organization Archives - Page 4 of 4

A chest: finished

July 28, 2011 By Shannah Leave a Comment

I mentioned here that I was working on changing up a chest of drawers that I purchased on Craigslist. I had it primed and ready for paint.

Over the past week, I was able to get several coats of paint onto the frame and drawers.

Once I had 2 coats of paint on each piece, I added a coat of acrylic. I used Minwax Polycrylic in Semi-gloss.

I let it sitting in the garage for about 48 hours before taking it upstairs. It was pretty humid outside so I wanted to make sure the paint and acrylic really hardened before putting it in its home. Mathlete still insisted on keeping the cardboard underneath so we are doing it up super fancy in the guest room right now.

I had breifly thought about painting the hardware that came with the chest but then I saw the hardware you see in the pictures above on the clearance rack at Target. I just couldn’t resist.
Here is the before/after:

A new adventure

July 27, 2011 By Shannah Leave a Comment

Way back here, you might remember that I discovered Thirty-One products. Well, I’ve actually purchased/received (thanks mom!) a bunch of other things from them over the past month or so and have been putting them to good use. Things like lunch bags, tote bags, and organizers.

Yesterday, I did something to take my appreciation of Thirty-One products to a different level. I got this:

Yeah, I’m crazy. Mathlete already says I don’t have enough hours in a day but I have a plan (and a goal)! I decided to hit the ground running and started my first ever online party today!
Admittedly, I’m a little nervous. Sure, it isn’t like I quit my day job or anything but it is a new challenge for me. I think it will be a fun one though.

Don’t worry…this here blog isn’t going to turn into one big Thirty-One commercial. In fact, besides that little advertisement over on the right, you’ll only hear about them when I am actually using a product in a project or to accomplish something in our home. Oh, and maybe a giveaway or two!

So, tell me about any new challenges you are undertaking? Have you ever been an independent consultant for a firm like Thirty-One?

Playroom Ready for Playtime

July 13, 2011 By Shannah Leave a Comment

Back here, I mentioned my disaster of a playroom. At that point, I wasn’t courageous enough to share pictures of it because that would mean actually going it. I had avoided it for awhile ~~for fear of getting lost in it~~ out of procrastination but I finally decided that I needed to do something about it. I think it had gotten so messy that H didn’t even want to play in there. That’s bad on so many levels but mostly because it meant that more and more toys were making their way to the family room. Just in case you think I am exaggerating, I will share with you some pictures in all their embarrassing glory

I am not even sure how the kids are supposed to get in the door with a pile of stuff semi-blocking it

Two hours, two full trashbags and a giant box headed for goodwill later and the playroom was restored to a more organized version of itself…a more play friendly playroom if you will

It’s nice to have a table you can actually see

All I have left is printing the labes for all the bins and baskets in there. With two kids using it who don’t read yet, I haven’t really made it that big of a priority. I have at least put in some effort to find a template for labels

[Apartment Therapy]

Is your playroom a disaster like ours was (will be again)? How do you go about keeping it in play friendly shape?

The (Dis)Organized Home

July 11, 2011 By Shannah Leave a Comment

I’m big on organization. I despise clutter and feel at ease when everything is in its perfect place. Right now, you are probably thinking that having kids doesn’t mix with that type of mindset and you are 100% right. Actually, being married to Mathlete doesn’t exactly work with that whole “everything in its place” lifestyle either. I got over my need for “perfectly in its place” a long time ago but I still prefer to have the house pretty organized and clutter-less.
We have two major “clutter catchers”: the peninsula when you first come in the door from the garage and our (currently furniture-less) living room. The playroom stays a mess but that is an entirely different post!

When we first moved in, I went crazy buying a bunch of organizational “tools” from a type a personality’s dream store. Combined with the things I already owned, I was able to keep control of the mess for awhile. Then, baby E came along and all that went out of the window.
Today, Junior was headed to the Container Store for some organizational tools of her own. Hoping to get back to ~~mecca~~ a reasonable state of organization in our house, I had her pick me up a few things:

1) We get so many papers from Hailey’s school! I think they are the single biggest contributor to paper clutter in our house. I love the pink and green colors of these boxes so I got some in each size to hopefully create a place for me to put her papers each day.

