It’s the start to a new year, and it’s around this time that we review the past year as well as look forward to the one ahead.

We often set goals, make promises, and resolve to do things differently, both personally and professionally.

Sometimes we forget about our abodes. Like any resolutions, home renovation resolutions can range from small maintenance and repair tasks, to more massive renovations, either way, what they should all have in common is one thing: they should be realistic!

Here are 12 Home Reno Resolutions to Ponder for 2012:

1. Key Maintenance or Repair Chores: Take a tour of your home. Come at it with fresh eyes, like a first time home buyer looking at their potential home. While doing so, make lists of small maintenance and repair work that can be done. Then make another list - a wish list - of all the ways you’d like to improve your home. Then sit down and see what you can realistically accomplish this year, prioritize, schedule, then get cracking.
2. Bring Your Kitchen into the Tech Century: TVs, tablets, iPads and the like are becoming more and more common in kitchens. Now that you can record and pause cooking shows or look up recipes online, it makes as much sense to have a tech station as a baking station. Keep in mind what other electrical appliances you use and find a way to centralize cords and cover them away from eyesight.
3. Refresh Banisters, Baseboards, Moulding and Trim: These are often the details in a room, and how often do details get overlooked? Think about the last time these wooden features had a proper cleaning and fresh coat of paint. Before you run out to purchase paint, look at the room, examine the colour scheme, and don’t be afraid to go outside the usual white and give these accents some colour.
4. Blackout Your Bedroom: There have been numerous studies that indicate complete darkness leads to healthier and deeper sleeps. Science and possible insomnia aside, it’s pleasant to sleep in pitch blackness, so look into installing black out curtains in your bedroom. But these don’t need to be relegated just to bedrooms, oh no, if you have a living room or entertainment room with a large tv or projector, these increase the movie theatre atmosphere and improve visibility.
5. Repair and Repaint: Over the years cracks, dents and holes can appear on walls. Review your walls, repair where necessary, and repaint to freshen them up. Painting can be one of the swiftest and least expensive renovations, but often one that makes a large impact on a room. If you’re not up for painting, look into wallpaper, it’s been making a comeback over the last few years and shows few signs of slowing.
6. Appliance Upgrading: Is it time to trade up major appliances? You can count appliance age in what's more like dog years than human. After a certain amount of time, they stop being as efficient as they were in their earlier days. It pays to look at this. Purchasing a new fridge, dishwasher, laundry set, etc, will save you money in energy costs in the long run.
7. Examine Indoor Air Quality: Take stock of the quality of the air in your home. Are there areas that are too dry? Too humid? Take the time to review and remedy problem areas, if any. This could be as simple as adding small humidifiers, or as big as rehauling your home’s entire ventilation system. Either way, improvements in this area could help maintain elements of your home - including paint jobs, furnishings, artwork, and accessories - not to mention the positive  impact on your health.
8. Put Your Feet First: Indulge your soles and install radiant infloor heating. It’s one of the loveliest ways to warm your home, especially considering our cold Canadian winters.
9. Floor Finesse: You want your flooring to be functional, fashionable, durable, and easy to clean. Are your floors fulfilling all of these at the moment? If not, you have a wide range of alternative flooring options to choose from: ceramic tile to laminate, or genuine hardwood to engineered wood.
10. Bathroom Bliss: How can you make your time in your bathroom more enjoyable? Beyond a book, why not find ways to eliminate spending on spas and experience those same luxuries in your home? This conversion could be as simple as reorganizing your bathroom, or as dramatic as a steam shower, large soak tub, or knocking out a wall to enlarge your bathroom. Feel out what’s right for you.
11. Finally Finish Your Basement: Has this been on your resolution list year after year, just to be left unchecked and bumped to the next? Make this the year! Bite the bullet. Dig down and do it. We have many basement articles from Canada’s Handiest Man, Steve Maxwell, to help you on your journey.
12. Review Home Finances: Ok, so home finance isn’t a renovation in the physical sense, however, it doesn’t hurt to review bills and mortgages. Is there a better mortgage rate out there this year? If you are hoping to embark on a large scale renovation, peruse various home renovation financing options are well as government grants and rebates. Plus look at water and heating bills. Are there small steps you can take to lower these? Energy efficient light bulbs? Water conserving faucets? There are many options out there. Take a peek at “Green Home Ideas: New Year, New Attitude” for inspiration.