DIY

Year in Review: DIY’s for 2020

2020 was a year full of DIY projects.

It was the year we bought our house and the pandemic meant more time at home to complete projects, which I am honestly thankful for.

Between working full time, getting my Master’s, this blog, and volunteer commitments free time is hard to come by.

2020 was a little pause that I needed from my hectic life and gave me time to put into showing a little love around our new home.

Since I did so much last year, I thought it would be fun to create one big post of all the projects I worked on.

Then next week I’ll share what I’m thinking of working on for this year.

Painting the Bathroom Tile

This was the very first project we did in our home.

The bathroom was tiled in this awful yellowy cream color. We didn’t have the budget to completely renovate, but knew that white would be better than what we had.

We used tub and tile to paint over the tile. We learned a lot from trial and error and I wrote all my best advice for anyone wanting to try it in this post.

This project takes 3rd place of most time spent on a project for the year of 2020, since it took us about three weeks to complete.

Painting My Office Desk

The next project I did was painting my office desk blue.

My husband had a nice wood desk that was in rough shape. I painted it in the color Wedgewood by Heirloom Traditions Paint and it is gorgeous.

I shared my best tips for painting furniture in this post.

Living Room Bar

This isn’t really a DIY, but it is a project I had to spend a lot of time researching to get all the dimensions right.

I wrote an updated post recently with how I ultimately decided to style it.

Stenciled Wall

Another project of trial and error. I had to start over three times, but eventually figured out the best technique.

This project takes 2nd place of most time spent on a project for 2020. I spent 22 days working on this project (which is just one day longer than the bathroom).

Sconces without Electrical

This was a small project but still fun.

I love the look of sconces but didn’t want to mess with electrical. After a bit of research I figured out the best way to do it that won’t leave permanent damage to your sconces in case you do ever want to hardwire them or you need to change puck lights.

Plate Wall

Another small but fun project was the plate wall in my office.

Bedroom Pleated Curtains

I spent a lot of time searching for curtains that were the perfect shade of blue. Then I found them but I wanted them to be pleated, so I did that myself.

In this post I detail how to turn any curtain into a pinch pleat curtain (no sewing required).

Dining Room Curtains

I also dressed up some Ikea curtains for the dining room.

These thankfully already had pleating tape, but needed to be hemmed and I decided to add trim to make them look custom and designer.

Bedroom Updates

I did a ton of DIY’s in the bedroom that I already detailed pretty recently in this post. The projects included painting the nightstands, sewing throw pillows, and reupholstering the bench at the end of our bed.

The China Cabinet

Finally we have the china cabinet. This project wins 1st place in most time spent, coming in at a whopping four months for completion.

I wanted to give up so many times, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started this project.

But seeing the cabinet everyday makes me smile, and I don’t regret it.

I am working on an in depth post about tips for stripping large pieces of furniture, so look out for that. In the meantime you can read a little about it here and here.

What did you work on in 2020?

Did you spend the extra time at home doing DIY’s like I did?

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