We’ve now lived in our house for seven months (although it seems much longer, frankly).
By this point, we’re starting to get a good feel for things we want to change and where to start.
My parents like to joke that one phrase that has never been said in the history of the English language is, “The house is done” and I’m sure we’ll never have every potential project in this house done.
But we do want to make steady progress toward making our house a place we love to be, and we are definitely spending many weekends visiting model homes and the hardware store, because basically we know how to party.
These are our top priorities right now:
- Painting. The main living areas are all beige, beige, beige, with the bedrooms painted in charming shades of orange, neon mint, and navy/burgundy stripes. This month, we finally picked up some buckets of paint and repainted the entire kitchen, breakfast nook and family room in a much better shade of white. Our bedroom (goodbye, orange!) is up next, as is my office. And then the girls’ bedrooms and the laundry room and dining room. Okay, fine. The whole house needs a good dousing with paint.
- Flooring. The green carpet just has to go. We can’t make much progress at all without replacing it because it’s just so ugly and no amount of lovely furniture can disguise the fact that said furniture is situated on a bed of green hideousness. We’re also strongly considering replacing the carpet in the basement with wood laminate to open it up a little and also make it more friendly for messy crafts like play dough and painting. In a world where money was no object, we’d probably replace the tile too, because Bart doesn’t really care for it, but I’m not sure that will happen because it is fairly expensive, large tile and it’s certainly not offensive. It’s just not what we would have picked.
- Lighting. The lighting in this house is just SO yellow, it’s ridiculous. We’ve been slowly changing out bulbs for higher wattage and ditching the yellow covers on the ceiling lamps, but even on those, we’re recognizing that our house definitely needs more lighting overall. The corners stay dim with only ceiling lamps, and although this house has a lot of windows, you kind of have to keep them closed in the summer because otherwise your room quickly reaches the balmy temperatures of a pizza kiln. My office is one of the very worst, so I was delighted to add a natural light lamp to my desk. It’s been so depressing to go into my cave in the evenings and work under the most yellow light imaginable, so having a light that produces beautiful, bright light and looks sleek and modern in the daytime is a huge bonus. I also feel like my eyes don’t feel nearly so tired when I work with it on. And if I ever get around to working on calligraphy, it’ll be perfect for giving me some decent light to practice by – that’s something way more fun to have under my lamp than my laptop.
- Family Room and Breakfast Nook Decor. We have so many blank walls right now (in part because we know we’ll just take things down to repaint) and we’re trying to figure out what we really want these spaces to look like – our highest priority is the family room and breakfast nook since that’s where we spend the most time. You cannot imagine how many evenings we have spent looking at Pinterest or paging through decorating books and magazines.
I haven’t even started thinking about the girls’ rooms yet. Come visit in 2019 and we’ll hope to be closer to our dream house.
Annette says
I have a floor lamp one for my sewing desk and love it
MommySizedHeart says
We've decided that we're doing our whole house in hardwood and add acent rus where needed. After living in 2 places together, we've come to the conclusion that my husband is allergic to carpet. We'd have waited.to replace the flooring but my husband is absolutely miserable and has a hard time breathing!
We also need better light, I'll have to look into those lamps!
Katy says
I'd definitely use that Kano on my sewing table. It is in the basement and I only ever get a chance to sew in the evenings so I totally relate to feeling like I'm in a cave.
Katy says
I'd definitely use that Kano on my sewing table. It is in the basement and I only ever get a chance to sew in the evenings so I totally relate to feeling like I'm in a cave.
Stephanie Kastelan says
I would definitely put it by my sewing machine! I love to sew and with my machine in the basement (in not the best lighting) it would come in very handy!
Alison Schutte says
I'd use mine on my sewing table. It would really help light up our dark basement.
Sarah says
As someone who works from home full time, that light would be amazing in my office. Michigan is very depressing in the winter and I could use some nice light!
Kate says
It would be great for sewing and knitting!
