Boys' Room Repair and Makeover -- Step One!

While we were on our trip, we had a pipe burst in the big boys' bedroom. This is, of course, not a fun thing to deal with, especially from 2000 miles away! Thankfully our neighbors who were feeding our chickens noticed the garage ceiling leaking and knew how to patch the leak, or we more than likely would have come home to a completely destroyed house!

The one bright spot in all this, at least for me, is that the room has to be repainted and the flooring replaced. I wanted to do both of those things anyway, but I probably wouldn't have gotten to the painting for awhile, and we probably wouldn't have bothered with the expense of replacing the flooring, which was a boring but perfectly decent Berber carpet.

The room was repainted this past week. The best part? It was painted by professional painters, NOT me! :) The room is full of narrow trim and funky angles--I was NOT looking forward to trying to paint it myself!

I can't believe it, but I don't have any "before" pictures of the room in it's original state. And I didn't think to pull out the camera until the painting was already underway. So here are the "sort-of before" pictures:



They had painted the ceiling by this point. It used to be red as well. This was a very dark room, in spite of having 2 dormers and a large window at one end. You can see how much trim there is to paint around!



From the window end of the room looking back toward the door. Please excuse all the mixed up bed parts laying about! The 3 boys who usually sleep in this room are bunking with Joanna right now...2 in the queen-sized guest bed and 1 on a mattress on the floor. It's a big party every night at bedtime, I tell ya!



The back corner


And now the after pictures:



This looks lighter than it is...it has darkened some now that it is dry. It's a light denim blue, and the ceiling is called Sea Salt, I think. We left the trim a glossy white.



Isn't this just so much nicer than that dark, dark red? I love it!



The second dormer window. This one has a built-in computer desk, the same color as the upper cabinets around the window. The desk had to come out to remove the carpet and dry everything out. It will go back when the floor is done. The other dormer has a built-in toy box under the window.



And here's the back corner and the big window.

I'm thrilled with how well it has turned out so far. It took the painters less than 6 hours to finish it. It would have taken me weeks! We're going to put in laminate flooring ourselves to keep costs down. We have experience with that, so hopefully it won't take too long! I already have a long list of things I plan on doing to decorate this room once the flooring is done. I can't wait to get started!! Let's just say there will be a lot of sewing and crafting in my future! Yay!

My Organized Kitchen...In Pictures!

This is my kitchen. It needs some decorating in a big way...all in due time! But for now it's organized! :)

Back in September I shared that I was reorganizing my kitchen. I also promised that I would share the results of that endeavor when I was done. Oops! So I guess this is one of those better-late-than-never posts, hehe.

When we moved into our house, I did a quick stashing of stuff in cabinets as I was unpacking, fully intending to organize shortly thereafter. Well, we found out I was pregnant with Jeremiah just a few short weeks later, and with morning sickness, etc. not only did organizing not happen--it got even MORE disarrayed.

So when I started this project, my primary goals were:

• Get anything that I don't use in the kitchen out of the kitchen,
• Put anything that is used very rarely in the hardest-to-get-to spots, saving the easy-to-reach spots for everyday stuff,
• Find a way to fit some kitchen appliances that I was storing in the basement back in the kitchen so I would actually use them,
• and finally put everything as close to where I use it as possible

So on to the before and after pictures...

My kitchen is quite large, but I have a very small pantry for a family of 9. I solved this problem primarily by converting a larger closet in our basement into a pantry for canned goods, etc. But I still had all sorts of half-used packages of random stuff in my pantry, plus the basic staples like sugar, flour, and the like.



Here it is today. Now, it doesn't look all that different, but I moved most of my staples and made room for my rice cooker and big stock pot that wouldn't fit in any of my other cabinets. The white bin on the bottom right holds our rather substantial tea collection. (Yes, I have a bunch of kids who are big tea drinkers. Must be that little bit of English blood in our family line.)



This cabinet is over a desk area, next to the fridge, and faces the island. It had become a catch-all for all sorts of random stuff, and was the home for all those tea boxes.


Here it is today. I moved my pantry staples and baking supplies into appropriately-sized Rubbermaid containers, and labeled them. I LOVE this set up, as I can find everything quickly and easily, nothing gets hidden behind anything else, and it's accessible to the island, where I do most of my prep work for baking.

(Side note: I drooled over those Tupperware Modular Mates for YEARS but could never bring myself to pay $20-$30 each for containers, especially considering how many I would need. The Rubbermaid ones above are the same idea, and were purchased at Wal-Mart for about $3 to $6 each depending on the size. LOVE them!)



