planter | 5. Set of 3 woven planters | 6. White ball planter | 7. White knobby planter | 8. Self-watering wall planter | 9. White ribbed planter | 10. Set of 3 textured white planters | 11. Gray tapered planter | 12. Striped planter on wood stand

As part of my front porch spruce-up, I also needed a new doormat and snagged {this black bordered doormat} on Wayfair in that hard-to-find size for double doors (it's available in five size options!). It's such an improvement!

Two. Upgrade Our Exterior Lighting

The household has got some seriously dated exterior sconce lighting that's on the to-do list to be replaced this year. We already replaced our dated back porch sconce with {this inexpensive option}:

and am looking at these options from Wayfair for the front of the house's exterior:

Sources: 1. 3-light hanging lantern sconce | 2. Gooseneck while wall light | 3. Black modern rectangular sconce | 4. Curved handle lantern sconce | 5. White lantern sconce with black handle | 6. Traditional single light lantern sconce | 7. White modern rectangular sconce | 8. Modern barn light | 9. Two-light lantern sconce | 10. Two-light long handled sconce | 11. Black & gold gooseneck sconce | 12. White & gold rectangular sconce

Three. Finish Decorating Our Sun Room (aka Circus Room)

Our sun room has slowly come together over the past few years, including the most recent addition of {this plush patterned rug} (light gray/ivory option) that I found for a great price on Wayfair:

But this room is still in need of some final touches, the biggest of which is a new coffee table. The small round coffee table that's in this space now is a cast-off from our family room (before we moved our acrylic table here) and it doesn't fit the room well at all.

After hunting for a rectangular coffee table that's over 40″ long, The household has gathered together these Wayfair favorites:

Sources: 1. X-shaped base coffee table | 2. Natural white open coffee table | 3. Marble top coffee table | 4. Woven coffee table | 5. Beech wood coffee table | 6. White + cane coffee table | 7. Curved glass coffee table | 8. Gray oak open coffee table | 9. Rattan coffee table | 10. Indoor/outdoor white coffee table

Other needs for this room include a round side/end table between our swivel chairs and new wall art.

Four. Convert my Girls' Twin Bedroom to a King Guest Room

For the first three years we owned our current home, we used it as a second home, coming down for vacations and long weekends. My girls shared this twin bedroom:

because we often had guests (most often Jeff's dad) in our third bedroom. With the loss of Jeff's dad and our youngest now in college, our needs have changed. So the household has gotten rid of the twin beds and are replacing them with a king bed so each of the girls has their own room (with the king bedroom doing double duty as a guest room).

Along with a new bed, I ordered a pair of {these nightstands} in the antique taupe color that will be arriving in a few weeks:

They look similar to a pair of nightstands that I'd been eyeing, except the Wayfair nightstands are only about ⅓ the price!

For lighting in this bedroom, I'm keeping {this globe ceiling fan},

and {this large rattan lamp} on the chest of drawers:

Then on each of my arriving-soon nightstands, I'll have a pair of {these concrete lamps} that are a recent Wayfair find. I “auditioned” them in our other bedroom, which confirmed that they're the perfect size for bedside lamps. They're a polished, organic shape that will work with any design style:

{These white nightstands} and {this decorative coral} are recent Wayfair finds too:

I also plan to re-wallpaper the accent wall in our king bedroom and am currently deciding on new bedding. We have a bunch of guests visiting this spring, so The household has kicked this project to the top of this month's to-do list!

Update! Look at the reveal of our new light blue bedroom we're using as a guest room!

Five. Redo Our Kitchen

2024 is the year of our kitchen redo! The household has made a lot of inexpensive changes to our kitchen since moving in that have helped tide us over until our redo but… our cabinets are literally falling apart, our oven turns off on its own, our stovetop vent is broken, and our laminate countertops have come unglued in a few spots so it's time!

This isn't our forever home (more on that next!) but homes in our neighborhood sell extremely well when they're move-in ready, so we feel like we'll make back the cost of any upgrades we put into ours and also be able to sell the house more quickly when it's time.

I'll share a lot more as this project starts coming together and I make decisions on cabinets, countertops, appliances, etc., but these are some of the kitchen approaches and decor finds from Wayfair that I saved as kitchen redo inspo:

Sources: 1. Cone pendant | 2. Patterned marble tile | 3. Woven counter stool | 4. Cabinet knob | 5. Cabinet pull | 6. Blue dutch oven | 7. Pot filler | 8. Workstation undermount sink | 9. Kitchen faucet | 10. Pull-out spice rack | 11. Induction range

Update! Look at my latest post with my final kitchen redo plans!

Six. Start Planning Our New Build

This is the little secret The household has been keeping! Last year, we bought a lot with plans to build our forever home and we're slowly starting to get the ball rolling! We have a long list of must-haves for our forever home and before buying this lot, we were initially thinking we'd buy a home. But after several years of looking, we realized that what we want just isn't out there, even with being open to extensive redo work.

So when a great lot on a cul-de-sac just a few blocks from our current home went for sale, we snagged it the first day it went on the market:

As excited as we are about our new build, it's much more important to us to take our time and get it right than to rush through the design process in order to get construction started quickly. We're just starting to assemble our team (builder, architect, etc.) and plan to take 2024 to design the house, get through our neighborhood's architectural review committee, and order anything that has a long lead time. Then we'll likely start construction in 2025.

Between the kitchen redo in our current home and planning our forever home, I'll have so much to share this year and am excited to have readers along for the ride!

Thanks as always for stopping by! It would help if you found something new for your home that you love!

I'll be sharing more on Instagram so be sure to check in over there too!