Happy New Year, Bungalowners! Whether you set personal resolutions or not, the new year is a great time to set (or reset) the intentions and energy for your home and house projects in 2024. I usually skip the personal resolutions and set resolutions for my house instead so here is the process that I use that you might find helpful to get started fresh this year…it’s a little bit like project management! These resolutions are in addition to any yearly maintenance you perform on your home, so keep that in mind.

Write out your goals and budgets

• Write a list of your ongoing projects
• Write a list of must-do’s for 2024
• Write a list of “nice-to-dos” for the future
• Write out any current project budgets or proposed budgets for new projects

Write out some critical questions and answer them

• What’s a project that is at 90% finished (or more) that I can knock out quickly and just be done with?
• What’s something I need to research before I can start a new project?
• What’s something I need to finish before I can start Phase II/Phase III/A new project, etc?
• Are any of these projects weather-dependent?
• Who do I need to start interviewing to hire for any fair-weather work?
• What tools do I need to buy or workshops do I need to take to prepare for projects I might want to do later in the year?

Plan out your year (But leave room for surprises or flexibility)

Some things can be planned for a general time frame (like a new roof in the spring) but other projects may require starts and stops based on weather or trade schedules (if you’re working with trades). You can still sit down at a calendar and plan out, as tightly or loosely, a general work schedule for the year.

If you’re embarking on a big project, set project goals or milestones you’d like to reach at certain months (just make sure it’s realistic). You can always reassess, adjust your expectations, and set new goals after a couple of months of work. Add in any personal obligations, vacations, plans, and your home maintenance schedule to give you an overall picture of how busy your year will be. This can also help you avoid burnout or avoid forgetting something critical early on.

The schedule you set could look like a lot of different things…Your outdoor work could follow the same schedule that your gardening does. Window restoration or repair can happen anytime of the year, but summer might be better for taking your sashes out for longer stretches of time. Even easier, perhaps, you could consider building/repairing/rebuilding new storm windows before you remove any sashes at all.

If you’re considering doing any mortar repair or repointing, you could get a head start on cleaning out old mortar joints (this is easier to do if you’re working in a basement). But it’s important to wait until after the freeze/thaw cycle ends (usually April 15th) to apply any new mortar. (I have a mortar series coming out soon!)

Or maybe you’re going to media blast your radiators and refinish them…You’ll need to wait until spring to drain your system, and then your radiators will need to be done and reinstalled before you can refill and start your system back up. But you can save yourself some maintenance on the back end by having your fall maintenance performed when they get reinstalled (and beat the rush).

Something new I’m doing this year is giving myself an education budget. This is a set amount of money that I can use throughout the year for classes, workshops, webinars, or books…whatever crops up that looks interesting or is immediately applicable to a project I want to tackle at home. Ongoing education is important but if you don’t plan for it, it won’t happen!

The Chicago Bungalow Association offers free seminars and webinars on a number of different topics on their Facebook page, and you can usually find an archive of previous webinars there too. Depending on what you’d like to learn, you can find a hands-on workshop or seminar for just about anything house-related. I can provide a list of classes that I recommend if anyone is interested.

What other critical project questions would you add to the list above? Anything that I’ve missed?