Making Your Home 1% Better (a teeny tiny bit at a time)

I have approximately 473 things I want to do to our house.

Our bathroom needs updating. I want to refresh our bedroom. The kitchen island needs painting where it has chipped. There’s tile that needs replacing in the guest bath and the boys’ bathroom. And if you give me another five minutes to walk around, I can probably come up with another 27 things.

The problem is that my brain is incapable of seeing one of those things and just…seeing one thing.

The bathroom needs updating? Obviously we need to redo the bathroom.

The kitchen island needs paint? While I’m doing that, maybe I should add molding to the cabinet doors. And change the hardware. And then add new roman shades?

One thing becomes five things. Five things become A WHOLE PROJECT.

And A WHOLE PROJECT requires time and money and approximately 47 trips to Home Depot.

So you know what I usually do?

Nothing.

Because if I can’t do the whole thing, my brain decides there’s no point in doing any of it.

Except there is.

And that’s where this whole idea of making my home 1% better, a teeny tiny bit at a time, came from.

You don’t have to do the whole room

I think a lot of us look around our homes and see everything we want to change all at once.

The rug needs replacing. The walls need painting. We hate the light fixture. That corner feels off. There’s crap all over the counter.

Suddenly we aren’t looking at one thing we could change.

We’re looking at A PROJECT.

And if we don’t have the budget, time or energy for a project right now, we put the whole thing off.

Meanwhile, we keep living with the stuff that’s driving us crazy.

So I’ve been trying something different.

Instead of asking: What do I need to do to this room?

I ask: What is ONE thing I could do to make it 1% better?

That’s it.

Not finish it.

Not figure out what the entire room will eventually look like.

Just make it a little better than it was yesterday.

start with one thing

If you’re looking around your house right now thinking: Okay, but WHICH thing?

Ask yourself this:

What is constantly annoying me?

What feels unfinished?

What would make this space feel more like me?

What can I realistically do right now?

Then pick one.

For me, sometimes it’s something totally unexciting, like the giant bowl of crap that lives on our kitchen counter. You know the one.

Mail. Sunglasses. Random cords. Receipts. Things that should belong in my 1994 scrapbook album.

I walked past that thing at least 247 times thinking I needed to deal with it.

So finally, I did.

No kitchen makeover required. I just dealt with the freaking bowl.

Another time, it was the open shelving in our kitchen. We don’t have cabinet doors, which is a story for another day, but the shelves were making everything cluttered and messy.

I added some c ute scalloped baskets.

Cabinet door problem solved?

Nope.

Did I like the kitchen more afterward?

Absolutely.

1% better.

And sometimes the thing doesn’t even need to be fixed.

I had fabric scraps left over from the photo mats I made for our gallery wall. There’s a little green lamp sitting right in front of them, so naturally I decided its little boho-style lampshade needed to get involved. It didn’t quite go with all the vintage stuff I’ve been adding around here lately.

A pair of scissors and some hot glue later, and LOOK HOW FREAKING CUTE SHE IS.

Did the lamp need it?

No.

Did it make that little corner feel more like me?

Absolutely.

That counts too.

1% better doesn’t mean the project has to be tiny

This part is important because I don’t want “1% better” to turn into another rule.

The whole point is to get rid of some of those rules.

Making your home 1% better doesn’t mean every project has to cost $12, use supplies you already own and take 20 minutes.

Some will.

Some absolutely will not.

Case in point: our kitchen island.

The original plan was simple. The paint has gotten chipped where our stools hit it, so I was going to repaint it. (Plus, the color doesn’t really work with all the vintage stuff I’ve been adding in here lately.)

Except I ordered a paint color, decided it was way too light and ordered another one.

Then I remembered I had some thin wood molding that would fit perfectly inside the recessed panels on the cabinet doors.

Which obviously led to vintage-style brass hardware.

BECAUSE I REMAIN WHO I AM. 😂

That’s a much bigger project than dealing with a bowl of junk or covering a lampshade in fabric scraps.

But it still counts.

Because 1% better isn’t really about the size of the project.

It’s about letting yourself improve one thing without believing you also have to fix everything around it.

your house is allowed to be a work in progress

bedroom with navy wall, a teal bench, a black lab and a messy bed

I think we’ve gotten used to seeing homes from the perspective of social media or magazines: finished or unfinished.

Before.

After.

Done.

But that’s not actually how most of us live.

Our families change. Our budgets change. Our taste evolves. We bring home something from an estate sale that we absolutely did not need and suddenly an entire corner of the room has to accommodate it.

Our homes keep evolving right along with us.

So maybe the goal isn’t to get your house done.

Maybe it’s just to keep making it a little better.

What’s one thing you could make 1% better?

Start there.

A teeny tiny bit at a time.