As you may have picked up on, 2026 seems to be our year to slow way down on house projects. We’re loving every inch of our space and not feeling the need to change things up quite as much as we used to. But that doesn’t mean I’m not making little tweaks here and there as inspiration strikes.
First, we’ve got the “new” hanging lamp in our living room. I’ve had this vintage mid-century lamp for years and years, and it has moved through multiple rooms (and homes) in that timeframe. It was in my home office until recently, but I’m actually swapping around our extra bedrooms at the moment, so the lamp was in storage until I had the epiphany that it could just work perfectly in our living room.
Ever since adding our sleeper sofa to the living room, we’ve been living with just one side table and lamp in the space. The new couch is so much larger than anything we’ve had in this room in the past and we couldn’t fit a second side table, but ever since hanging this vintage lamp on the side closest to the fireplace, the room feels much more balanced and we have the addition of more lighting, too. I love how the eye-catching modern shape of the pendant lamp fills the vertical space there on the long side of the couch, and I hope that it also somewhat distracts from the fact that we have a litter box on that side of the sofa.
Speaking of, I apologize for the visible litter boxes in today’s post! I’m determined to be more “real” with you all this year, though, so litter boxes are staying put for full transparency of our lives as pet parents, haha.
Coincidentally, the other house update that I have to share with you is also meant to distract from a litter box, this time in our sunroom. It concerns this small, somewhat useless corner that’s situated behind the back door out to our yard. It’s only large enough to fit the cat box and enough swing room for the back door, so I haven’t spent much time thinking about it from a design standpoint, but this past month I decided to give it just a tiny hint of function and creativity in the form of vinyl records as art.
In addition to the litter box and our back door, this side of the sunroom also houses a big vintage console that holds out record player, and we also have a reading nook on this end of the space. I typically use that lounge chair for reading, journaling, or meditating, but I loved the idea of expanding its functionality to include listening to music.
We’ve had these lovely wooden record shelves from The Vinyl Wall in storage from our old house for far too long, and I decided that now was the right time to finally get them out of a box and up on the wall so that our records are handy for when we have company over or just want to listen to our favorite albums when we’re on our own.
It took just a few minutes to get the shelves installed in a corner formation, and I love how it turned out. The colorful album covers really draw the eye and make this once-unused corner feel so much more alive and exciting. I think one of the reasons why it took me so long to actually follow through with this install is that we were having trouble with the bluetooth functionality on our record player. This project forced me to restart the record player and our speakers so I could follow through the steps to reconnect, and now things are working perfectly. I wish I hadn’t waited so long to get this setup in prime condition, but at least it’s done now and we can make good use of our record collection again.
Are there any lingering house projects where you live that you’ve been meaning to cross off your list? If so, I hope today’s post encourages you to make good on those plans! Chances are that they won’t take nearly as long as you thought they would and you’ll be so excited to call them “done.” I know I’m feeling that way about the two projects in today’s post. Let me know what you’ve got planned in the comments so I can cheer you on from afar.
.jpg)
*This post contains affiliate links, which means that I earn a small commission when you purchase products that I recommend at no additional cost to you. This allows me to provide free creative content for you to read, save, and share. Rest assured that I never recommend products we wouldn’t use or don’t already love ourselves.
