house to-do list

19 Dec 2019 by Marcia Francois Leave a Comment

{organising} My house to-do list: an update

This year, as part of my 19 in 2019 goals, I put a fair number of things on my house to-do list.

Sadly, they were all a bit boring but they were necessary to my peace of mind:

Get rid of all excess furniture (still not completely done – I have a table and chairs in the pool room to sell but I have had no takers yet on Facebook!)

2. Replace carpets upstairs and on stairs (two large spaces)

3. Damp proof the roof

4. Get blinds for the poolroom

As is often the case with house things, other things popped up. One morning after a really terrible storm (Johannesburg had many of these during the rainy season this year), we noticed that many of our wooden windows were leaking, so this item had to replace the carpets which would be nice but was an item on my list purely for cosmetic reasons. With our recent rains, my windows are leaking again and of course, the contractor is not answering my messages and I am tired, so tired of fighting with people to do their jobs properly. Please let me know if you have a good wooden windows person!

However, I was pleasantly surprised that the roof, while an enormous job, was not at all a painful task to endure as it was done in about 3 days and the contractor we used was AMAZING!

The blinds are also done and look great… so we’re inching closer to my vision for the space.

Now I just have to sell the excess furniture. Anyone looking to buy a table and chairs in good, second hand condition? 🙂

(on the bright side, I looked over last year’s post and eureka! I found my reading chair for the pyjama lounge during the Black Friday sales)

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[Day 30 – smile] . . . Smile – the thing I do when I’m reading a good book 🤗 . . #augustbreak2019 #marciasaugustbreak2019 #smile #marciareads #modernlovers #emmastraub #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #books #reading #readingnook

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I think the lessons I learnt from these four items on my house to-do list are…

allow some money for the expected, but unexpected expenses, of which I should know better because there is always something
put fun things on the list too
finish one space first so that there’s a sense of completion (I intend to do this next year with the pool room) and you can enjoy the space

Do you allocate a certain number of things to do in your house every year? Do you wing it? Do you play it by ear? How do you approach house maintenance?

Filed Under: Decluttering, Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Konmari, Organising, Outer order inner calm, Time management Tagged With: house, house to-do list, household maintenance, household tasks

18 Jul 2018 by Marcia Francois 4 Comments

What painting my walls navy taught me

I’ve shared before about my house to-do list. This is a list that has all the things I want to get done in the house – not weekly jobs, but more cosmetic changes.

Some of the items on my list involved painting various areas upstairs, so I finally felt able to deal with the mess and I got some painters in.

They painted my study, Connor’s bedroom and the ceiling in our pyjama lounge.

At one point, Connor mentioned to me that he wanted his room blue. I’m not a fan of any “boring blues” as I call it so I told Connor that we’d have to have the perfect shade if his room were to go blue.

We settled on this very dark navy blue. I was a bit nervous because it was very dark but I felt like the room could take it because all our bedrooms are very light-filled the entire day.

To summarise, we painted Connor’s entire room navy blue (ceiling was white) and one wall in my study.

This is what I learned from painting the walls navy:

1. Trust my instincts

I wasn’t sure about the bold colour but I relied on past experience where I’d used bold colours and they all turned out fine. Most even turned out great 🙂

2. Nothing is irreversible

At least not with paint colour. I tell myself if I hate it, I can just paint it again. I had a situation perhaps 12 years ago where the paint colour did not look as good on my walls as it did on the paint swatch. I tried to love it for two weeks and then called the painter to come redo it. The good news is that I loved that new colour (Parsley) for 10 years 🙂

3. Take risks and be brave

I learnt a lot from The Nester about taking risks. She basically says things like “if you hate something anyway, try something new”. I’m all over this advice. Not that I hate white walls, but the point is to take chances. Our houses should be places where we feel safe…. safe to try new things and experiment.

4. You may actually love change

I am not a huge lover of change. But when I decide to change, I usually love it. I realise I have control issues but go with me here. I didn’t think I’d love Connor’s navy room that much but I SUPER-DUPER love it! I also love my navy kitchen so much. It makes me smile daily, especially when it’s clean. If I didn’t take a chance on it (and it should have been green!), I would have had a boring beige kitchen (I can’t even imagine!).

What I want to do with this post is encourage you to take a risk in your home – paint something, move some furniture around, upcycle/ recycle something or buy something.

What will you do? And more importantly, what are you hoping it will show you?

