The Biggest And Best Of 2017! From Thrifty Decor Chick

HELLO my friends!! I’m back! I hope your holidays were wonderful and you’ve had a great start to the new year.

I did not plan to take this much time away, but the day after my last post, I was hit with SO much pain. Most of my life, like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I’ve been dealing with some lower/side back pain that has come and gone for the past few months. For the past five to six weeks it was back but was going down the front of one of my legs as well.

I didn’t realize (not having this pain before), that it was nerve pain, and pushed it way too far. So for nearly two weeks now I’ve been (very, very slowly) healing from what the doctor thinks was a bulging disk that resulted in nerve pain. I had an MRI last week and haven’t heard back just yet, but overall I’m feeling MUCH better. I still have a week or two before I think I’ll feel 100 percent again though.

I am no wuss. 😉 I can handle a good amount of pain — and this brought my to my knees. I’ve never felt anything like it and hope to never again. When you’re in that much pain, focusing on anything but what’s in front of you is all you can do. And with Christmas so close, I was just focused on getting things finished up for our family.

My husband has been an absolute saint!! We hosted a party a few days after Christmas and he did everything while I nursed my back and leg. I HATE not being able to do what I want to do — it’s not easy for me to slow down. This has been a lesson to listen to my body, that’s for sure. And I have a whole new respect and empathy for those that deal with chronic pain.

I was able to take down most of the Christmas decor yesterday, and the other day hung a few pictures. A couple days ago I was able to walk through Target for about 15 minutes without pain — those are huge milestones for me but I’m dying to get back to my normal self! I didn’t mean to take this much time away but I was thankful it happened at such a slow time for life and the blog.

One of my favorite things to do about this time is look back on the year and share the rooms and projects I completed. It makes me feel super accomplished, especially lately! 😉 This is a fun one because it includes some spaces from our old house and a recap of the spaces I’ve shared in the new one.

We’ll start with the old house! I made a few updates to our front living room early in the year, and for the first time in 13 years I was really loving how the room looked. It was a tricky one that was open to our foyer and had only one usable wall:

The biggest and best of 2017! from Thrifty Decor Chick

I loved that sofa so much, we now have a set of them in the new family room!

Our laundry room turned mud room was a process over the years, and I initially went with darker colors in here that didn’t feel like the rest of the house. So one week I decided to change it up and painted for hours and hours to transform it into a space that was much more us:

I also made some small tweaks to our family room. Years back we knocked down a wall to make this room bigger. After living with it for awhile I knew how I wanted to add some more seating and finishing touches:

Then the big news — we decided to move (very unexpectedly) and built our dream house. It was a WILD ride but we are so incredibly thankful!

Of course the first photos of each room in our new home are the simplest you’ll ever see them. It takes me awhile to decide how I want a room to look, and then add in time and resources. 🙂 This house is just what we want, but I have tons of plans for it, because duh… it’s me and tweaking with custom touches is what I love.

Overall, our new home is more open, brighter and I have this desire to keep it much simpler than our last house. At least for now.

The first room I put together was our powder room. It’s not saying much because it’s the smallest in the house, but it was a triumph at the time!:

I’m starting to play around with some ideas in this room — I want to do something dramatic in here!

Our foyer was another space I finished up early, just because it just came together so easily:

I’ve got a few treatment ideas in mind for that wall!

One of the rooms that sold us on this house (it didn’t take much) was the mud room/laundry combo. We used to have this same combo in our old house and I hated it — but as you can see above, that room was considerably smaller. After living here for a couple months now, I think this is one of my favorite rooms:

Right now it’s full of Christmas bins that need to go back out to the garage, and I love that the mess it tucked away, out of our living space. LOVE.

Our dining area is a bright, beautiful spot and I’ve got some big plans percolating:

We have a long wall in there that is calling out for something! I think I have the start of an idea in my head.

And finally, I recently shared my office and the plans for this space:

Funny, but this room was “done” in my head from the start. I knew exactly what I wanted to do! That may happen sooner than later because I really need some storage in here.

I couldn’t let a recap of 2017 go by without sharing my Design Dash experience again! I can’t thank those of you who voted for me enough — this was certainly one of the highlights of my blogging career!:

This is an exciting year because come this May I’ll hit TEN years of writing Thrifty Decor Chick — whoot!! Pretty cool.

If you have questions about anything in the rooms there should be links to items in the posts. (Let me know if not!) Did you miss any of these reveals — from either the old house or the new one? I’ll be back later this week, thanks for your patience as I heal!

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The biggest and best of 2017! from Thrifty Decor Chick