Hit was our master bathroom reno, but I missed a bit on the paint color, even after going through about 10 paint samples it's still not quite right. I haven't had time to re-do it yet. Problem is, the bathroom is big and in some light it looks ok but in other light it just isn't quite to my satisfaction.

Teacats, I adore revashelves! They have been the saving grace to my otherwise horrible kitchen.

Outsideplaying, I am jealous, you are on the otherside of your master bath project! Lucky duck! Could your light bulbs be the issue with your paint color woes?

My home didn't need any projects this year but I want to play - my hit was my Christmas decorating in my living room and dining room. I changed it up this year. I tend to use wreaths as a fall-back when I can't be bothered to think about doing something different and this year I didn't use them as a cop-out. I liked what I did and so did friends and family.

My miss and a big one it was - I do summer container gardening on my back and front decks. My front deck, which of course faces the street, was a big disappointing miss. The flowers and colours I chose were horrible. Our street is a street with little road traffic but lots of walkers and I like to have a nice display for them but this year, like I said, it was a big miss and I felt so bad!

No big changes (or even little ones) for 2014. Saved me a bunch of money so I guess that's a hit!

Roarah~ Since you're the OP I can comment without "hi-jacking".

You posted another pic of your barn doors on a color request from Aktillery~
Don't go so hard on them !!!

Blfenton, I hope to one day in the not to far future hope to feel at peace with my home. You are very fortunate. And kudos for taking a risk and trying something new it is the greatest feeling when risk pays off!

Foxespad your house is perfection from what I have seen here of it! It is a hit with me.

Thanks, Forsboystoo. The doors are well installed and I like them from the other room alot but the hardware is just a bit too rustic for the rest of my homes design:(. For now they serve a practical purpose so they are still up but they are temporary.

Hit: New shelving unit. Love it,
Hit: Decided on style: organic modern.

Miss: No other decisions made during the year. Not a one. "Temporary" window covering will be 2 years old in February. To-do list for 2015 is the same as 2014. Miss. Miss. Miss.

Hey, this is a fun thread

Hits:
*pleased with my new server and chair in my DR/LR
*put frosted plexiglass in online ordered door frames to turn built-in bookcases into storage cabinets at our loft (to prep for use as an AirBnB)
*replaced black appliances with stainless at said loft -- what a difference in reflected light in a dark area

Misses:
*hate my new lamps and dislike some of the choices I made elsewhere; vowing to widen the budget and choose more carefully

Ooh! I have quite a list:

Hits:
-Bought a house. Nail'd it. :)
-painted entire inside of house: all colors are perfect accept living room
-decided to paint mural in living room (will be a miss if I can't finish the thing though!!)
-expensive dinning table that is *fabulous*
-had hardwoods upstairs refinished. Hallelujah
-organized storage in basement

Miss:
-living room color
-all the other things that haven't gotten done (like dining room chairs, refinishing desk, bookshelves and everything else...)

Hit: Finished guest room, which was started six years ago. It's everything that I envisioned. No, it's even better. :)

Miss: Was so busy working on guest room that, except for mowing, I let my yard go to pot.

Roarah, I don't think it's the bulbs, but I hadn't really thought about that. I'll try to pay more attention to that as a double-check. DH changes out the bulbs and we often have light bulb war (he likes cfls; I hate them so he has one kind and I have another). Selcier, glad to know I'm not the only one who failed with a paint color!

I just thought of another recent hit. We just replaced a rug in our office/man cave. I didn't really spend a lot for it but really love it. Now we need to repaint that room but probably won't for a couple of months. I've taken photos and will be posting here soon for advice.

Roarah,

Interesting thread idea. I have some "misses" I have thought about posting, because people rarely do post misses. Especially the kind of "misses" I have; I am not looking to change them or fix them, I just accept them. But they might be a good lesson for others!

I will post when I find the photos...

Well, most of our house got built last year, so the actual list is long (on both sides,but more hit than miss). We had an architect, but were out of budget for professional advice when it came to deciding on most of the finishes.

