2019 Year in Review + What’s Next for Burritos and Bubbly

2019 Year in Review + What’s Next for Burritos and Bubbly

Oh, hi guys. Is anyone even out there anymore??!! We certainly didn’t plan on taking a whole month off the blog and actually had a few fun posts planned in that time, but when I struggled to find the time to finish them, I thought, “well if I don’t have time to write them, there’s a good chance you probably also don’t have time to read them…” So hopefully you’re all enjoying your holidays away from your computer and we can all just start the new year — the new decade! — with a whole bunch of really great new blog posts, like the awesome project we just finished at the cabin and some changes in our home kitchen and so much more.

However, before the year officially ends, I really want to take a quick (or not so quick!!) look back at all that we accomplished and shared with you over this past year. It’s been quite a wild one!

Of course the biggest thing of all was that we bought a cabin!!! WE BOUGHT A CABIN. Well that’s crazy! We officially closed on December 31, 2018, making it a true New Year’s present to ourselves, and it’s still crazy every time we think about it. Actually, we’re still trying to decide if this was a great idea or just about the dumbest thing we’ve ever done. Probably both. Definitely both. But it’s been a lot of fun. And a lot of so-very-not-fun at times. Haha. Ok, so we have mixed feelings on it all, but seriously, it really has been an exciting project and we’re anxious to see what comes next in the new year.

The cabin naturally has not only been our biggest announcement of the year but the bulk of our big projects, and the biggest of the big is of course the kitchen, which we decided to tackle almost completely by ourselves. And by “ourselves” I mean 100% Andy because I am very little help when it comes to actually building a kitchen. He designed the layout and then has done everything from installing cabinets to plumbing and electrical, only calling on professionals a couple times when things went horribly wrong. Hey, it happens. All of this while, of course, living 400 miles away. NBD.

Of course it’s not only the kitchen that we’ve worked on. New couches, new beds, new lights, new art, new pillows, new paint, we’ve been transforming the whole cabin room by room, and, well, even roof.

The easiest way to get caught up on everything that has happened at the cabin is to follow the Our Cabin page on Burritos and Bubbly, right up there at the top of the page. There you can find all of the cabin-related blog posts in chronological order!

We didn’t have much time — or money! — to work on our own home after the cabin, but we did manage to finish a couple of really fun projects, and we actually have A TON of projects already in the works for 2020 that I’m so excited about. (And they’re mostly relatively small, relatively easy, relatively inexpensive projects which I love EVEN MORE! Stay tuned!)

One of my favorite projects of the year was finishing the built-ins in our three-year-old daughter’s room, and seven months later they’re still going strong and we all still love them. Another super fun project was wallpapering our kitchen island, which added so much character to our kitchen.

Every year we start with a to-do list (or two). We’ve learned that taking the time to brainstorm project ideas at the beginning of the year is very helpful just to get an overall plan, even if we totally forget to actually check back at the list as the year goes on!

This year we did pretty darn good! We especially kicked butt at the cabin since that was our focus. We still haven’t gotten around to the kids’ bathroom updates we talked about a million years ago, and we haven’t actually installed the new kitchen shelves though we did buy the wood a couple weeks ago. We didn’t build a new headboard for our master bedroom but we did buy one, and we’ll share photos of those updates in the next year. We also made big changes to Joey’s room, another post we’ll have for you soon.

So what’s next for Burritos and Bubbly? Well, 2020 actually marks the ten year anniversary of this little blog, the ten year anniversary of buying my/our first house, AND also the ten year anniversary of me and Andy since we started dating in early January 2010. Whoa. A lot sure happened in the last ten years… three houses, three kitchen renos, two kids, a wedding, and soooo many projects.

So throughout 2020 we’ll be looking back, reminiscing about past projects and personal milestones, seeing where our journey has taken us and where it’s going. One thing we’ll be doing is weekly/biweekly Instagram posts flashing back to past projects and memories from the past ten years, so be sure to follow us at @burritosbubbly to catch those! In the next couple of weeks we’ll share our annual to-do list and then, as I said, we have so many fun projects to kick off the new decade! It’s the new Roaring Twenties! It’s going to be great!!