KLynne says
All our walls are beige as well. I really want to paint but it's an open floor plan. Basically that means we have to paint everything all at once. There's no easy stopping point. That's the only reason I haven't tackled it yet. I'm in my last year of grad school and have to work on homework late at night with low lights so I don't wake my son. This light would help out in that department so much.
allie J. says
Like the other commenters, I'd put it on my sewing table. My husband and I are slowly, slowly starting our home improvement projects. My top priority is replacing carpet, as well.
Janae says
As a college student, there are so many ways I could use this lamp! Of course, I would mainly use it for school work, but think of how pretty this little lamp would make an otherwise dull dorm room!
Samantha Seufert says
I'd put it on my husband's desk! He's recently taken a lamp from our bedroom to put near his desk which means our bedroom is sooo dark (read:no overhead light).
Unknown says
This lamp would be so helpful for crafting at night in my dark office
Sherry says
I'm thinking about repainting this summer. Eric is not so keen.
Kathleen Forbes says
I've heard of those lights! They are perfect for crafts when it's not daytime.
Grace Haynes says
I think I'd use that light on my nightstand. It seems like a nice amount of light for reading at night.
Rebekah says
Somehow we always manage to find another project to work on in our house too! One of the best things we did lighting wise, was to buy daylight LED bulbs. They are completely which (like I can set my white balance to sunlight on my camera, white) and there is absolutely no yellow feel. I LOVE them. We have a house that was built in the 70's and has little-to-no overhead lighting, so throwing a few of those bulb in out lamps has made a huge difference! Although, most of our upcoming projects include adding can lights to every room in the house 😉
heather says
We're in the same boat. We've only been here 3 months but I just can't stand this wall paint any longer, so paint chips are lining up all over the house.
Miller Family says
I would use the ottlite to help me do crafts at night after the kids have gone to bed.
wtiger9 says
I'm not a super crafty/ project-y person, so I'd probably just use it for reading
allerkins says
This is the perfect lamp for my husband to work on his art. He draws autobiographical comics that are simply the best! (and I don't think I only love them because I am a prominent character in the stories) hehe.
Jen P says
Couldn't agree more that there's always something more to add to the list. 🙂 Good luck with all your projects and the light looks great!
Señora H-B says
I would read or work on needlepoint/sewing projects.
Glittergirl says
I'm learning to crochet. Mortified to realize how my eyes are ageing!
Glittergirl says
I'm learning to crochet. Mortified to realize how my eyes are ageing!
Alysa Stewart says
I would do some drawing and painting. I've been doing more of that lately, and sharing it on instagram, and it's a lot of fun.
Hawke says
I would use it for reading. I also want to check out how it would work for food photography when there isn't enough natural light.
Hawke says
I would use it for reading. I also want to check out how it would work for food photography when there isn't enough natural light.
Feisty Harriet says
Arizona-beige-tan is the WORST! And it's everywhere. I have 2 rooms left to paint and the yellowy brown will finally be gone. I also am working on replacing every single lightbulb, and all my lamps have white-white shades because it doesn't sully the light coming out of them. I realize they aren't as trendy, but I don't care, I need white light on pale gray walls to keep my sanity. (As a side-note, my favorite bulbs are not the super efficient greeny-white light ones, but 65w bulbs that are lavender-blue glass, which gives this gorgeous clear-white light! Dah, I love them so much!)
xox
xox
Jessie says
I would use this light on my desk, too, and I think it would motivate me to work more on the recipe book project I have underway!
Tara G says
Our house (we also moved in recently) has similar issues–not a lot of light at night and windows that bake us in the summer! We love our new house though, and are slowing replacing bulbs and such as well. This light looks great–I have a corner of my kitchen that I use as a baking station that is mostly in shadow. The OttLite would be perfect to brighten it up!
Melanie says
I'm excited to hear about your updates! I just bought a house and it's tempting to try to do everything at once. It's probably a good thing that I can't afford to do everything right now because it will give me time to live in the house and figure out what I really want. Plus, the amount of painting I need to do is totally overwhelming (the previous owners LOVED funky colors of paint), so it'll be good to just bite things off in small chunks.
Jessica Buttigieg says
That lamp would be great in our super dark basement where our desk is!
kristi says
I was just thinking about an OttLite last night when my eyes were crossing under yellow light while cross stitching.