Hits were the interior colors, including the "Makita blue" bedroom, which is pretty bold. The second set of off-whites is perfect (I have 150.00 of an imperceptibly different color going to Habitat soon-- it was ever so slightly pinkish in the wrong light and I knew it would bug me.)

We're happy with the way the kitchen and bathrooms turned out, although I have not posted any pix yet. Love the cabinetry throughout, which was designed in collaboration with our cabinet maker.Did a good job with selecting finishes there, or at least we like them.

A couple of misses in lighting, even though we did have a pro help with that. One area of the LR is a little dark but I'm not letting anyone hack into those nice new walls to add wiring. Then I picked some fixtures for the bathroom (sconces on mirror) based on an inspiration pic, but got the scale off. Looking back, I think they had another foot between them. These look too bulky, but at least that's a fixable mistake.

Of course, the things that are "right" disappear for the most part, but the ones that are "wrong" are right there, poking me in the eye. I try to remind myself what a privilege it is to be able to have someone build a house for us, and shut myself up!

Hits

-Reupholstered all of the living room furniture for well under budget.

-Finally got a bedroom painted the desired color after living with a color I hated for 10 years. I'm happy I waited, though, because one wall had to be scraped, skimcoated and primed after the first coat of paint wouldn't adhere.

-Cleared out the rented storage unit. I'm so happy to have that waste of money no longer in my budget.

-Finished a two-year project of having all the wooden windows repaired and repainted.

Misses

-Still have needed stucco repair, but I'm not sure I want to use the same contractor. Plus the repair requires extra water usage and we are under water rationing rules right now.

My hit was the landscaping . I moved my hydrangeas abut thirty of them and they love the new area. Miss was I seem frozen on picking a new color sceme for the kitchen. I just can,t deside on a new paint color.

Moving thirty hydrangeas is quite the job! Congrats on that.

Forced remodel of laundry room/half bath had both hits and misses. Fortunately those misses are things I just haven't gotten around to doing yet so I can make them hits this year.

Another hit was packing up some things that I inherited but don't like all that much.

Hit: $150 on sale off-white matelasse bed spreads from Kohl's that were exactly what I wanted for my king & one twin bed.

Miss: the $300 not-on-sale yellow Martha Stewart quilted king bedspread that I'd bought previously at Macy's because Macy's had no off-white king matelasse bedspreads and which is still sitting in my closet because I didn't have time to return it. Some day I'll use it...I guess.

HIt: 8 ft. Rubbermaid Deluxe Closet Organizer for $92 at Amazon. It turned my overstuffed monster closet into a helpful, tidy temple of tranquility & order. I found pants that had been missing for 10 years. Eventually I'll put the closet doors back up, but for now, I still like to stare in amazement at my color-coordinated, organized-by-season clothes closet. It's practically the best decorative feature of my MBR ;)

Miss: Our family room. We'd planned to totally gut & renovate it last summer, but were just too busy with guests and travel. Then in the fall we were busy helping DS & DDIL house hunt. And now we are too busy helping DS & DDIL clean & paint their new home, getting it ready for our first grandchild in April. Will try again this spring.

Hits:
Repainting and a bit of redecorating in our dining room/library.
Stripping wallpaper and painting in DS's room. Huge improvement.
New foundation plantings/shrubs in front yard.
Took down curtains in family room and left windows nekked except for woven wood shades. I prefer the simplicity.
Replaced kitchen lighting with new fixtures that are a mix of dark bronze and copper.
Bought two new lamps, in brass, and I love them both.

Misses:
Enlarged one of DH's photos on canvas and hung it over the living room sofa, and I'm sick of it already. It's too bright and just...meh. But he thinks it's the greatest.
Hmm. There must be something else but I've probably blocked it out.

Hit:
-Planting trees and hanging bird feeders! I have lovebird parrots, cardinals and lots of hummingbirds to watch now!

-Buying my red battam chair floor sample from DWR. My rescue parrot loves to snuggle while I am on it with her. It is very well made. And it is very comfortable, even if it doesnt quite fit in with the decor. I guess this is function over form?
Scout on her chair (forgive the state of the house-fireplace, bar niche will be addressed in next phase of remodel):{{gwi:2137822}}
{{gwi:2137823}}

Miss: Continuing to stupidly pay someone to grind the patio concrete down to expose the aggregate. It didnt work and created a mess. Had to all be pulled out.

