Well, it’s only fitting that my year wrap-up post is happening at the end of January, because all of 2021 felt like a blur where we did everything yet nothing since we couldn’t really go anywhere. Ah, pandemic times. Last year was the only year where I didn’t blog Monday-Friday. I simply didn’t have the bandwidth and it was easier to share everything on Instagram. I know not everyone is on Instagram and I’m assuming some things were missed! So, I decided to do this best of 2021 post and give you all a little snippet of what happened in 2021 month by month! The goal for 2022 is to get back into a scheduled blog post format so that you will always know when a blog post will be going live.

JANUARY 2021: Renovating during a pandemic is no joke. We bought our house right before the world shut down. So the demo part was done, but then things came to a stretching halt! So it was nice to see that January began with new wood flooring and a partnership with LL Flooring.

FEBRUARY 2021: While progress continued in our new house we decided to show my parents kitchen a little love and finish a project we had been working on for months! We worked on their kitchen remodel and shared how to give your kitchen a new look while leaving the same footprint, cabinets and appliances.

MARCH 2021: More progress on the house with kitchen cabinetry! I had fallen in love with a cabinet color called Waterscape that was only available on Diamond cabinets from Masterbrand. I was obsessed and couldn’t be talked out of it. So, I did some digging and reached out to Diamond and pitched the project! They loved the idea and a partnership was born! The only hiccup was that they wanted me to do a different color green aka the darker green. We tested both of them out, but decided we still loved Waterscape and after a little back and forth we were back on board. Then the waiting game for cabinetry started.

APRIL 2021: More progress on the house! The walls were finally ready for paint and I decided to go with Farrow & Ball. They have the richest colors and every one of them has been expertly designed. You can’t go wrong with whatever color you pick!

MAY 2021: This was a crazy month! Painting was still happening and then lighting arrived! I was lucky enough to partner with Hudson Valley Lighting and have the most beautiful lighting pieces in the house! They all arrived on this massive pallet!

May was filled with lots of excitement on the family front!

I turned 40! We went away to Vermont and stayed at White Doe Farms. It was heaven! Asher’s birthday is one day after mine so he got to celebrate his as well! We even threw Mother’s day in there!

Jon’s baby sister, Jenn got engaged and married in May! We planned the wedding in a handful of weeks! I was in charge of flowers!

JUNE 2021: The painting was finally finished! We had a horrible experience with a new painter I was using and had to fix everything they did and finish the job ourselves. Fun times. It bought on a lot of tears and frustration. Finding tradespeople during this time has been exhausting. Lots of bad people out there just looking to make money and disappear and all of the good people have crazy time frames.

Client work continued! So many new projects in the works!

JULY 2021: More house progress! The boys room got a dose of blue with Ultra Marine Blue by Farrow & Ball

The hallway got a dose of Citrona by Farrow & Ball and my office for wallpapered in Closet Stripes by Farrow & Ball

The bedroom got wallpapered in this beautiful paper called Arbour by Meg Braff and new lighting piece called, Abbott by Hudson Valley Lighting.

We also spent a lot of time driving on to the beach and fishing!

Plus weekends in Riverhead with Jon’s family! He had relatives in from California which we hadn’t seen in a while so it was nice to see them and have the boys meet them.

AUGUST 2021: Client projects continued and progress was being made. Going custom is now giving clients sorter timelines than some to the trade items that are stuck on a container somewhere in the ocean.

At our house, we refinished the basement and made a little laundry nook that I wanted to wallpaper. So I was playing around with some options. What do you think we went with?

On the family side we tried venturing out a little more with outside activities and hit the Bronz Zoo with Sebastian and my sister!

SEPT 2021: School began again, but we still made time to enjoy the warm weather and keep summer going.

We took a girls trip to Rockaway Beach

More time at the drive on beach fishing!

At the house, we had more progress! I decided I wanted to beadboard the ceiling in the kitchen. So Jon made that happen and then installed the most beautiful lights ever. Neither of these things were originally in the plan so Jon had to do some shuffling but it all worked out!

The sports season also began! We hadn’t put the boys in sports the year prior due to covid, but in 2021 we felt a bit more comfortable with outdoor sports so they went back to soccer and started football! We had so many early evening practices where we got to watch them practice and Jon even coached football! I’m a crazy sideline sports mom so it was fun to get to yell and scream at the sidelines!

OCT 2021: Continued with the house progress! This time we focused outside and painted the brick white! Everyone loved it. We had neighbors stop by and compliment us! We also ordered shutters for the windows, but they were custom and we had to wait for them.

The front door got some love as well!

Kitchen cabinets arrived and got installed! So pretty!!!!!!

Oct ended with a new cousin! Jenn and Mike had baby Molly! She is the sweetest! Best part? They bought a house a couple of blocks away from us so we get to see her all of the time.

NOV 2021: We had more progress in the house!

We finalized countertops for the kitchen.

Appliances arrived! I’m not a fan of front loader washer and dryers so I went old school with the washer and dryer.

New lighting for the staircase arrived and I’m so happy. It’s even prettier in person!

Nov arrived with a bang when my nephew made an abrupt arrival into the world! My sister, Ximena, and Jon’s sister, Jennifer were both pregnant at the same time. Jenn had her baby Molly at the end of Oct in the hospital like one normally does. Molly’s arrival was a bit abrupt as well with an emergency c-section at the hospital but Ximena’s delivery story was even crazier! I got a call from my brother-in-law that they were heading to the hospital and then literally 30 mins later I got a call that she had the baby…in the apartment…and my brother-in-law had delivered him! Wild! Baby Cole arrived fast and my sister delivered naturally! Not at all the plan, but everyone lived to tell the tale.

We are all in love with baby Cole!

DEC 2021: December was literally a blur!
Kitchen hardare went in!

We started packing up our stuff at my parents’ house and moving things over to the rooms in the new house that were finished.

We also took a trip to Kalahari with one of Hudson’s friends to celebrate his 10 birthday! Double digits baby!

Jon’s sister got engaged and we were all there for the proposal!

I also decided that dirt bikes would be a good idea for a Christmas gift!

We were lucky enough to have family visiting us during the Christmas season so it was nice to take them out sightseeing! It was hard to do with the surge of cases so everything had to be outdoors and in places where there were minimal people inside. Not an easy feat, but we were able to do it!

That is pretty much it! A full year in a nutshell!
What is to come in 2022? We are officially moving into our somewhat finished house! This is hopefully happening at the end of January. We are still finishing up some projects. Will it be fully decorated when we move in? No, but we can wrap that up when we are in the house. So look forward to more content on that end! Client wise we have a lot of projects in the works and I’m hoping we will have items arriving so that I can share more on that front.

Thank you for sticking around and here is to a wonderful 2022!