House Projects

So I said my goal for the year was to organize our home and I was having a hard time trying to figure out what to do.  I went through the kids clothes and toys with a few bags to get rid of, but that was about it. I was talking to Joe about how frustrated I was with our lack of space. He suggested we figure out ways to have more space. Yesterday he told me to get a pad of paper and we walked through every room and wrote down what needs to be done and how we could fix the space to make it better.  Joe is super handy but has been working crazy hours for a long time so he just doesn't have the time. BUT he promised to help me get these things on our list done. He will do some of the work and we will be hiring people to do the big projects to save time. Our goal is to rent or sell this home at some point so we need to get it ready for that.

So here is just part of the list...it was three pages long. :)

As you can see we already got some things done today! He was home today and we were kid free for part of the day so we headed to Home Depot with our note pad and measurements.  We priced out lots of items and will want to shop around but we have prices written down so that will help.

We decided to start with adding some shelves to two closets that had room to add shelves to.  Joe had enough to make an extra shelf to go in one of my kitchen cabinets too. So while he cut I was in charge of emptying everything out. It was also a great time to wipe down all the shelves with some Basic H. They were flithy!! I found a lot of crap that I didn't even realize I had. I have a hard time parting with things but today I threw a lot out and set some aside to get rid of!

So I started with cleaning out an area that has gotten out of hand. Most of this stuff is my seasonal decor that is breakable. And a ton of candles! Yikes! I used to always burn candles before the kids came along but haven't since Daniel was born. I have a problem with buying stuff on clearance too so that's where all the extra candles came from. lol It was a mess, I am embarrassed to show it.

 

Yeah it was bad but it's better now! :)

I decided I wanted to make these two shelves for the kids.  Their art supplies were everywhere. Crayons in my scrapbooking baskets in the dining room, art supplies in the kitchen and other hall closet, playdoh in the hutch, coloring books under the coffee table and so on. It was crazy and so hard to find what we needed. I knew I wanted to get some baskets to store it all in.  When we were at Home Depot I saw some that might work but we measured them and came home to see if it would work out. They were perfect so I went back and bought 4. They come in a chocolate brown and ivory. I went with the brown.  So I first pulled everything out from all over the house and slowly sorted and put them in baskets.  I used some scrapbooking tags to label the baskets to make it easy to know what is in each basket and will help when we need to put our things away.  I love how it looks now! Nice, clean and organized!!! Love it! We can now find what we need for homework and crafts! It is easy for Daniel to get into as well. It has a lock so Lauren can't get in and pull it all out.

One basket is just holding candles for now but I will be taking them out tomorrow. I think I will put some puzzles in it.

 

A close up of my tag. We had a ton of coloring books and stickers! Way too many! I filled a grocery bag of stuff to take to school to share with my students!

 

Next up is the front entry closet. The top had so much wasted space. I forgot to take a picture before I cleared it out but it was a mess too. :(

 

And now after with the extra shelf added up top.

 

 Much better! I was able to pull out some games and puzzles from a few different places and put them together on the top shelf. There is even a little space left!

 

There is one more closet in the hall that Joe made three new shelves for and even added a door but it's not done yet because the shelves were still not dry.  I will be working on it tomorrow and will add those pictures. 

So thankful for Joe's handy work today! And more importantly thankful for some organizing progress!!!

Have a great week!!