Well, last weekend we painted the two porches. The condo has two porches over the back lane and a roof deck. We spent ages picking the colors for the porches and the deck. The porches are small affairs. The one off the living room is maybe 3 feet by 6 feet. The porch off the bedroom is about 1.5 feet wide and 6 feet long. We picked a great red for the floors, finally covering up the treated wood (which had been left unpainted by the previous owner). The upstairs we painted a cream color, a softer yellow than the yellow gold walls of the bedroom. The downstairs we'd picked a light green to go with the living room walls, but we did something wrong because we ended up with pistachio pastel. I thought it was quite lovely but my lovely wife did not. We then painted over the pistachio pastel with the same soft cream that we'd used upstairs. Lovely.
The plants are back on the living room porch but the poor hanging basket from the bedroom porch had offended my wife somehow and was sent to die in the trash.
Then, we had several windows replaced. A number of the windows had failed seals and we ponied up to fix those. Next on the list, and on order, are new closet fixtures. Our pantry and our linen closet are barely functional as they are. New pull outs for the heavy equipment in the pantry, fixed shelves for the food. Pull outs for the first few rows of linens (and a winnowing of the linens) will make the linen closet easier to use. Right now we act like terrified children at the thought of having to produce anything from either of these spaces.
The second year is becoming the year the condo feels real enough to invest in (also the year of wow, we made through a year of mortgage payments without going under!)