Awww, I am in love with Scout! Love the wonderful red chair & ottoman too -- it coordinates very well with your snuggly feathered green "accessory."

Finallyhome finding your style is a great accomplishment and being true to organic modern spirit your WT should take time to find you:).

Gooster, I so enjoyed all your options for your dining room! What a beautiful house you have! Your loft sounds fab too!

selcier, yay to your new house! You hit it out of the park for sure! I am in aweof your mural so far and I know it is going to be terrific one day soon! Take your time and enjoy your new digs!

Mama goose, love your guest room! It is lovely! The garden will wait for you until spring!

outsideplaying, I blame all of todays evils on CFLS! I am sure they have been lighting the way to he77 for all time. I bet your paint choices are perfect in a proper75watt incandescent! Can not wait to see the rug!

mtr, I think I will think your misses are better than any of my hits! Love your beach house! You have taken a rare gem and polished it to a natural shine. But yes, I want to see pictures!

Lori, wow a whole house! Honestly soon when the dust settles you will not see the misses as much. Congrats.

Fun2behere, I am dying to find a great reupholsterer. Good job staying under budget too. I have been trying to pick new colors for three rooms for a few years and keep coming up blank, maybe I too am avoiding a huge mess.

Madeyna, I wish I had 3 hydrangeas to m8ve let alone 30!

Rosesstinks, glad your new projects will be 100 percent hits once the are completed:). And letting go always feels so wonderful and enlightening too.

Awm, You have the most excting hit! Congratulations! How exciting and lucky you are all so close in location!

Sueb, you library paint color and other additions were perfect, but I always like what you create. I have to keep my barn doors for now cause my hubby and 8 year old love them:(. One day the will just disappear and they will not even notice but if I say I am taking them down they protest.

Rockybird, I love the chair and its occupant! Your house, even in the mist of construction is a dream! I love that you are bring its spirit back to life! The pool looks as it was meant to be and I know your patio will too!

Hit: new kitchen (March 2014) still makes eyes turn into hearts

Miss: hasty hiring of floor refinisher during reno, our floors are scandalous if you look too closely

Hit: New hutch, very much in love (just got a new bar cart to go beside)

Miss: over-oiling the hutch, turning it glossy and sticky! Quite a few hours with the steel wool needed on that one.

Hit: picked up this painting for very cheap, not valuable but it turned out to be from the first time Tall Ships came here (Halifax) 30 years ago, so it's a cool story. We tracked down the names of the ships in the painting.

{{gwi:2137825}}Miss: My yard sale clown find, turns out my husband is not into creepy clowns.

This post was edited by robotropolis on Tue, Jan 13, 15 at 22:19

That clown is downright frightening!

Hit: painting the dining room chairs black, using chalk paint and a waxed finish.

Miss: painting the MBR. I'm not happy with the color and DH is not happy with having to repaint. However, I'm not sure when we will get to repainting.

2014 was an overall miss for me. The only project we accomplished was repairing the damage in our basement guest room after a flood. I haven't even started redecorating in there.

I have many things planned for 2015, most of which I had hoped to do last year. I inherited some furniture from my grandmother, who passed away last March. I plan to get it slipcovered. I have some armchairs to get reupholstered, want to repaint some rooms, and I'm working on several closet and storage improvements.

Ready to head to bed, so I didn't read but a few comments. I'll be back as it's a great idea for a thread.

Roarah, I just wanted to add an idea, not sure if anyone mentioned this on your other thread as I've not had too much time to read lately, but have you thought about having a cornice built to cover the hardware on the barndoors in your sunroom?

Something like this....

Hits:

Painting the scullery purple (love it!)
Acquiring a particularly artistic cat tree that my cats adore and actually looks good
A very colorful fish painting for my kitchen

Misses:

Not so much, but I haven't found a good home for painting displaced by the fish. Its currently propped behind my TV.
The cats broke a leg off one of my zebra chair in the living room (don't ask how--I don't know). It's still not fixed and the broken chair is still taking up physical and psychological space.

