The Great Pre-Halloween Project List

Every year around this time, a major fire is lit under us and we get a lot done on the house in preparation for our big Halloween Costume party we throw every year. This year, our party is on the 24th and the invitations just went out. Maybe you caught the annual invite photo (we've learned it really drives the whole "wear-a-costume" thing) on instagram?

Greta got to pick whatever she wanted at the grocery store for keeping a straight face in this photo. (She picked a blue SunnyD. Haha!) So now that the invites are out, the timer is set to get a slew of projects done. Last year, we redid our main floor guest bath just in time. The year before that, we painted our living room a dark charcoal and added paneling. This year, there are a lot of things.

1. Finish the baseboards. We got everything cut and in place over the weekend. We need to finish nailing a few in, patch, caulk and touch up with paint. Sneak peek:

2. Paint all the door and window trim in the main area. Bonus points--paint the doors! Now that our baseboards are a nice, bright, clean white, the other trim is looking dingy as ever. And the doors, too. When I touch up the baseboards, I plan on giving all the trim a fresh coat of white paint. (I say that like it's a 10 minute job. ha!)

3. Put together a new art wall in the living room. I have been collecting some new art for the main area and we'd love to rework what we have and maybe build some picture ledges so that we can streamline it a little, since I like to rotate art so much. I'm very, very excited for this project.

4. Finish Greta's room! We're 98% there. I just need to hang some pictures and some hooks. It's always the last few things that take forever. Why is that?

5. Fix the exterior lights. Funny story. When we took out the closet in the laundry area, we must have crossed a wire because our exterior lights haven't worked since. Wah. WAhhhh. Now that it's getting darker earlier, it's becoming a priority project. Plus, you can't have a dark house on Halloween!

6. Rework the entry. Our assignment from Ace this month is all about creating a welcoming entry. And although we did update it a bit, now that we've lived with it--there are a few things we'd like to change, in addition to a new bench that we talked about here.

7. As a bonus project (read: last priority), I'd love to tackle painting the stairwell banister and stairwell walls (not sure why we never painted those!). We would like to eventually replace the banister, but paint would be a cheap and easy update. Not quick though. Not. Quick.

Those 7 projects are on deck for the next 19 days. It's the most wonderful time of the year around here so although there's a lot of work to be done, we're in good spirits. It's what we, in the biz, like to call party time.