This month marks the one year mark of owning our home!
This is me and my husband’s first home, and we have a lot of work to do. I thought I would show you what is possible to accomplish in a year.
When we moved in we had little furniture (and have even traded up some of the pieces we did have).
Over the last year I have been able to affordably furnish most of our home and do some small updates, so I thought it would be fun to share!
I’m going to break it down month by month and show you our priorities, so that if you just got a house this timeline can be helpful to you!
Month 1 – March
This month was mostly spent painting (we painted every room in the house except our master bathroom and my office).
This took a week and was exhausting. The other project we did is my husband swapped the old vent hood for a low profile microwave. I spent the rest of the month unpacking, organizing, and shopping for furniture. We had some bedroom furniture (that we later upgraded) but the living room was empty for about two months.
Month 2 – April
April was spent on our hall way bathroom. The bathroom is covered in tile that is a yellowy cream that we weren’t a fan of. We didn’t have he budget to renovate the bathroom so we decided to paint the tile for now.
I did a whole post about it last year, and plan to do a one year update soon.
Month 3 – May
In month three we finally started to buy some furniture. The empty living and dining room was getting sad, and I finally was starting to make choices on what I wanted for furniture.
We put together our little built in bar in the living room, designed the living room, and painted my desk blue.
Month 4 – June
In June I got really focused on my home office, which is funny because this is the month I stopped work from home.
I finished up painting my new office chair, painted the wall with a stencil, and started redecorating.
I love how this room turned out and it is my favorite place to get away and work on different projects.
Month 5 – July
July was a month of little touches. We shopped and purchased dining chairs finally for the dining room, we installed sconces in the living room, and I purchased a new China cabinet.
Month 6 – August
We didn’t do a lot in August, we got married and went on a honeymoon and the rest of the month was mostly spent organizing all of our registry gifts.
Towards the end of the month I did begin on my China cabinet.
Month 7 – September
I spent most of September working on the China cabinet and I started to look at redesigning our bedroom.
Month 8 – October
October was pretty much entirely dedicated to redecorating our bedroom.
I did not initially plan on doing this much of a change, but things fell into place at the right time and I went for it.
Our bedroom is probably the room I spend the most time in, and I appreciate the new decor.
Month 9 – November
Honestly I spent a lot of November just working on Christmas decor.
I’ve never really put effort into Christmas decor since I always lived in apartments and moved a lot, so I had a lot of fun this year.
I made stockings, decorating some garland, did mini wreaths on the table, and more.
Month 10 – December
I hosted my family for Christmas so I focused a lot on the dining room.
December is the month I finally finished the China cabinet. This was an ongoing process while I worked on other projects so it took a while.
I also added trim to these Ikea curtains and added them to my dining room.
Month 11 – January
January I finally got around to doing the custom roman shades for my home office. This was sort of the final piece of the puzzle for my office.
Month 12 – February
Honestly, I didn’t do any home improvement projects in February.
First of all, Texas had a snow storm that really messed a lot of things up.
But also, I was just trying to save money this month and these home projects add up quickly.
Year in Review
Overall, at this point I feel like our house is mostly furnished.
There will always be projects I want to work on, but I feel pretty happy with where we are.
The past year has flown by and I loved making this post and reviewing all the things I’ve worked on in the past year.
Here is to many more years to come in this house!


Our House Story - The Homemade Host
April 14, 2021 at 11:33 am[…] I have documented it over the last year on this blog, and more recently in my post about everything we did in the first year. […]