As we close the calendar on 2024, we come to my year-end ritual, the one where we look back at the past 50 columns, at the trials, tribulations, tips and takeaways, and pull one bit of advice from each month that’s noteworthy.

In JANUARY, the month we’re supposed to take a wide-eyed inventory of our lives, I asked you to ask yourselves a few core-shaking questions: Am I living where I should be? Should I stay or should I go? Have my home and I outgrown each other? Is this the year to make a change? See, I had personally confronted these topics in my book, “Rightsize Today to Create Your Best Life Tomorrow,” which came out that month, so I wanted to make you uncomfortable, too. Grappling with questions of how and where you live and why isn’t easy but grapple we must.

Lesson: A new year smacks us with the fact that, whether we keep pace or not, time moves on. To make the most of our lives now and of the months and years to come, we must face what is standing between us and our ideal life (stuff, fear of change, complacency) and move through it.

In FEBRUARY, my friend called me for an emergency decorating intervention. Her single, 29-year-old son needed an apartment makeover stat. His place was a disgusting den of neglect. Now he was interested in someone. He couldn’t invite a date over if he wanted to impress her, so he called his mother. She was on the next plane. “We were made for this moment,” I told her. Over FaceTime, we assessed the problems: a horrendous color scheme of dark gray, black and khaki, an old mattress he’d had since college, and a dirty sofa he got for free from Facebook Marketplace. We got to work. By the time we were done, the place was date bait — just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Lesson: Gentlemen, if you want to attract a lady, heed the following domestic don’ts, which all ranked high (or low) on women’s ick list: dirty towels, beds on the floor without a frame, holes in comforters, blankets or sheets as curtains, and club lighting (i.e., lava lamps, neon signs, black lights). If you need help, call your mother. We know stuff.

In MARCH, I logged my 20th year of writing this weekly column. That makes 1,040 columns, but who’s counting? I recounted how the editor who first assigned me this column said he wanted the antidote to the insufferable, pretentious content found in so many home magazines. “In other words,” I paraphrased, “you want a reality column.” “Exactly,” he said, “Be the girl next door who has the same problems as everyone else but is two steps ahead because you’ve made mistakes and know who to call.” And off I went.

Lesson: If I have learned one lesson from 20 years of writing this column — from the calamities (the custom sofas delivered with underside of the fabric facing out), the many moves (10 in 20 years), and the life changes (empty nest, divorce, remarriage, downsizing, upsizing and rightsizing) — it is this: To live beautifully, you do not need a big budget. You just need the desire and drive. A beautiful life doesn’t happen by accident. It’s designed on purpose.

In APRIL, I found the animal within. Christopher Grubb, a wonderful interior designer and friend, gave me the creative confidence I needed to reupholster two stodgy, tapestry-covered armchairs in a bold zebra print and to paint the arms and legs glossy lacquer black. It was a wild move, but every time I look at these chairs, I think, “Heck, yeah!” And “Thank you, Christopher.”

Lesson: Take a risk. If you think bold design moves are for other people, grab your creative courage and go for it.

In MAY, I toured The Mustard Seed, a Central Florida furniture bank that helps those who’ve lost their homes to disaster or other tragedy furnish new dwellings. There I met a woman who had been living in her car with her three children, but not anymore. As she walked the furniture-filled aisles, I asked what look she was going for. “I want a house full of color,” she said. Thanks to a lot of thoughtful donors who had let go of what they no longer needed, she was about to get just that.

Lesson: Cleaning and clearing out our homes can make a meaningful difference to those who have nothing to decorate their homes with. You can help by donating unwanted household items to a furniture bank near you: https://furniturebanks.org/furniture-bank-directory/.

In JUNE, I visited my new grandbaby in Colorado. My role was to cook, clean, wash and fold miniature clothes, and shore up this new little family — which includes my daughter, her husband, and their two dogs — while doubling down on my efforts to not offer unwanted advice. As I have been gently reminded: “Things have changed in 30 years.” So they have.

Lesson: We’ve come a long way baby. Today’s parents have smart-sleeper bassinettes, which rock babies back to sleep when they start to stir; rocking chairs and gliders that have built-in USB ports; and app-controlled noise machines that make white noise mimicking the sounds of the womb, or a laundromat. New parents also have baby-butt spatulas for applying diaper cream. (Now there’s an advancement.) How did we ever manage?

In JULY, a reader cried: “Help! I want my house back!” When Maureen Rabazinski, a 62-year-old nurse practitioner, thought it was safe to downsize from her large family home, she and her husband moved to their “rightsized” four-bedroom oasis. Then her two adult sons took turns moving into the “guest” room during various life transitions. The three grandkids and their toys took over another bedroom (so much for a home gym), and somehow a crib landed in her home office, killing the professional vibe she was trying to maintain during telehealth appointments. “I want to make our home just ours again and eliminate the feeling of overwhelming chaos,” she told me.

