The Kids' Closets

As you know by now, I'm doing the Home Organization 101 challenge over at A Bowl Full of Lemons.  Check it out.  There are great ideas over there.

Last week's challenge was the kids' closets.  I procrastinated on this one and didn't start until Friday.  Thus the late blog post.  But it's done!  And the closets look SOOO much better.  :)  See for yourself!

Nathan's before.  Yes, it's a mess.  

Alex's was a mess too.  

You see, when I clean their rooms, anything that doesn't have a "place" gets thrown in the closet.  Which is fine until you open the closet.  *sigh*  

But after several hours of organizing, sorting, and hanging, things look nice again!

Don't you love that we have the changing table in the closet?!  We don't use it for diaper changing anymore and it doesn't fit in Alex's bedroom now that there are two beds in there.  But it works great as storage in her fairly large closet!  

And Nathan's closet looks totally different and clean now too.  :)

It's much more peaceful picking out their clothes in the morning now.  And putting away laundry is much more enjoyable now that I don't have to fight through the mess on the floor.  Love it!  

The Master

Last week's zone in the organization challenge was the master bedroom.  Prior to that was the laundry room, which I had done a few months ago.  All it needed was a quick pick-up so I didn't blog about it.  The master, however, needed some work.  Here we go!

Close your eyes for this next pic and pretend you don't see the mess.  But do look over to the left side of the picture and notice the incomplete stenciling on the wall.  Yep, the wall is hand stenciled. And took forever and a day to complete.  Friends, do yourselves a favor and just BUY a stencil and roller.  It's worth it.  

Clearly I cleaned it up well.  The carpets got a good vacuum and the pillows were fluffed.  And *gasp!* the accent wall was finished!!  What you also couldn't see in the previous picture was the lipstick and crayon drawing on the left wall.  That was finally painted over this week as well.  Sigh. Nice and neat again.  

Here's a close up of the shelf above the bed.  I spray painted some of the accents blue to add some pop.  Want a tip?  When hanging a shelf above your bed, make sure the hardware being used to hang said shelf if securely attached to the shelf.  Or, you know, you might end up with a shelf flying at you while you're sleeping.  Hypothetically speaking, of course.  

And across the room you'll find our dresser.  One day it will be refinished to match the rest of the room.  One day.  

These sconces were black in the old house.  I spray painted them blue and added some brown ribbon to the candles to tie them in with the new bedroom.  The mirror just looked so small on that wall.  It needed something to make it look bigger and fill the space better.  The sconces do the trick!

Here's a print I made in college.  It's one of my favorites.  

So there you go!  The completed Master Bedroom.  Well, sort of.  One day (when I finally find a fabric I like) I'll lengthen those curtains so we can hang them from the ceiling.  They drive me nuts!  

The Pantry

If you didn't notice, I skipped week 2 of the organizing challenge.  We were out of town for a good bit of last week and I just wouldn't have been able to get the garage done in three days.  We'll play catch up later and get that done!  

This week's challenge was The Pantry.  I did a good bit of pantry organizing a couple of months ago when I first organized the kitchen.  So all I had to do was straighten things up!

Before the straightening.  

I just can't seem to avoid clutter!  Even such a small space.

When I got everything organized the first time, I went on a labeling spree.  LOVE my Silhouette!  And yes, the crooked cornstarch container is seriously driving me nuts right now.  

All nice an organized.  All of our breakfast items and pastas are nicely contained so they don't take over the shelf.  We have baking supplies on the middle shelf and up top you'll find plastic ware and paper products.  We're in the process of going paperless in the kitchen, so once these are all used up I'll start keeping appliances up there.  

On the door you'll find our menu plan for the week as well as a shopping list.  

Can I just tell you how much I LOVE our turntables?!  Perfect for this space.  

On the left side of the pantry we have our tea mixes and canned goods up top.  (Since we don't use either one very often.)  On the middle shelf you'll find dried beans, boxed goodies (snacks for the kids), and baking chocolate.  The bottom shelf holds our snack foods, protein powder, and potatoes.  

