When my now 8 year old was born, my husband took two weeks off of work to help out with our older two children and to give me some much needed time to rest and look after our new bundle of joy. On his last day home from work, he decided to tackle a small bathroom renovation that I'd been begging for (and had actually started on my own a few weeks prior to baby's arrival -- thanks to some nesting urges). 

The project? Adding some bead board paneling to the bottom half of the walls in our tiny bathroom. Could it have been completed on the 3-day weekend? Of course it could... it's a tiny bathroom. Did it get done? Nope. That bathroom project drug out for the next 5 years! All the paneling was up, but the nails hadn't been hammered in completely and the patching, caulking, and painting needed to be finished. I had finally had enough and one day just worked on all those little things and got it done. 

Why is it so hard to finish projects that we start? Maybe it's that we lose interest in the project. Maybe it gets to a point where we can no longer tackle it alone. Maybe it's because something more pressing comes up and the last project is put on the back burner. Today's blog post is all about how to finish those kinds of projects. 

1. START WITH A PLAN - This may seem like a no brainer, but I will be the first to admit that when I get an idea for a project, I tend to jump right in. Rarely do I sit down and come up with a plan of action. Every project will have a different set of plans. Some require more time than others. Grander projects may need professional assistance. With any project, the best thing you can do is start off with your best foot forward. Take a few minutes, hours, or days to think through your ideas. Here are a few ways you can create your plan:

• create a vision board - Pinterest is a great tool when it comes to larger projects. 
• make a list - "to-do" list, supply list, shopping list, materials list, etc. 
• run it by someone else - sometimes just talking through it with another person helps you to weed out the good and the bad in your plan
• talk to a professional - if you don't need a professional, consider talking to a friend or family member that has done something similar

4. EVALUATE - How reasonable is it for me to complete the project in the time that I'm giving it? What kinds of things could come up that might threaten the completion of my project? Three years ago we had a plumbing disaster. Our two bathroom tubs shared a drain line and neither of them would drain. We went through two different plumbers (that we love and trust completely) who tried everything possible to get them unstopped. The last resort was to rip out a bathtub and surround. Yikes! Since we needed to have a working tub we opted to rip out the easier of the two which happened to be our master bath. The problem was easily found once the tub was gone, but is something that could NOT have been solved without its' removal. What a bummer! It took us nearly two years to be able to complete our bathroom. We ended up doing a complete bathroom remodel... and I did the bulk of the labor. Why? Because it saved us several thousands of dollars. All 6 of us shared ONE bathroom for that whole time. 

What were the hang up? Why did it take so long? Money and time. I could get things to a certain point, but needed the help of my husband to do things like hanging the cement backer board and new mold resistant drywall. He was only available on the weekends, so I did what I could during the week and we both worked hard on the weekends to get it done. Once we'd saved the money for it, it took about 2 months of me working my little tail off to get it done. I couldn't be more thrilled with the way it turned out.... and I completed it 100%. One of the only rooms in our home where I had started and completed a project. 

This is the time to be realistic. Don't tackle a project (like your first ever complete bathroom renovation) if you aren't prepared to learn the skills necessary, and fail at some of them. If failure is something you don't deal well with, then make sure you have a back up plan for when things don't turn out the way you want.