Hits:
DH and I completed new home building process without either threatening divorce proceedings.

Overall, happy with finished product and selections.

Miss:
Growing fear, anxiety that new home is a tad too small - like pants that fit but are, in reality, too tight.

Should have put glass in front door - too dark. On list for 2015.

Hits:
Repainting our living area an off white. The previous shade of yellow was a major miss on my part.
Repainting our bedroom a soft green. Again, replacing a different disastrous yellow shade.
Finding a great rug for our entryway.

Misses:
Wasting money on expensive Silhouette blinds that the cats destroyed.
Many random misses on accessories, many returnable but others I'm stuck with and they are sitting in closets.

We converted a coat closet in our kitchen (that we used for general storage) into a pantry.

No real misses for 2014 but I did order something for the kitchen I am anxiously awaiting because I know we will have to get creative to make it fit and look "natural". That could be our first "miss" of the new year.

Happy to hear all good things about the Rev-A-Shelf system--we are gradually planning our own conversion in the kitchen to have a better system and I just yesterday ordered one of their kits so we can install our trash can under our sink.

This post was edited by Mmmbeeer on Mon, Jan 19, 15 at 13:05

Hits:
Victorian table for family room

Perennial garden expansion came out WAY beyond my expectations

60% of the new porch railing got painted

MIL came and got ALL of her stuff from the room formerly known as hers....cut the dusting chore by more than 50%! She had a lot of stuff in there. Now, if I can keep DH from moving his music stuff in there, I will make it MY room....

Miss:

Only stuff I did not get done..

Still need 5 door knobs to match the new ones.

Did not get the porch rail painting finished

STILL have not finished free standing fireplace in living room, but DID pick out a quartzite remnant at the stone yard.

Our hit for the 2014 was buying an adjustable bed. I no longer wake up congested and rarely wake up in pain. It's also the first time we've had full bed with head, foot and side rails. I'm loving it.

I can't think of any misses at the moment.

Robotropolois, love the sideboard cabinet! Do you know what species the wood is? The grain is stunning. The clipper ships are beautiful the clown is perfectly sad. It somehow touches me rather than freighten...

Bac, I have yet to try milk paint. Did you enjoy using it?

jlc, sorry about your flood:(.We had a flood in our basement this year too. The shiny lining for me is I like our new floors better than the old ones but they did come at a cost of great inconvenience.

Justgotabme, thank you! Seclier mention a pelmet but I could not envision it! Your mock up gives me hope! It looks so much better I can not wait to show my Dh and I think next week during naps and school I will try and constuct one just like that! Thanks for taking the time to do this for me!

cawaps, a scullery and purple how royal! I am green with envy! It must be lovely

rubyclaire, Good job on constructing a whole home together and coming out the other end as strong as ever! I love what I see of it the light is lovely!

Sas,good job on new choices with both rugs and paint sorry about the cat damage...

mmmmmbrrrr, WOW! I am impressed by your organization!

Springroz, you have been a busy bee and was it you who recently did a kitchen too?

Justgotabe, I love how a bed change can be life altering?

I need to add another miss:

Brought a bed that a) was the wrong color for the color scheme I was going for and b) did not have matching dresser/end tables that I liked.

However, it was a great price and quality. But now I'm having to do what I swore I would not do, try to find something to match, which for me is very difficult.

It's true: you can't teach an old dog a new trick, some people never learn or as long as you keep doing the same thing, you'll keep getting the same results. Sigh.

My hits were inexpensive interim fixes in the kitchen.

---New lighting (I can see! yippee! It wasn't just old eyes, my 28yo son was cheering, too.)

---Backsplash. Lovin' it. Thank you GWers for the nudge.

---Stained cabinets and new hardware. Darker and light absorbing, but such an improvement over the 46 year old finish. Satin nickel pulls with antique silver hinges. They match enough, but the brighter pulls get the attention while the gazillion hinges against the dark walnut do not stand out nearly as much as would satin nickel hinges. A gamble that worked!

Miss/maybe: Towel pig. I liked the idea because it solved a towel problem. But after bringing the pig home, I had to admit I am not a pig figurine type. So I returned the pig and ordered a cast iron moose. Haven't tried the towel moose out yet.

