Game plan: Tackling the garage

So life has been a little crazy - we have a new baby! Benjamin was born February 7th and we couldn't be happier. He is the perfect additon to our family! We also have a new puppy. Yes, we are totally crazy! LOL

Now that we've been a family of 4 for a few months, things are starting to get a little easier. Things are still crazy busy and we are tired most of the time (Benji still eats every 3 hours most nights), but it's settled some. And I've been itching to start some house projects. Like I said in my home goals post, we want to get some stuff done this year, but we are being realistic about it. Not only do we not have a lot of time, but money is also a little tight this year with hospital bills rolling in. So, I'm just going to concentrate on one room/area at a time and do what I can to make it work for us using free or low cost items. Our house is decorated for the most part, and I keep it tidy, but what it isn't is organized. And, you can organize on a budget. So that's my goal: total home organization.

Right now, the area that is bothering me the most is the garage. It has always been a dumping ground and right now it's a diaster area. But, I have a list of ideas that we can incooperate to get it manageable. A long term goal is to get a storage building for our lawn care items and outdoor toys- maybe later in the year. But for now I know we can get it looking and working better. Here's my to-do list:

1.      Move storage items to papaw and mamaw’s attic (We are very thankful to have a huge area to store items for free at my grandparent's house)

2.      Clean out garage- tossing trash and bringing house items in

3.      Transfer leftover paint to smaller containers

4.      Install hooks to store items on the wall: power tools, bike, weed eater, etc.

5.      Paint the door and add vinyl saying

6.      Clean the floor really well

7.      Create “mudroom” area

a.      Paint strips on the wall to match door

b.      Mirror

c.       Shelf for keys, wallet, piggy bank, etc.

d.      Hooks for jackets, backpack, diaper bag, etc.

e.       Shoe storage

8.      Cover/paint steps

9.      Welcome mat at steps

10.  Install cat door and create pet area

a.      Storage containers for both foods and litter

b.      Move litter box and food bowls out

c.       Crate

I'm hoping to get a little start this weekend! Before pictures to come, but I'm warning you - it's bad!

House Tour: Harrison's Room

I thought we would start off our house tour with our son's room because it was his 4th birthday this week! There aren't any before pictures because it was a white room with beige carpet - not much to take pictures of. We let him pick the wall color when we first moved in. I have just slowly worked on his room and I'm finally considering it done other than needing a light fixture. Here's how it looks now...

 

 

We got Harrison's bed off Craigslist for $100! It is solid wood and we love having the drawers built in. It's a great space saver. We were able to move his dresser out and add some great toy storage. It was originally a honey oak color, so I sanded it down and painted it. It was a major pain because it took 4 coats and some of the pieces were double sided, so I worked on it for quite a while. I love the way it turned out though-it was all worth it!

 

 

We got this vinyl sticker from Simply Said and it adds so much to the room.

 



 

We got the shelf and bins at Target and it offers great toy storage. I was really surprised by how many toys it holds. I need to make some kind of picture labels on the front for easier clean up.

 

 

Harrison's room doesn't really have a theme. It's just full of stuff he loves. Mickey is one of his favorites. My mom found the print on the left and I painted a frame for it. The Cat in the Hat picture my husband traced and colored. I traced the bottom picture which is from our favorite book "The Going to Bed Book".

 

 

Next to Harrison's bed I added a reading corner. He doesn't really use it yet, but I think he will one day. The chair is actually very comfortable.

 

 

The other side of the room is the play section. My mother in law found the vintage Mickey and Minnie at an antique store. We got the World War II airplane poster at a naval museum.

 

Harrison's room fits him perfectly and he loves it!

 





2013 Home Goals

We have another baby boy on the way! My due date is February 14th. So, while we have many things we hope to accomplish around the house this year, I also want to be flexible. It's been a while since we've had a newborn and this time we will have a 4 year old at the same time. I'm not really sure how much spare time we will have around. LOL! And my family is my first priority- always.

I still want to get down in writing all the projects we have talked about doing this year. Mainly because I like to cross off things. It is a great feeling crossing something off a to do list! I hope we can get a good deal of these done, but if not they can always go on next year's list.

In 2011 we were moving in, unpacking, and just settling into owning our first home. In 2012 I slowly worked on decorating each room and reorganizing things to what works best for us. Every room in the house is decorated now except for the kitchen (and there is a reason for that). We are ready in 2013 to take on some more major projects and make the house work even better for us.

In no particular order:

- We plan to remove the wall between our living room and eat in kitchen making one big "great room".  We still aren't sure if we are going to hire this out or DIY it. My dad has removed a load bearing wall in his house, so it is possible for us to do. I think we will get some quotes and then decided. This is the main reason we haven't done much to the kitchen yet.

- Installing hardwood floors in the hall and great room. Not only because the flooring is in bad condition but also because our floors creak something awful! So we will be adding tons of screws into the sub flooring to hopefully repair that issue. This will be a DIY project for sure!

- Paint the exterior of our house. We are thinking a grey on the siding and white shutters. We also need to repaint the railings on our front porch which are already white. I would also like to do a little sprucing to our garage door.

- Repair the gate to our backyard. This is in preparation for getting a dog. My husband and son have been begging for a while! Our gate pulls together, but it's off a little and it doesn't latch.

- Update the kitchen. I would like to paint the cabinets, get new hardware, install butcher block counter tops, get a new sink, and build a banquet to go on the wall by the laundry door.

- DIY/ Replace lighting throughout the house. We have way too many boob lights and brass lighting in our house! I have some plans for almost every room. Some lighting will be painted, some will be replaced with DIY lighting, and I'm hoping I can find some new lighting on clearance for some rooms.

