Our Goals for 2024

This is what we’re looking forward to taking on in the new year!

Happy 2024, Friends!

I feel like 2024 is the first year we’ve found our sea legs since 2020. It the most wonderful sigh of relief – to make plans again, travel more and dig deeper into our favorite hustle: renovation! Speaking of which, last year really threw us for a loop with The Red House, but it turned into the most wonderful surprise. A surprise, I think, that I really needed. Perhaps it’s the mid-century bones, the fact that it’s a perfectly imperfect ranch, or maybe it’s the feeling I get simply looking out the back sliding door. I told Scott, This house is making me fall in love with interior design again.

Not that I ever fell out of love, per se, but we both agreed that we needed a shake up. Scrolling social media had started to feel mundane, all the same. At one point, I started to wonder what my design style truly was! Let’s just say, last year was a bit of an awakening, and silly as it may seem, The Red House really pulled both of us out of our collective rut. We’re grateful for the opportunity to give her a fresh lease on life.

Gratitude

Speaking of which, I snuck our word of the year in there. Gratitude. More moments to appreciate little life moments and big life moments, little accomplishments and big accomplishments. I’ve been on a frustrating health journey this last year, but re-framing my thoughts towards gratitude has been the key to my mental well-being. Things like, ‘I GET to go to Target today’ vs ‘I HAVE to go to Target today’ and evening (and sometimes mid-afternoon) meditation have been game changers, especially when there is so much I have little control over. And without being too annoying, I’ve been getting Scott on the gratitude train, too. ⁠We give each gentle reminders, we use our words carefully, we listen and we breathe deep.

Of course, we also have big goals 2024! You may notice that our list isn’t terribly long, a purposeful choice meant to allow us to lean into – you guessed it – gratitude.

1| Renovate The Red House Kitchen

Eeeeee! Our primary bath is thisclose to completion, and in order to make this home more overnight-able, it would be nice to have a working stove and sink. We’ve been dreaming about the design for this kitchen for an entire year, and it really feels like a pinch-us moment to sink into it. Remember where we started?

Since I snapped that photo, we’ve replaced all the flooring, added 2′ to the ceiling height(!), and gave everything a fresh coat of paint. That brings us to this:

We have a few more things we need to do to get the kitchen to a true starting point, starting by removing the door-to-nowhere and bringing in additional windows, which will allow us to extend the countertop. Here’s what I mean. Below, this is a closer view of the window wall in its current state:

And here’s a rough visual of how we’d like to add windows while also giving us an extra 3′ of counter space! We’re thinking we’ll add a sweet coffee station in the corner, with views to the woods in our side yard.

We’re considering wood cabinetry, travertine countertops, tile backsplash and, of course, a lot of accent lighting throughout! Stay tuned, this is going to be a departure from any kitchen we’ve renovated, and we can’t WAIT to share it with you.

2| Baseline the Great Outdoors

At The Red House that is! Our pint-sized Red House sits on a heavily wooded 4 acres, and while beautiful, it’s going to need a lot of maintenance. In this case, getting us to an outdoor baseline will require more removing than it will adding.

Ultimately, we’re envisioning a front porch running along the front of the house, a grassy yard in the back, and a deck accessible from the kitchen sliding doors. It’s hard to tell by these winter photos, but there are (sadly) many dying trees around the property that we’ll need to clear out to make way for healthy plantings. We’d love to see the backyard enclosed with a circle of wildflower and tall grasses, a fire pit, and plenty of room to run. This will take years, but the first step will be addition by subtraction.

3| More ‘Give Back’ Makeovers

We’re not done with these yet, and we’re already in talks with a potential space to makeover in 2024! We hope to solidify the details in the first few months of 2024, lock in a sponsor and roll up our sleeves. Click the links below the photos below to see our most recent Give Back Makeovers. And can I talk about gratitude for a moment? We couldn’t be more grateful that we are in a position that can help when we can, by creating a safe, loved space for the recipient.

4| Allow Ourselves Grace to the Pace

And by this, I mean: be more present. Less focusing on what we haven’t completed, and giving ourselves the grace to take the time we need. In other words, 2024 will be the year that we renovate on a timeline that works for our family. It is way too easy to play the comparison game online, and to be quite honest, I’m over it. I’m over feeling inadequate, burned out and uninspired. This year, Scott and I agreed that a focus on gratitude is an awesome place to start, and with that comes more fulfillment with where we are, now.

By the Way

You’ve likely noticed that things look a LOT different around here! We plan on giving you a big tour later this week, but first and foremost, we want to take a pause for gratitude. Thank you for being here, for being a part of our Yellow Brick Home community, for your kind messages, your sharing of ideas, for being so excited alongside us for the future of The Red House. We can’t wait to spend this year with you!

What are you most looking forward to in 2024? Do you have a word of the year?