Jury is out, but SFSG: Work in progress turning a $30 bedroom wall unit into dual microwave shelving for the kitchen. Although it will be dreadfully dated in design, it should beat out the current particle board microwave cart that doesn't match the new cabinet color. And we will gain 3' of precious counter space. Function over style here, for sure. C'mon, at least give me some creativity points on this one! ;-)

Miss: Prominent walls till lacking some artwork around the house. I'm really having difficulty finding art I like, that is within my budget. Or even outside my budget. My preferences have changed, so I am struggling to know artists' names to search under.

roarah - I used chalk paint, not milk paint. It was SO easy to use. I raved about it on the thread I had going when I was painting the chairs (linked below). It's called Vintage Market & Design Furniture Paint. I'm pretty sure I had another thread showing the finished chairs with the table, but I can't locate it right now.

Here is a link that might be useful: Chalk painted DR chairs

@robo: the hutch is lovely. I remember your search for that I can picture it perfectly. And thanks for sharing the pictures of your miss! It reminded me that I have a big miss with artwork as well, sitting in the office. I agree with @Gyr -- finding art is a long process.

I find my misses are directly correlated to how much I had fretted over the cost or the style decision. Things I had treated lightly or with insufficient thought tended to have a lower "hit" rate.

thanks roarah and gooster! the sideboard is teak (some veneer, some solid I think). Not sure if it's from the 60s or 70s...the handles are wood though which is nice (instead of plastic). It's unusual in that it's apartment-sized, perfect for my small dining room.

Last year was spent getting my house ready for market. We had to update a few things that we had been waiting on.

Biggest Hits -
Master Bath Update
Master Bedroom Wallpaper Removal
Replaced Carpet in the kid's playroom

All of these were huge, I like our house much better myself.

Misses

Not entirely happy with the paint color we choose that goes through out the house. Perfectly fine neutral, it is just a little too neutral for me.

That said our house went into escrow the first week, unfortunately it also came out of escrow about 40 days later due to a buyer issue. Did not want to be listed for the holidays, we will be listing again next month.

Roarah, "scullery" is just a fancy way of saying that the clean-up sink is not located in the same room with the fridge and range. Since the clean-up sink is the ONLY sink, it is actually danged inconvenient. Now a scullery MAID would make me feel royal. But the purple is great.

Another hit was that when we moved my mom into a retirement community, I snagged a painting that my brother did in high school art class. It's of a '41 Chevy pickup (I drove one like it in high school--in the 80s, mind you) in the foreground with a barn full of other vintage vehicles in the background. I had it framed with a rustic frame that I think sets the subject matter off nicely.

Thanks Roarah. Your house is gorgeous. Floods are awful. We chose to do the work and pay for it rather than file a homeowner's claim because we filed a huge claim a few years back- didn't want our rates to go up again. It was an awful project throughout the summer.

Mmmbeer, your new pantry is an organizational hit! Looks so nice!

You're very welcome Roarah. I hope it works out for you.
We did a sliding screen door at the turn in our upstairs hallway to keep the kitties out of our son and grandson's bedrooms and I plan on eventually doing something similar to this,only it will have to be on both sides at one part. It works, but like you, we're not happy with the aesthetics either.

Hit: our new sofa. DH would say the recliners. I like both, but the sofa was much harder choice. It was my daughter's and my choices with a place where you could customize. We picked everything without checking if it worked in the house and it all came out good. I just got tired of trying to decide so just went and ordered.

Partial hit and miss: the wood counter top I made to go on top of the ikea cabinets housing toys. It looks great, but I didn't have enough clamps to even out both sides so it is a bit bowed and the wind blew my template to cut an opening for a column and the length so it is a little off., but I like it nonetheless hence the partial hit.

