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In one week, we will start our culminating challenge for the year – the Love Your Home Challenge! This challenge is the most fun to me – because we get to put on the finishing touches with all of our hard work from earlier this year!
Feedback from previous years had a big impact on this year’s challenge. Instead of revealing the focus week-by-week, I’m sharing it all from the start. My hope is that you’ll be able to plan and prepare at the beginning, to be even more successful throughout the challenge.
Really, this should have been obvious to me before – it makes perfect sense that giving you a chance to prepare for each week’s challenge would give you more opportunities to plan, gather supplies, sort out scheduling, and get more done!
FREE PRINTABLE
As a big thank you to all of the readers that have purchased printables and planners from my shop, I am offering the printable for this challenge FOR FREE! You’ll notice that my blog doesn’t have ads splattered everywhere, ads covering up images, and ads that pop up and slow down your experience. Because of my shop income, I don’t feel the need to earn my income in such annoying ways (though I’m not judging any blogger for doing it!). Thank you so much for all the support you’ve given me all year long!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! It is such a gift to get to do something I love so much AS A JOB.
There is absolutely nothing to buy to participate fully in this challenge. Woot woot!!!
Download the Printable Guide here and start planning your projects now!
OVERVIEW OF EACH WEEK
The goal of this challenge is to put in some of the work you would if you were selling your home, except stick around and enjoy the work yourself. You are staging your home – for you! I think it is crazy how often people don’t get around to fixing up their homes until it is too late for them to enjoy it.
Week 1: Plan & Prepare
Use the printable and take time to really think through and plan out your projects for the next 6 weeks. Imagine you are selling your house. What eye-sores would you fix? What furniture would you move around or take away? Use the energy to love your home, instead of sell it! All the planning you do up front will make the rest of your time go more smoothly.
Week 2: Beauty + Function
Take a look at your storage, is there a way you could add beauty to the function? When we take the time to make our organizing look good AND work well, then we are more likely to keep it up. Create storage that looks good!!
Week 3: Freshen Up Decor
Take a second look at your decorations. Are they still working for you? Do they add to the look you’re going for or distract? Don’t be afraid to declutter your decorations. Sometimes, just simplifying what you have looks so much better. Changing decor around can make spaces feel new, without spending a dime. Whether you use what you have, DIY new things, or give yourself a decorating budget – take time this week to freshen things up!
Week 4: Furniture Update
Consider giving your furniture a facelift. You can re-arrange, repair, renew, or refinish. Furniture doesn’t just need to serve a purpose, it needs to fit the space. Your furniture should complement your home and your decorating style. How will you update your furniture?
Week 5: A Little Paint
A little paint can go a long way! What do your walls say about you? Whether you paint a whole room or just touch-up the paint that is already up, fresh clean paint can make a room feel completely new. There are limitless places you can freshen up with some paint – trim, cabinets, furniture, walls, decorations, you name it. Where will you paint?
Week 6: Mini-Makeover
Simply decluttering can transform a space. It is amazing what taking clutter away can do to a room, without any other changes. Pick a room and give it a makeover! If you’re a declutter graduate, then think about other ways you can give it a makeover. Lighting change? Furniture update? A little paint? Decor refresh?
Week 7: Stage Your Home … for you!!
Time for the finishing touches. Go around your home and consider how you’d stage it to sell. Make some of those changes for yourself! Get rid of eye-sores, extra furniture that crowds the space, holes in walls, repairs, and more. What finishing touches will you give your home? Make it count and fall in love with your home again!
PROJECT PLANNING
Take the time to really plan out your projects. I plan my projects using the project planning section in my planners. In the picture above, I show you a glimpse into my planning process.
I’m always amazed at how much problem-solving I do while I plan a project! I can work through the ways to order steps, and remember all the materials I’ll need if I think through it start to finish.
If you don’t have my planner, use the space in the Love Your Home Challenge printable or at least on a scratch sheet of paper to make a plan.
Please Plan!!!! Promise me that you’ll plan, okay?!
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Will you love your home again?
What do you think? Are you going to join in and put in some effort to love the home you’re in?
From my home to yours,
Mary
ps
If you imagine me making these printables or writing these blog posts without distractions in a tidy little office … well, that never happens. I’m usually surrounded by little people. To take pictures of the printable, I waited until the last part of dinner was finishing in the Insta-Pot and I had a few minutes to get the pictures done. I shoved plates to the side and went for it.
Then, I decided to try an end table in my living room for a different wood grain in the background, which is the shot that ended up in this post. (My kids had helped set the table and prep dinner, so I let them watch a few minutes of YouTube videos until my husband got home and dinner was finished.) Get things done when you can! It is silly to wait for the perfect time, because the perfect time does NOT exist … for anyone!
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