I'm very excited about what's in store for our house this year! I can't wait to get that wall removed. I can just picture how much bigger and brighter everything is going to look.

Back to blogging

I stopped posting for a couple of reasons. The main reason is because we didn't have home Internet. It is very hard to blog without having Internet easily accessible. But, about 4 months ago we joined the current century! It is definitely a luxury we missed having.

I also wanted to be able to have better pictures. I decided to ask for a camera for Christmas and I got a pretty nice one. Lets just hope I can keep it working! We went with the Nikon Coolpix L810. It's a very good camera, but not a super expensive DSL. It seemed like a good compromise for me.

I've really missed blogging and I've been thinking about it more and more over the past few months. I love doing projects around the house and I like having an outlet to share them. I really hope that eventually this blog will become a place where I can help other people with their decorating dilemmas.

Reading over all of my old posts has been so encouraging. When you are doing one small project at a time and you have an ever-growing list of project to tackle it is easy to feel like you aren't accomplishing much. Having these old posts to look over and seeing how far our house has come in just a year and a half is amazing. I'm so proud of the projects we've tackled. I can't wait to start taking pictures of everything and sharing them here.

Closet quick fix

 After moving in and getting some of the unpacking done, my son's closet looked like this:

Look at all that unused space - that just will not do! Especially when my living room looked like this:

We already had all the bins except the white ones which I purchased at The Dollar General. I don't hang up any of my son's clothes because they fit in his dresser just fine and it's easier, so his closet was going to become toy storage.

I was able to score the wood for the shelves for free from a friend! They also cut me some strips of wood to go on the wall for the shelves to sit on. I bought 2 brackets for the middle of each shelf at Ace Hardware.

I ended up having to call my Dad for help (Thanks Dad!) because I didn't noticed the inside of the closet had trim all around the doorway. So, I needed the shelves trimmed just 1/4 of an inch. We don't have a saw, so he trimmed them for me and even hung them up for me while he was there. Isn't he great!

Here's what his closet looks like now:

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So much better! During the week he usually just plays with his train table and kitchen and we play a lot of hide and seek as a family. But on the weekends we pull all the toys out for him and he has a ball. He can't open the door, so we don't have to worry about climbing -yet. We will cross that bridge when we get there. Hopefully not for a while!

Linking to Tutorials & Tips Link Party

Home Stories A to Z

One bare wall fixed!

This weekend I tackled one of the bare walls in our living room. I was really unsure of how it would turn out, but I decided to go ahead and I could always change it. I LOVE it!

Before:

After:

I hung everything kind of high because we plan to have seating on that wall eventually. I made templates of each piece use newspaper and marked where the screws should go. Then I hung the newspaper on the wall with painters tape and played with the arrangement.

These shelves were from Target for $20 each. It was a little more than I wanted to pay, but I had trouble finding deep shelves. The picture frame and vase on the top shelf I've had for years. The owl and door knocker were both from Hobby Lobby puchased last week. Both were on sale for 50% off and both were under $10. I can't remember exact prices. I can't turn down an owl though!

This clock was also from Hobby Lobby and I paid $30 after the 50% off sale. Those are mirrors around it. I love how fun it is!

These boxes were from Target. I've had them for almost 5 years, but they were a dark walnut wood tone before. I painted them over the weekend using my oil based primer (so I didn't have to sand) and then trim paint we had leftover. The orange bird was from a thrift store - 50 cents! It was red when I bought it and I just spray painted it. The green bird I got at Cracker Barrel a few months ago. The vase I got over a year ago out of town.

It's weird how the wall color looks different in every picture! The close up of the shelves is the best representation.

Anyway, with this addition and the curtains, I smile every time I walk in the living room. I love how fun and inviting our living room is!

Current State of our house- Part 2

Sorry this post is a little late. But, good news - you can expect better blog pictures from now on. I'm still using my cheapy camera because it's just best that way - read here. But, I found a new setting on the camera that is making the pictures wider. I knew something was off, I just couldn't figure out how to fix it for a while. I also learned about Picnik.com. Have you heard about this? It is a website to edit your photos and it's FREE! Love it!

So on to our tour. Let's start with the kitchen. Here's what it looked like when we closed:

And what it looks like now. Really all we've done in here is strip wallpaper, paint, move our furniture in, and install the microwave.

This is the view from the front door:

 The dining area from the doorway. Bags on the floor are for a living room project we are tackling this weekend!

 Rest of the cabinetry. To the left is the door to the backyard. Also, what do you think about all the clear glass on top of the cabinets? I just used what I had, but I'm thinking of thrifting more pieces and doing it all the way across. This picture probably shows the most accurate paint color. It's Bungalow Beige from Sherwin Williams.

 Dining area from the back door.

And I just noticed I didn't get the stove and microwave. It's beside the fridge.

And now for Harrison's room, which I LOVE! We didn't take a before picture because it was just a white room. Here's how it looks now:

View from the door. There is a window to the right.

 You can see part of the dresser in the picture above. Here is the dresser wall. I have lots of plans for this wall. (Oops, there were toys under that dresser!)

 And to the right of the door is his train table which he loves. I also have big plans for this wall. To the right is his closet which recently underwent some changes. Post coming soon!

The blue is a little brighter than it looks in these pictures, but you get the idea. We don't have a theme for his room. Just colorful, boy stuff and I'm especially drawn to vintage-y stuff.  We already have several things to hang in his room, but just haven't gotten to it yet. I do most of my hanging when he's napping.