This is the cabinet next to the previous one...it also collected random stuff, and held all my cookbooks.



Today, this cabinet holds my larger bins of stuff like wheat berries, flour, cornmeal, powdered milk, etc. The middle shelf currently holds ziplock bags, although I want to put more of the Rubbermaid bins there eventually.



This is my spice cabinet. It is above and to the left of my stove.



The front section swings out on hinges and has storage on the back side and then shelves in the cabinet behind it as well. I love my spice cabinet!! It didn't need much work--just moving some of the stuff that was making it a bit overcrowded.



This cabinet is above and to the right of my stove. It held overflow spices, as well as other random things that come in bottles and jars.



Today it houses the cookbook collection, and a few things I don't need often that don't fit in the next cabinet since they are too tall.



Moving one more cabinet to the right is my corner cabinet. I don't have a before picture of this one, but that bottom shelf held all my china--which I use maybe 2-3 times a YEAR right now. I have a harder-to-reach cabinet above my fridge that was full of silver serving pieces that I use even more rarely (read: never) so I put all of those in the attic and moved my china to the cabinet above the fridge. Then I moved all those extra spices and bottles into the bottom shelf of the corner cabinet, right above the counter where I typically prepare stuff that's being cooked on the stove.



Here it is closer-up. It's not a perfect solution since it's deep and I sometimes have to dig for things, but it works.

I have other cabinets for dishes, etc., but since I didn't need to reorganize those I don't have pictures. Overall, I love my new set-up and find that it is not only tons easier to prep meals now, but it's also easier to have my boys help me in the kitchen or even cook stuff themselves, since everything has a definite place and is easy to find!

My Quest For an Organized Mud Room--Please Help! :)

As many of you know, we moved into a new house back at the end of September. We got settled in fairly quickly, then went through the rounds of 2 holidays and 4 birthdays. Now that things have settled down and we're beginning a new year and all, it's time for HOUSE PROJECTS!

I'm making a room-by-room list of everything I want to fix up. Our house was move-in ready, so there aren't any really major repairs to be done--I'm mostly talking about changing some paint colors here and there, and then furnishing/decorating to make it really fit our lifestyle and needs. And of course I'll be trying to do all of this on a budget! I'm thinking about tackling one room or area each month.

The first area to tackle is the hallway we're using as a mud room. It's between the garage and the kitchen, and is basically what would be the continuation of our wrap-around porch. As such, it has a whopping 5 doors to work around--1 into the garage, 1 (open doorway) into the kitchen, 2 that go to either end of the porch, and 1 into the 1/2 bathroom. Here are some pictures...


Looking from the kitchen to the garage door...
(For size perspective that's all 13-inch tile.)



The exterior door here goes to the back side of the porch, and the door on the left goes into the half-bath...



Opposite view--this door goes to the front part of the porch, and is our main entrance. We have a "formal" front door that goes into the foyer/entryway, but we rarely use it.



From the front porch looking in...we have one 5-peg coat rack (only for children's coats--adults are in the foyer closet) a small shelf for shoes, and a large milk crate on the floor for hats, gloves, scarves, etc.



Just inside the garage door...



Looking from the garage door to the kitchen...

The main problem is that we have way too much stuff that needs to be in here, and no workable way to organize it. Right now, the boys are outside in all their snow gear, so this room looks pretty clean. Normally, the floor is COVERED with wet/drippy snow boots, snow bibs, and an explosion of stuff that has to be carefully stepped over to get in or out! It's a MESS!

So, I need IDEAS!!! And they need to fit in this space, lol! Oh, and I've pretty much already decided that the door to the back porch can be sacrificed--I'm totally willing to put something in front of that door for storage, and make everyone walk around to the front porch side to enter the house. Anyway, this is what I need:
1. Hanging space for 6 children worth of coats.
2. Hanging space for 6 children worth of snow suits.
3. Space for shoes and snow boots, preferably in such a way that they can drip-dry over something other than just making puddles on the tile.
4. Space for more logical storage of hats/gloves/scarves/etc. Right now they're in a bin on the floor, which really means they're usually strewn all over the floor.
5. Storage for other outdoor stuff (like umbrellas) would be nice as well.

Here are the dimensions of the room--
1. The length from back porch door to front porch door is 13'4".
2. The width of the hall between the bathroom door and the current coat rack is 3'7".
3. The width of the wall with the front porch door is 6'11".
4. The width of the wall with the garage door is 5'3".

So come on everyone, hit me with your best ideas!! I know it's going to be a tight fit, but I'm sure it can be done! I promise to post after pictures when it's all fixed up! :)