Hello 2021! Johnny and I are so excited for the home projects on our to-do list this year! As you know, we are taking things slow, enjoying our home and being thoughtful about any changes we make or decor we bring in. We moved into this home in May and we really hit the ground running. Honestly, we did a lot more than we initially planned and if we didn’t have a lot of savings in place, it wouldn’t have happened or been ideal.

That said, we are focusing on really making this house a home and transforming our blank canvas into something so very us. Most of these will be projects we do on our own. Some will require contractors to help us. We want to try and keep the cost of these lower as we are saving for our wedding! The projects below aren’t in any particular order!

1. The Living Room

This is easily one of the biggest home decor projects for the year. All of the furniture in this room I’ve had for a while. When we initially got this sectional, we knew it wouldn’t be for forever. We wanted something with a bed for when friends come over and when my Dad would spend the night with us. Our living room is about 18′ x 18′ and we want to create a really comfortable space. We want clean lines that can lean more modern but want anyone who comes over to feel comfortable enough to just lounge on the sofa.

I’ll reveal more about this project soon! We will get a bigger sectional, new coffee table, rug, chair and we already installed a new chandelier! It’s just too high. Oops.

Strangely enough, while my parents’ new house is bigger, their living room has a different layout and the existing furniture we have is perfect. All of this will be picked up and transported there.

2. The Pantry

This will be more of a smaller-scale project. We want to put some type of cabinetry and countertop in the pantry to make it more functional. We also want to drop an electrical line and get an outlet in there. This way we can keep more appliances in the pantry and eliminate clutter on kitchen countertops.

3. Appliance Garage

We love our appliance garage! We need to add shelves so we can get more appliances in there. There are sliding “pocket” doors, which has made shelving a little complicated so we are working to figure that out.

4. The Office

A big priority as far as home decor projects for us at the beginning of the year! I want to make this a beautiful and functional space for Johnny to work and for me to join him, too. We painted the walls Tricorn Black by Sherwin Williams for some contrast. We got a 55″ Samsung Frame TV with a beige bezel and we’ll build a gallery wall around it. Add storage and shelves to display our favorite things and potentially new desks.

5. Prayer Section / Buddha & Ancestors Altar

We have a special spot in our living room to build shelves, add a beautiful console and set up a space for us to pray. In most Asian cultures, it is very important to honor your ancestors and also have a place to properly display and pay respect to Buddha (if you are Buddhist). We’re really excited about this!

6. The Entryway

Depending on how things shake out with the living room, we may or may not leave my brass arched floor mirror in the living room or move it back to the entryway. Either way, we want to complete this space and make it really welcoming and cozy. Plus, it needs function: a place where guests feel more naturally inclined to sit down and take off their shoes and store their things.

7. Backyard

A bit of an undertaking, we don’t fully expect to be arrogant enough to think we’ll “finish” our backyard in 2021. We do want to get started with a design, an idea of what we ultimately want and get started. We hope we can really enjoy it once the weather gets nicer and to be honest, we want to try avoid working on it in the dead of the Texas heat.

8. Front Yard

This project is more simple than the backyard. We want to straighten out the flower beds since they are a wavy shape right now. In the long run, we want to add greenery and some flowers.

9. Our Bedroom

We have most of the furniture in place, but it’s not past us this room could use some more personality. We are not sure what we want to do to zhush it up, but we definitely want to do something. The easiest change will be a new light fixture. I’ll link some below we are interested in. Some things we’ve thought about to add more character to the room are potentially a fluted wall, some type of wainscotting or wallpaper.