And that's it!  All nice and neat again.  Be sure to click on the button at the top of the post to see lots of other ideas for pantry organization!  There's some good stuff out there.  

*Side note: I wrote this post with a sleeping three year old boy in my lap.  My favorite way to spend the afternoon.  

On Keeping House

Over the last two years I have really struggled with the fact that I cannot keep a spotless house (or some days even a clean house).  I have friends whose houses are perfect.  No crumbs on the floor, no dust on the baseboards.  I have family who takes pride in clean walls and dusted picture frames.  I look through decorating ideas on Pinterest and see nothing but tidy, shiny, beautiful rooms.  I've longed to have the same level of clean in my house.  I wanted nothing more than to have a spotless house ready for company at the drop of a hat.  I wanted to rub my hand down our banister at any moment and not worry about it coming away dirty. It ate at me that our house was not perfect.  It consumed me to the point where I didn't even try to keep up with daily chores because I knew I could never attain perfection.  My house would never look as nice as everyone else's.  

As I'm writing this, our final home study visit (the home walk through) is in 45 minutes.  I'm not running around putting things away, washing windows, or hiding things under the bed.  I'm sitting on the couch across from the cutest three year old boy EVER, watching him sleep.

I'm slowly learning the lesson that veteran moms have been telling me for three years now: the housework will wait.

The kids don't care if the baseboards are dusty (they are) or the mirrors have toothpaste spots on them (they do).  They don't care that the carpet is stained (it's their fault!) or that the walls have crayon lipstick drawings over the fresh paint (again their fault).

And you know what?  I can now honestly say that I don't care either.

I can spend my time scrubbing walls, baseboards, and mirrors.  I can have the perfect sparkly house in Better Homes and Gardens.  Or I can spend my time building blocks, teaching letters, making crafts, and playing the whistle in toddler parades.  That last one is Nathan's favorite right now.  The house work really CAN wait.  It will always be there.  But the kids don't wait.  They grow and change daily.  If I'm wrapped up in having the perfect house (or regretting that I don't have a perfect house), what am I missing in their lives?

I've learned that perfection means nothing to me in regards to our home now.  We do the dishes, wash the laundry, clean the bathrooms and pick up the toys at the end of the day.  Beyond that, not much gets done regularly.

Is the house clean?  No way.  Is it tidy?  Usually.  Am I comfortable having our home study worker come inspect it today?  Even though I didn't dust, wash windows, clean the closets, or organize the pantry?  You bet.  This is how we live.  We love life, toys, games, and laughter.  Our home reflects that.  Walk in at any given time and you will find toys spread across the living room floor.  You'll find stuffed animals covering Alex's bed and who-knows-what in Nathan's bed.  You'll see sippy cups on the floor and dirty toddler underwear in a hamper in the bathroom.  You'll find old cheddar bunnies under the couch and dust on the tv.  We're not perfect and neither is our house.

And that's just the way we like it.

The Kitchen

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I'm joining in on a challenge to organize our home.   

This might be the only time it's ever organized again.

This week's challenge was the kitchen. Can I tell you how much I love kitchens?  After Craig and I were married we completely refinished the kitchen.  We painted the cabinets, installed new flooring, and put in granite countertops.  When we decided to move I was so torn because I knew I'd be leaving our kitchen.  So when we stumbled upon this house and I walked in and saw the VERY SAME granite counters as our old house, I knew we had to buy this one.  :)  And here we are!

So.  Back to the organizing.  I cannot lie.  I thoroughly gutted and organized our kitchen about a month ago and it has stayed pretty tidy since then.  So I don't have much in the way of "before" pictures.  I went back through and straightened things up and did a good cleaning.  That's all there was to do this week for me!  (But just wait.  When we do closets it's gonna be tough!)

I started with the kid's cabinet.  I'm working with Nathan and Alex on putting away their dishes after they're clean, so this one gets messy pretty quickly.

I took everything out first and then put away all of the nursing supplies.  (Won't be needing those anytime soon!)  Then I put all of the cups in the big blue bin and put the bowls in the basket.  Everything else just sits in the cabinet for easy access.

Much better.  In a week it'll be back to stage one and I'll get to do this all over again!