Miss: not accomplishing all the things on my list that just keeps getting longer. These were truly the only thing on the list we got done.

awm3-thanks for the compliments on scout!

roarah - thanks for the compliments on the house and bird. :)

robotropolis - I think your painting is funny! Maybe put it in a guest room to keep them from coming back! I wonder who painted it and what their story was.

oh my I could write a novel here, but I won't .....
2014 was full of hits and misses, some are my fault, some are not but I have to accept them.

biggest miss was my designer of 20 years and close to a dozen home renos, letting me down, abandoning my house reno midway, with subs unpaid, etc....

biggest hit was me stepping in and paying subs, continuing with the reno on my own, finding the right people and the right help, I was blessed and found the right people.

so my home was ready for Xmas ( instead of August) -

Hit: I haven't taken on any real decorating projects this past year here in our home, but I do have to say that helping DD decorate her new (rented) home right off campus at her university was a huge hit for me. It turned out wonderfully.
Miss: letting DD talk me into having DH's turntable from his bachelor days repaired for her Christmas gift to him. It was a hit with him, but is now looking cumbersome,intrusive and out of place in our family room.
Miss: buying 4 beautiful, wonderful pieces of new art and still having them propped up and unframed months later because I really don't have room for them with my already glut of art. Big miss!

Hit: the new roof and siding. It looks so, so nice and I'm happy every time I pull up to the house.

Hit: the guy we used for the new roof and siding. What a gem. I wish I had more projects he could do for me.

Slight miss: dropping the ball and not working on any of the other things I was thinking about completing. I can get those done this year and, fingers crossed, they will be hits for 2015.

Hits:

-New jute LR rug, it pulled the room together far better than expected and bonus points for being super-soft. Have to watch out for lounging felines when we walk through because cats evidently think it is a 9x12 cat Tem(purrrr)pedic and are ALWAYS stretched out somewhere on it

-New recliners; they not only are totally comfortable but look so elegant and NOT reclinerish. Love, love, love them. Bonus points that I can at long last have cream chenille upholstery on LR furniture, woohoo. Although I have had sheets of aluminum foil on the seats for several weeks since the cats seem to migrate from the rug to the chairs if I let 'em

-(Stolen from someone else) My holiday decorating this year was gorgeous, at least in my eyes :). Found some beautiful holiday pillows on sale at Pier 1, some lovely wreaths, all in my color scheme and everything appeared so festive . My sister told me that my niece said 'mom, the tree looks like it came out of a magazine'. The cats had no interest in the tree,they were sacked out on the jute rug

Misses:

-Huge expensive miss on new dining room table and chairs. Ethan Allen stuff and expensive enough that I just cannot get rid of 'em immediatly but I misjudged horribly on size. The table is far too large for the space and now I don't even have room for a tiny table or buffet. The chairs are bulky and pretty darned uncomfortable to boot. I made the mistake of buying for max capacity (holiday gatherings, annual club dinner at my home) without really thinking through the reality that 99.999% of the time the only people dining at home are my husband and me. Really, it's like that scene from Citizen Kane every night, him at one end and me waaaaaaaaay at the other. Luckily whichever one of the cats that has roused herself from the jute rug usually sits on an empty chair with her cat head poking up, so at least we've got a bit of visual comic relief

-Still have several rooms of shame, including my son's room, the florida room and our office. I have a long standing goal of decluttering which didn't happen once again in 2014. However 2015 is looking promising: son is living with girl friend, daughter is moving out and I hope to get rid of miscellaneous extra furniture plus REALLY get in and toss out lots of detritus. Hope springs eternal. Cats love jute. That is all

Hit: Gutted & remodeled kitchen making it more functional than before. Lots of drawers per suggested on this site Yay!

Hit: Got a leather couch, rug, book case & sofa table at an estate sale for $250. Furniture was from my Brother in law's mother who passed. She bought the furniture at Crate & Barrel about 4 years ago and the couch still looked brand new. He found the receipt later and she paid $3200 for it.

Miss: Double sink in kitchen that my husband insisted on. If I thought about it more, I would have overridden that decision.

Miss: Not measuring the thickness of the granite edge. I realized after it was installed that it was 2" and I had wanted it 1.5" so it looks bulkier than I wanted. The installer did a great job on the seams and the miter edge and I was so anxious to get it installed that I overlooked it.

Hi-jack:

runninginplace - would you mind sharing the information on your recliners? DH would love one but the ones we seem to find look like recliners and are rather ugly and I have always kiboshed them. Thanks