Let me share with you the thoughts I’ve been wrestling with over the last three or four weeks. There’s really no point in sharing this other than I’d like to be open with all of you about this DIY life I’ve chosen for myself. I’m not necessarily looking for suggestions on what to do. I’m the only one who can figure this out for myself. But I wonder if other people like me—people who have embarked on a whole-house renovation—have the same internal dialogues along the way.
Firstly, I’m finishing the current renovation of my bathroom and have decided not to show any more of it until it’s finished. The space is so small, and the “to-do” items on my list are so uninteresting on their own, that there’s really no need to show you the daily updates on this project.
But I thought a lot about my next steps. I had actually planned to jump right into the next big project, which was turning the hallway bathroom into a storage room. This is the bathroom behind those double doors in the foyer of our bedroom suite.
Maybe I’m still doing this because we really need that storage space and I’d like to have it sooner than later. But here’s the deal. I feel like I need a break from big projects. I’d love nothing more than to take one LONG Taking a break from big house projects.
It gets pretty tiring doing all of these projects (mostly) alone. I’ve been doing this for a long time and the last few projects over the last year have been pretty big. Last night I went back and looked at the pictures of what these areas looked like at the beginning of 2025. It was such a big project and while I didn’t do 100% of it on my own, I would say I did about 90-95% of it on my own.
And then I jumped right in on this current bathroom project, and while it’s not nearly as involved as the bedroom, it took a lot longer than I expected due to the wallpaper issue, which led to my decision to tackle a pretty labor-intensive wall design.
Anyway, don’t read this as a complaint because I truly love what I do. Again, I’m just sharing this ongoing dialogue that’s been going on in my head for the last three or four weeks. I would love nothing more than to finish this bathroom and then take a long break from the big projects. I would like to have a good portion of my time where I can just play, without the pressure of “I have to finish this project.”
I have a large studio full of art supplies and a head full of ideas for fun, artsy, and artistic things that I want to try out just for the fun of making them. They’re not even necessarily for my house. I just want to make them because I love creating and think they would be fun to make. It’s been a long time since I took the time to do fun, crafty, artistic projects just for the fun of it. I miss that.
I also have a drawer filled to the brim with beads for necklaces and earrings I want to make. They’ve been sitting in this drawer for over a year now and I haven’t had time to do anything with them. I missed that so much. And I would love to find other fun projects with beads other than jewelry. I have a few ideas that I would like to try out, just for the fun of implementing them.
And then there are the smaller projects I want to do around the house. Remember that mural I bought a while ago and couldn’t decide where to put it?
I decided to put it on the entrance wall. This is my final answer. As much as I love the entryway as it is now, I’m ready for a change.
But here’s the catch. While I would love to stop pushing myself to do house projects and just give myself a nice long break from doing nothing but fun, crafty, artistic projects and small projects around the house, I find that I don’t have a good stopping point. And this is where this internal dialogue and internal struggle comes into play.
Once I convince myself that I can stop after this current bathroom project and take a long break to do fun things, I’m like, “But you definitely need this storage space! Just do that first! “And that’s true. We really need that storage space sooner than later.”
And when I convince myself that I just need to hit the ground running and get the storage room done and then take a long break to do fun, crafty things, I think to myself, “But wouldn’t it be better if you lock up your workshop first so your tools are organized and available for some of these projects?“And of course the answer is yes.” It would be so much easier to have my tools in the workshop rather than lugging them into the carport when I want to build something. And many of these craft projects I want to do are small construction projects, so they will require my tools.
And if I convince myself to just take the storage room And First the workshop is over, and then I can take a long break to work on artistic things, I think to myself: “But wouldn’t you like the training equipment from your studio?” And the answer to that is a resounding YES! I really want Matt’s Theracycle, my treadmill and my rebounder out of my studio. They take up so much space and make my huge studio feel so cramped. That’s why I really want to get them into the winter garden as quickly as possible.
So that’s the storage room, workshop and sunroom that need to be done and then I can take some time to do my fun craft and artistic projects, right? But then I think to myself: “Why should you stop there? When all this is done, just step out of the breakfast room and the entire interior of your house will look complete. Don’t you want to do that first?“And the answer, of course, is yes. I would like to reach an end point where all the interior areas of our house are finished before I take a long break just to do fun things that have nothing to do with finishing a room.
I’ve kind of gotten into a quagmire here and I don’t really know how to get out of it. All of these things need to be done and I would love to see them all done as quickly as possible. I know that if Matt could help me, I would probably feel more enthusiastic about stepping in and tackling them. I’ve always envied the DIY couples out there who work on their homes together. And if he could help me, the projects would of course progress much faster. But unfortunately that’s not our situation and I work alone almost every day.
I won’t rent out the projects either because that’s not my job. I’m too cheap for that and I’m a do-it-yourselfer through and through. So most of them have to be done by me. But at the same time, I’d like to finish the bathroom in the studio and then take two months to just play and create fun, artistic things that don’t necessarily serve a purpose and aren’t a means to an end (like finishing a room).
So in the end I tell myself that I just have to hang in there this year and do all of these things, and next year I can make a lot of time to do the fun, artistic things. If I last that long. All I know is that at this moment the thought of finishing the bathroom in the studio and then tearing out the other bathroom is exhausting me. I guess we’ll see how I feel about it when I wake up next week and that’s the next thing I need to do. We’ll see which side of my brain wins this battle – the pragmatic side or the artistic, clever side. If I had to make that decision today, I would know which side would win.