Lesson: The two words of advice I offered Maureen are ones we all can benefit from: boundaries and purpose. Every home needs boundaries and every room needs one clearly defined purpose, no more. As nice as it is to offer a port in a storm, limit stays and don’t become anyone’s storage facility. Eliminate bleed over. The master should not be an exercise room. The office should not double as a nursery. The guest room should not become someone’s permanent apartment.

In AUGUST, I was planning my third wedding in eight years. Not all mine, thank goodness. The first was mine. Two years ago, my older daughter got married in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Now, my younger daughter was getting married. Though we’ve been lucky in love, my girls and I, it’s been an expensive decade. I’m not the only one dealing with sticker shock. According to The Wedding Report, the price tab for the average U.S. wedding last year was more than $30,000.

Lesson: Because no one wants to begrudge a bride of all the trappings that will create a memorable wedding day, I found dozens of ways to save hundreds, even thousands of dollars by cutting costs in imperceptible ways. Here’s a sampling: Keep the guest list tight. Have the ceremony and reception in the same place. Go with large blooms of in-season flowers. Pass on the champagne toast; have guests raise the drink they have in hand to cheer the newlyweds. Say no to favors. No one needs more stuff. And get your cake from the grocery store.

In SEPTEMBER, thanks to the kindness of strangers, one deserving family achieved the American dream of homeownership. Maynor and Leticia Aldana moved out of their slum-like apartment, which had sewage leaking into the kitchen, and into a newly renovated house in Northfield, Minn. Their monthly mortgage payment is now less than they were paying in rent. The Aldanas, who immigrated here — she from Mexico 16 years ago, and he from Guatemala 33 years ago — are legal residents and hard workers. He hangs drywall. She’s a seamstress. “Like so many laborers around us who mow our lawns and clean our homes, the Aldanas lived just a notch above homeless,” said Bob Thacker, who spearheaded the project. “These folks don’t have a path to home ownership.” With the help of their local Habitat for Humanity, Thacker and his wife bought a dilapidated 1,200 square-foot townhouse. Then over 100 local residents — framers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, designers and master gardeners — volunteered time and materials and worked alongside Leticia and Maynor to renovate the home.

Lesson: Never underestimate the power of a community that has a goal, or the power of people and how much they want to help.

In OCTOBER, I saw what happens when a world-class design firm, with a soft spot for helping those with disabilities, and a leading furniture retailer join forces. The result: quietly accessible furniture.

Recognizing that age isn’t easy on us but that the right furniture can make it easier and help prevent falls, Michael Graves Design and Pottery Barn launched a furniture line that looks like it belongs in a home, not a rehab center. Dressers have raised edges to keep items from falling off. Chairs have high-density foam and adjustable seat heights giving a welcome boost to those who struggle getting out of chairs too soft or too low.

Lesson: More than three-fourths of those over age 50 say they want to age in place. Thankfully, furniture is becoming available that looks residential, not medical or institutional, allowing them to do just that.

In NOVEMBER, we met the Heirloomist. Shana Novak is a talented photographer who makes it her business to capture special keepsakes on film and “make something seemingly ordinary feel magical.” Ticket stubs, keys, pregnancy sticks, a faded airline boarding pass, teddy bears, worn-out work boots, and muddy slobbered-on tennis balls are among the ordinary but dear items Novak has dignified through photography and in her new book, “The Heirloomist — 100 Treasures and the Stories They Tell,” (Chronicle Books, April 2024).

Lesson: Most of us think an heirloom is a cherished valuable relic from an ancient relative, but an heirloom can be anything, expensive or humble, as long as it tells your story, a story you want to keep alive for generations.

In DECEMBER, I started breathing easier and sneezing less after I investigated ways to bust the fur flying around my home and other unwelcome evidence of our two dogs — including their, ahem, aroma. I was initially skeptical of home air purifiers, because you have to believe in what you can’t see, namely that they eliminate 99.7% of invisible toxins in our air, such as pollen, dust, dander, mold, viruses, bacteria, and odors from cooking, tobacco smoke and pets. But as I saw independent studies, including ones from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, supporting the claims, I got a portable air purifier, and became a believer.

Lesson: Take care of your air. While this and many other home design columns focus on how homes look, just as —or even more— important, might be how our homes smell.

Here’s to clearing the air and cleaner living in 2025!

Marni Jameson is the award-winning author of seven home improvement books. Reach her at marnijameson.com.