I'm getting a little antsy...

...to do some DIY! Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying all the running I've been doing and I am looking forward to my first ever half marathon in December, but all this training has seriously cut into my DIY time. I have a list about a mile long of things I'd like to do in our home including but not limited to:

master bathroom total remodel, backyard overhaul, new counter tops in guest and half baths, french door installation in the dining room, new carpeting, new tile in the upstairs bath, new blinds in all the bedrooms, the list goes on and on. 

Also, I am SO EXCITED because this year my hubby and I will be hosting our family Thanksgiving dinner. Last year was our first year to host and we had an absolute blast doing it.
Will we ever forget how the men huddled around the radio because our cable decided not to cooperate so they were unable to watch the football game? Ah, memories.

I'm really looking forward to hosting again this year and am hoping that Thanksgiving at our house has become a new family tradition. Unfortunately, it just isn't feasible to think we could accomplish anywhere near our entire list of to do's between now and Thanksgiving. We probably never will finish them all.  So, I've decided to narrow down my list to...

 8 things we can reasonably accomplish in the next 12 months

1. Finish framing the half bathroom mirror. 

The sad thing is, we've been 90% done with this project for months already, I just have to slap a coat of paint on our already trimmed wood and stick them up. When it's all said and done, I'm hoping it'll look something like this:

2. Paint/stain the cabinets in the master and half bathrooms. 

I'm not sure if I want to paint them grey or stain them a dark wood color, but here are my inspiration photos for these projects: 

3. Staircase remodel. 

This is a little bit of a bigger project, but should still be reasonably affordable. I'm hoping the transformation will look a little something like this:

4. Hang chandelier in master bedroom.

We purchased this chandelier to hang over my hubby's nightstand forever ago (like almost 2 years ago) and still haven't taken it out of the box. I'd like to actually get it hung up one of these days because I still really like it! The main reason I've put this project off for so long is the fixture is hard wired (meaning it is powered through a light switch, and must be installed directly into the ceiling). I want to change it so that it can be plugged in. 

5. Paint the kitchen. 

Remember back when I did the kitchen remodel post and I said that we were pretty much done with this room with the exception of painting the walls? Well, we still haven't painted them and its been almost 7 months. I think we've decided on a coffee/mocha color although we've been advised by several friends that grey would be pretty too. It currently looks like this:

6. Paint the master bathroom.

About a month ago I noticed a spot on our master bathroom wall that needed to be touched up. The old owners had kindly left us a gallon of paint to use for this very circumstance. Unfortunately, the paint was so old that the color had changed pretty drastically. So now we have a spot on our bathroom wall that doesn't match the rest of the room. Needless to say, now the entire space needs to be repainted. I'm leaning towards a light and spa like color scheme, much like what we did in the upstairs guest bathroom. Here's a picture of that hideous spot, in all it's glory:

7. Neutralize the gallery wall. 

Back in June I did a post about my gallery wall (read about that here). While in the process of writing the post I started to think about "neutralizing" the colors of the gallery wall, and since then the idea has stuck with me. I want to get rid of some of the darker blues as well as the green frames by painting them white. I may even spray paint my little bike white. It currently looks like this:

 8. Fix the door frame in the upstairs bathroom.

Remember how excited I was back in August when I finally completed my guest bathroom mini makeover? Sadly, we only had a few weeks to enjoy the space before our dog Ruby had a full blown freak out session and did this to our door frame:

So, now we need to fix that too.  

Ok, I know what you are thinking. Thanksgiving is in like 6 weeks, not 12 months! I thought I'd start with projects for the next year, and I'd take your advice about which ones I should tackle before Thanksgiving. I think we can get at least 2 or 3 things checked off the list. 

So what do you think? Which ones should I attempt to do before Thanksgiving? 

As always, thank you!

-Jesse