2) The other biggest, child related, source of clutter are dolls. We have the princesses, the fairies and some other random type of doll. I was cruising around the website and came across the idea to use shoe bag to store the dolls. Genius! When I have some more time, I’ll probably try to stencil it or otherwise personalize it.

3) In the midst of all the paper and dolls, we have things like keys, sunglasses and other misc. items that come out of our pockets and onto the peninsula. Awhile back, I bought this charging station that has sections for all of those types of things. Now, I just have to get everyone back into really using it!

At the end of each day, I want our peninsula to look like this:

Our living room doesn’t get stuff put in it daily but it is a clutter problem in a different sense because everything gets dumped there: bags of stuff purchased at the mall, shoes, extra furniture…you get the idea. It has gotten so bad that some of items from the living room are migrating to the dining room making the mess stretch much farther than I like.

Unfortunately, there isn’t anything at a store that can just magically make this stuff go to its rightful home. So, that something is going to have to be me! H is skeptical that we’ll be able to accomplish this task…

Do you have a clutter problem or do you find ways to keep your house clutter free? Are there any organization products you just can’t live without?

I like a lot of spice

July 8, 2011 By Shannah Leave a Comment

I’m out to solve my spice problem. I have so many spices and really no great way to store them. Right now, my “solution” consists of a door mounted spice rack for the most used ones, a small lazy susan inside the same cabinet and a three tier shelf on an upper shelf of the cabinet for lesser used spices. It really creates a big spice mess.

I was almost ready to go the “As Seen on TV” route with the Swivel Store but then I was reading about another blogger’s spice problem and she had a really great idea!

Travelers Lunchbox

She took a printer’s box and some metal spice tins and created her own 50 opening spice rack! You can read more about it in her post (linked above). One of the things I love the most is that the tins have a wide opening making it so easy to get pretty much any kind of measuring utensil in there! I currently struggle with the small openings on my little glass bottles.

Travelers Lunchbox

The only issue I have is that she mentions a 1-inch overhang of the spice tins. I would be so fearful that they would easily slide out and dump spices all over my floor (cue visions of a cinnamon covered dog). That could be corrected by adding Velcro to the back of the spice tins and inside the wooden box. Or, I could try my mathlete’s hand at building my own box so that the openings were deep enough to accomodate the spice tins!

I’ll let you know which way we go! In the meantime, care to share any spice troubles you have in your own house? How do you solve the spice dilemma?

My to-do list is so long…it doesn’t have an end

May 12, 2011 By Shannah Leave a Comment

5.9.11
The to-do list…

Everyone has one. Some are kept on paper, some in memory, and some are kept on list keeping websites. With 2 kids and husband who is great with a lot but not so much handy in the memory department, I have a lot of to-do lists. In fact, I am so ~~obsessive compulsive~~ vigilant about keeping my to-do items in order and on track (as much as humanly possibly) that I actually subscribe to all three methods for my to-do lists. Of course, since moving in to our new house, none is growing at a faster pace than my house to-do list though. Want to ~~see~~ read the grand plans?

Need to do now (thankfully, this is short!):

Repaint outside basement entry surfaces (railing and bricks)àamazingly, I finally got around to purchasing the supplies for this. Who knew I would need my ID to purchase Rustoleum though?!
Paint wood posts to deck
Seal driveway

On the horizon (12 month timeline):

Assemble the playset for the kids (waiting on the HOA approval!)
Finish entryway (more on that in-progress project later)
Finalize the family room mantle/pillow plans…maybe new lamps?
Buy or build a new kitchen table
Replace breakfast area light and island pendant lights
Hang remaining decorations in kid rooms
Build headboard for guest room
Refinish furniture in guest room
Finish decorating master bedroom
Change mirror in hall bathroom (bye bye builder mirror)
Paint or refinish kitchen cabinets

In the distance (a.k.a not enough funds to do at the moment):

Replace carpets on main level with hardwood flooring
Decorate the living room (requires furniture!)
Finish basement
Add tile backsplash in the kitchen
Add stone to the fireplace
Install in-ground sprinkler system

There are a whole lot of other little projects to do around the house that I just haven’t focused on enough to add them to the to-do list. I’m sure the list above will keep growing…

How do you keep track of your to-do list? Do you find it grows faster than you can keep up with or do you keep it under control?

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