Ashley says
We just moved to OK and live in an apartment with our three kids. Our bedroom has this weird (also really yellow) light on the WALL?! So, to have some "daylight" on my desk would be a huge blessing.
Jessica Krueger says
I would love to use this on my nightstand for before bedtime reading!
Jessica says
I need a new lamp on my nightstand!
Shelly says
My whole house feels dim especially my daughter's room. We need to change the ceiling fan to a bigger light and get some lamps.
Lisa says
I'd love it for reading at night or on a table for scrapbooking!
Heather Sebastian says
I make and sell jewelry; this would be immensely helpful 🙂
xoxo
JoLee says
It took us forever to hang pictures in our house. What finally pushed us to do it was that I had some friends coming into town for a visit, and I really wanted it to look like we actually live here. A great lamp is a benefit to any project or just pleasant to read by.
D and B's Mommy says
Balmy temperature of a pizza kiln! Too funny! I live in the sometimes dreary Pacific Northwest, so I'd love it for reading or grading papers in the evening.
We were really good about painting a few rooms in our house before we moved in….Now it's 10 years and 2 kids later, and I haven't made a whole lot of progress beyond that!
Suzanne says
My little apartment has few windows, large shade trees blocking the little amount of sunlight that could get in, and pretty terrible artificial lighting in general. I will have to look into this idea of brighter, more natural lamp light. I could use it for all of my nighttime reading and studying.
Cami Hall says
Ooh! I need one of those lamps in my office! I was sewing in there the other day and it was so dark!
Brian and Courtney says
That is a lovely lamp! We have plenty of overhead lights, by it is nice to have something on a table or desk.
Janet T says
My husband's dark office would love this light. Thanks for the giveaway.
SS says
I work from home at least half the time and it's SO DARK here in the winter. So I would love to have some nice light just for working away on my laptop. I think I'd also use it for sewing. Thanks!
Laura {a spoonful of joy} says
I like to think of the sloooow progress we've made in updating our home as extra time to dream up the possibilities! 😉
That lamp would be perfect in the sewing nook my husband is creating for me at the moment.
Unknown says
I need a light like that for my classroom! I teach in a row with no windows and I think I would get so much more done and graded if I had a really bright desk lamp like this!!
Meg says
We have incredibly yellow light in our basement apartment, which means there's basically ALWAYS yellow light. Thankfully I think we're getting close to house hunting days, but until then, that lamp would be awesome! I'm always cringing when I look at the projects I worked on at night in the light of day.
Natalie says
Mostly reading but even just enjoying life! The northeast winters are rough when it gets dark SO SO early
Unknown says
For sewing!
Maria RM says
As a reader and knitter, I would love this!
Elsa Baumgarten says
I would use it for sewing!
Emily says
I'm living in a basement apartment with TERRIBLE lighting – even with floor and table lamps there always seems to be a dark side of the room. It's miserable, especially in winter! A lamp like that would be a lifesaver.
Alisha says
I really need a light in my sewing room!!
Marty C. says
I'd use it for illuminating sheet music. The overhead light in our house is super dim.
Courtney Haas says
I would use it for reading
Gina M WildOrchid says
I would love to use it for reading and needlework.
Thanks for the chance to win!
wildorchid985 at gmail dot com
Celeste says
Seriously? Reading in bed of course! Also, if you wait long enough, green carpet will probably come back as a new rage soon enough. 🙂
Rebecca Major says
I think you just convinced me to buy a house that doesn't need any home improvement projects. Do those exist?
The Apron Gal says
Definitely blogging but also reading scriptures or party crafts!
Jonnie (JB) says
I would use this for my cross stitch
Karrie Millheim says
Reading books
Alicia Snow says
I feel you. We've been in our house for a year now. When we first moved in the walls were salmon, bright orange, and brown. We are now on the final stretch of painting, only one bathroom and the laundry room is left. Yes, it took us a year to only partially paint the interior of our house. Haha. But we have an endless list of projects that I don't think we'll have be finished.