I also straightened the ziplock/potholder drawer.  This one seems to get cluttered quickly too!  

When I was organizing a couple of weeks ago I completed straightened out our cabinet under the sink.  In the left basket you'll find our dishwasher detergent and rinse aid.  The middle basket is cleaning supplies and the right basket is dish soap.  In the back is the dreaded fish tank cleaning stuff.  Bleh.  And behind all of that (unseen in the picture) is all of our cleaning rags.  We've officially gotten rid of paper towels, so I have lots of rags back there.  And you probably noticed our handy fire extinguisher.  Every house needs one.  But especially ours since we have a home study walk through next week!!

Here's my baking cabinet.  Complete with oils, spices, baking powder, soda, salt, and bowls.  See that curtain rod holding up my little spices?  Yep, that's a Pinterest idea!  A little tip - make sure you get the tension really tight.  Otherwise you might open your cabinet to find a bunch of spices falling all over you.  Not that I'd know that.  Ahem.  Hidden in the basket on the left you'll also find the kids' playdough supplies.  I keep them in the kitchen closest to the table because it's an easy way to keep them entertained while I'm baking or cooking.

Here's the back wall of the kitchen.  Baking supplies are top left, kids' cabinet is bottom left.  To the right on top are the plates and Pyrex bakeware (no picture - it's boring) and the bottom left is pots and pans.  Again no picture.  Sorry.  I know you're missing it dreadfully.

Here's the right wall of the kitchen.  I don't like this spot.  Because it's so ridiculously hot down here right now I'm not drinking coffee.  So all of that is stored on top of the fridge in that mess.  When it's cold there's a nice little coffee corner in this nook.  But for now it just looks weird.  I'm thinking about switching to tea since my taste for coffee comes and goes.  If that happens, I can stash the coffee away in a cabinet far away and only pull it out for company.  What do you think: coffee or tea?  And yes, I still need to clean the fridge.  You caught me.  

In our dining nook we have another Pinterest find: our family calender center.  I spray painted an old frame and created a scrapbook type layout to go inside.  It has our calendar, a weekly planner, a note section, our family picture, and some of my artwork from college.  It makes me happy.  And gets rave reviews from company!

And here's the breakfast nook.  Which is our "every meal nook" since our dining room is the school room right now.  Can I tell you how much I love this table??  It was Craig's grandmother's table that was passed along to him.  It was previously a pine color that didn't match the new house.  And the finish was almost completely worn off from so many years of love.  So we refinished it!  The legs are painted white and the tabletop and chair seats are stained a dark brown.  I then brushed some stain on the legs to age it a bit.  The white was too stark next to the stain.  I LOVE it in our kitchen.  It fits perfectly.  

And there you have it.  Our lovely kitchen. 

An Organized Home

Have you ever visited A Bowl Full of Lemons?  This woman has the most beautiful organized home.  She also has some AWESOME ideas of how to organize her home and keep it clean.

She's doing a 14 week "class" between now and Christmas on organizing the home.  Every week you focus on a new area of the house to organize and clean.  The idea being that your house is nice and presentable just in time to get wrecked again over the holidays!  :)  I thought I'd take this challenge not to get prepared for the holiday season but to get prepared for the addition of a third child into our home.  When Miah arrives I will most definitely not have time for things such as organizing the coat closet.  If I get it done now, maybe it won't be so terrible come July(ish) when I go months without any homemaking.

Want to join in on the challenge?  It's really quite simply.  You can visit THIS post for a quick overview of the 14 weeks.

This week's challenge is the KITCHEN.  Cabinets, drawers, fridge, etc.  I've kept my kitchen fairly organized over the last few months thanks to my growing obsession with neatness.  But there are definitely some areas that still need work!  So I will spend this week organizing and cleaning my kitchen.  I'll be back when it's done to show you pictures.  Don't worry.  It an effort to be honest with you all, I'll show some "before" pictures too.

Here's the picture of the kitchen that I had to send off for our homestudy.  Better ones are coming, I promise.  

Side note: I'm also hoping this challenge will provide a good distraction from adoption related waiting.  :)

Feel free to join in with us on this!