Hello! I'm Allison, and I started this blog in order to document progress on my 2014 New Year's resolution -- to make my home a more organized and beautiful place. I've been thinking a lot over the past few weeks of ways to do this, and here's the plan I came up with: I'm going to focus on one room each month. During that month, I will make a list of all the small projects I've been meaning to tackle in that particular room, and hopefully by the end of the month that room will be a lot more organized and beautiful!
about me
I'm Allison, I'm 25, and I live in Mobile, Alabama. I'm a medical resident, so I sometimes work crazy hours! (If you see a blog post at 3 am, it's a good possibility I'm just having a slow night at work.) Whenever someone asks me what my "hobbies" are I can never think of what to tell them, but here are some things I like: coffee, french fries, reading (although I don't often get time to read much), Parks and Recreation. I sometimes like running and I sometimes hate it, but I ran my first 5k last year and I'd like to do another one this year. My favorite way to work out, though, is Pure Barre -- even though it's crazy expensive! My job is another thing with which I have a love/hate relationship. My work schedule changes every month when I switch rotations, so some months I have the hours of a normal person and some months I work 80 hours every week! I have a wonderful boyfriend who unfortunately is moving this weekend to Huntsville, AL to start an amazing new engineering job -- I'm excited for him, but I'm not looking forward to the fact that he'll be 5 1/2 hours away!
about my house
I bought and moved into my gorgeous house in May of 2012; the closing was two days before my medical school graduation. It's a 1900-square foot Victorian style house in a historic neighborhood and was built in 1928. I love having a house this old because of its beautiful features like 12 foot ceilings, picture rails, and a huge wraparound front porch, but it definitely comes with a unique set of challenges. (Like ZERO closet space. It's a problem.) I did get lucky though in a lot of ways. The previous owners bought this house as a foreclosure and spent about a year fixing it up -- they renovated the kitchen and one of the bathrooms. I've been here over a year and a half now, and there are so many things I told myself I'd do that I just haven't had the energy/time/focus/discipline to tackle yet. I'm kind of a perfectionist, so it's sometimes hard for me to start a project because I'm afraid I won't be able to finish it EXACTLY the way I want it in my dreams. Unfortunately, I don't have unlimited time and I definitely don't have unlimited funds at this point in my life, so one of my major goals in tackling this yearlong project is to be better at compromising. Just typing that gave me a little bit of anxiety -- I may have a ways to go!
about the project
I chose to do this project because I decided I really need to get serious about making my house a better place to live. I get frustrated constantly with my lack of organization in several areas of the house, and it's always a huge scramble to clean things up and hide the mess if someone is coming over. I also lose things a lot. (I swear, every single time I need a postage stamp I find them in a different place.) I also will most likely be selling the house in 2 1/2 years when I finish residency, and while it's a gorgeous house on its own I know that anything I improve will help me to get my money back! One room will be assigned to each month and I will use that month to clean, organize, de-clutter, and beautify. I'm starting with my bedroom in January. I may make some exceptions as the year gets going, since I only have 8 rooms. The yard will get one month assigned to it, and I'm anticipating the guest room may take a little longer since I have quite a few boxes in there and it's become my de facto "junk room." (I may or may not have mild hoarding tendencies.) I'm not going to come up with a definitive yearly schedule right now. February is a rough month for me work-wise, so I'll probably do something a little easier next month like one of the bathrooms and I'll just play it by ear from there. I don't want to lock myself into a 12-month schedule right now, because if I find an amazing dining room table on craigslist or something, I'll want to use the next month to work on the dining room -- you get the idea. I plan on making a list at the beginning of each month of all the small projects I want to do. In the next couple days I'll post my January plan, as well as some "before" pictures of my bedroom. Then as the month goes along, I'll take pictures of my progress as well as any projects I tackle. Whenever I attempt to be crafty, I usually end up with some flops as well as some amusing stories, so this should be entertaining!
about the blog
I chose to document my adventures in a blog for a few reasons. First of all, I figured if I knew that at least a few people were reading along with me I'd feel more accountable and be more likely to keep it up. I also thought that maybe I'd get a few helpful suggestions this way! Feel free to comment with any advice or encouragement you may have, because I really don't know what I'm doing and I will likely get frustrated quite frequently. The only thing I ask of my readers is that you try your hardest not to judge me for my messiness -- my goal is to be candid and honest, and you will likely see some "before" photos with embarrassing amounts of disorganization.
I know that was long-winded. If you stuck it out this far, thanks for reading and I hope you'll choose to follow along with my adventures! Stay tuned for my January plan, which should be posted in the next couple days!
xoxo,
allison
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