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, Money and finances, Moving house, My year of happy 2017, organising children's spaces, Personal, Planning, Time management Tagged With: be brave, house to-do list, make changes, navy walls, paint, taking risks

22 Mar 2018 by Marcia Francois 5 Comments

Let’s talk about my house’s to-do list

I’ve spoken before about how my house has its own to-do list. It was a very popular post actually – either my readers are curious or having a house to-do list is unusual?

Here’s that post I wrote nearly a year ago

I thought it was time for a little update.

When I was approaching the end of 2017, I looked over the list and realized we were moving SUPER slowly in closing those gaps.

I asked myself one question – what will make me feel really happy that is also fairly easy to execute on?

1.The answer was my floors. We didn’t have enough money saved to do everything I wanted, so we installed laminate flooring in our 3 small rooms and it was the best decision ever.

I love my floors. If you follow my OrganisingQueen Instagram feed, you’ll see my floors in many of the bullet journal or planner background pics.

I chose the colour, had to pay a bit more because they only had the more expensive wood in stock and I wanted it done within days, not in six weeks’ time. Worth it! This is how I roll – I take a bit of time to decide to do something, but then I want it done yesterday 🙂

I flew to Cape Town on business for two days and my floors were installed while I was away.

2. And then we’re currently in the process of painting three rooms upstairs – my study and Connor’s room are both complete, and the pyjama lounge’s ceiling has been primed for painting… white!

I’ll share photos on Instagram and Instagram stories once it’s completely done next weekend.

As I write, the rooms are a mess (and I’m taking the3 opportunity to quietly dispose of junk) but I love how clean and fresh everything feels.

3. The other thing I really want to get done is to sell some furniture, especially my Oregon pine kitchen table and chairs. I still love it but it is about 30 cm too long for the space so it’s been in the pool room while I bought this new table. That is going on my to-do list for autumn along with my search for the perfect armchair for our pyjama lounge.

I actually bought one last year, it wasn’t right for the space, and I had about 3 weeks of “pain” trying to return it and get refunded, so I’m a teensy bit scarred by that experience.

If you see a good reading chair around, do let me know!

Tell me about your house to-do list.

What’s on it, what have you managed to get off the list, and what are you currently looking for?

(I will keep an eye out for you too).

PS the very bright side of a slow-moving to-do list is that I checked our bond statement the other day and we’re now paying about 50% more than our minimum payment, and if we only just continue at this rate, we’ll cut off 5.5 years of our bond. Yay! My goal is still 8 years 🙂

Filed Under: Time management Tagged With: contentment, floors, house to-do list, paint, to-do list

11 May 2017 by Marcia Francois 7 Comments

My house also has a to-do list

For about 18 months before we moved out of our old house, we finally did all those things on our list that we needed and wanted to do.

I had a to-do list I was working off of, and when we found the current house, I had about 12 small things left on the old list (from about 60).

So then I decided we will no longer leave things and only fix when we’re selling.

Be realistic with time and money

This is not your fantasy life; it’s your real life. You still have to work and rest and do other stuff on the weekends, so do pace yourself.

Things in the house cost money, even if it’s to buy new pillows or a tablecloth, it all costs money. You have to realise you need to keep money for paying off the bond, emergencies, holidays and doing your house to-do list.

Balance big and small things

I’ve shared before about a small change we made in our bathroom. I’m so glad we made this change otherwise I would have been unhappy for years because we can’t afford a bathroom remodel.

You can go even smaller – a new duvet cover or pillow cases do wonders too.

This might not work for you if you’re a maximiser; this is someone who has to have the perfect solution and will happily wait til that can be done.

It’s not about being discontented

I feel like you can be content with where you are in life, but still make a few changes to be happier. The Nester’s blog is a great place to read more about this concept.

A few small changes that have made me super happy in the past – my yellow desk, yellow cushions, a new side plate, my navy blue kitchen, etc.

How do I plan my house to-do list?

I make a gigantic list. I used the 100 things to do page from my shining planner but my master to-do list (it’s in the pack when you sign up to my list) works just as well.

I walk through the house, room by room, and write down everything that I want to change in the next year or two.

I have quick things like get a plant for the landing, and big things like redo kitchen floors, on the list.

And then because I’m looking at this list regularly, about once a month, I have those things in mind so if I see the perfect rug for a child’s bedroom, I can get it.

That’s it really.

Does your house have a to-do list too?

If you’ve never made a master list for your house, why don’t you do that this weekend?

Filed Under: Decluttering, Goals, Intentional living, Konmari, Money and finances, Moving house, My year of happy 2017, Organising, organising children's spaces, Planning Tagged With: house, house to-do list, kitchen, planning, to-do lists

{organising} My house to-do list: an update