Closet Playroom Remodel

Sometimes I feel a little claustrophobic. We are a family of 6 living in a little over 1000 sq. feet. I know that we are incredibly blessed to have a home to call our own, and I LOVE our house! I really do! But there are days where I feel like the walls are caving in, and on those days I spend way too much time thinking about my dream home… A beautiful 3000 sq ft home nestled safely at the end of a cul-de-sac, with enough space for us to breathe. Surrounded by trees and a luscious garden, and a yard where my kids can run amuck… and we’ll have a garage, and a kitchen with enough counter space to cook a meal… sigh… It’s a beautiful dream. 

But it’s just that. A dream.   

One of the biggest items on my wish list is a playroom. I’d love to have a space where the kids can imagine, play, and create… and where I can close the door to contain the mess and pretend like it isn't there if I have to. This week while I was doing some deep cleaning in our closet under the stairs I decided… hey… if I want a playroom so badly, why don’t I just make one?!

So I did.

Now I’m totally kicking myself for not taking a before picture of what this closet looked like. But I didn’t realize I was going to be doing anything fun or exciting when I started my de-junking mission that morning. Sorry! There are no pictures of the total disaster that existed under my stairs. Imagine with me for a moment a closet so scary that you didn’t dare open the door lest something fall out of its precariously stacked location and knock you on the noggin. The floor was so littered with puzzle pieces, Legos, Barbies, and broken toys that you couldn't even see the floor.  In fact, there was no floor- just a knee deep swamp of despair.

True story. 

I took a deep breath and dug in. The first thing I did was empty the closet and get rid of anything and everything we don’t actually use. Then I vacuumed up the bag of powdered sugar that had apparently exploded underneath all the mess. How it got there in the first place I have no idea. After the space was nice and clean, I decided I wanted to paint! After all, what’s a playroom without some fun color?! I had a can of blue paint left over from an old project and used that to brighten up the space.

While the paint was drying, I organized the toys. An old wicker basket now holds all the dress up clothes. I happened to have some empty organizing bins in the attic, so I pulled those out and used them to store small toys and dress up accessories like hats, shoes and necklaces. (Ignore the ugly sticker... I don't know why I didn't pull it off.) Then I used an empty container from Sam’s Club that used to contain cheese puffs (I mean… uh… organic chia-flax-spinach-kale chips) to store all the play food.

This over the door organizer holds library books, and a few favorites from our bookshelf… I plan to rotate through them so we don’t always end up reading the same books.

 

One of the biggest reasons I wanted a playroom was to provide some creative space for my kids. My older girls LOVE to make crafts and they just end up all over the house and stuffed into every crevice of their closets. To solve the clutter issue I strung some twine on the wall, and used clothespins to hang up their masterpieces. If they want to put a new piece of art up, and there isn’t any room, they have to decide which piece they have to retire. That way I’m no longer the bad guy who sneaks old art projects into the garbage when no one is looking because I just can’t handle the clutter anymore. 

I also found two child-sized wooden chairs in my attic that had been sitting up there far too long so I pulled them out and stuck them in the "playroom." (This is why I have a hard time getting rid of things! You’ll never know when you need them again!) 

This totally rad ottoman now holds all the art supplies and also acts like a little table for pretend tea parties.

An empty tin is now the home for the stamps and glue sticks.

And as a finishing touch I decided to make a chalkboard out of an old picture frame and some chalkboard paint I’ve been holding onto for a while. I hung it over the ugly metal utility access panel on the wall… because why not? J

I seriously love this room! I know it’s small, but it’s so functional now! My kids spend hours in here every day, and I don’t know who is happier about it- them or ME! (Pretty sure it’s me.) They play dress up, do art projects, play house and their favorite make believe game- super spy! My oldest has also been using this room as a quiet place to do her homework. 

I think my favorite part of this whole project is that for the most part I just used items I already had on hand. The only two things I bought were the red ottoman and the super funky rug… both on sale at Ross! Score!

(bonus points if you can find spot the tiger and the yellow rose who snuck into this picture.) 

This project was so much fun, and it was a great reminder to me that THIS home can be my dream home. I know it's small, but we I honestly believe that someday we will look back on our years spent here and realize they were some of the happiest years of our lives. Some days I may feel like we don't have "enough" but I  am learning to that I have the ability to take what I have right now and make it enough. It’s all about being happy, wherever you are J

Get Organized!

So... let's talk junk. 

Not trunk junk. 

Drawer junk. 

Oh yeah. You know what I mean. 

Everyone has at least one drawer in their house that is the official "this-thing-doesn't-really-have-a-good-place-to-go-so-I'll-just-throw-it-in-here" drawer. For us, it's in our kitchen. It's where we keep our batteries, scotch tape, stamps, twist ties, push pins, paper clips, etc. 

And it was a MESS.

Seriously.

I wish I had a before picture to share. Even when I knew for certain that something was in there, it still took me a couple minutes to find. And who has a couple extra minutes when you are running out the door to drive your oldest to preschool, with a two year old and newborn crying in his carseat, but you need to find a stamp to mail that birthday card that has to get in the mail today or it will be late!? 

AmmIRight!?

I started scouring Amazon for an organization system I liked, and I found some cool ones, but I wasn't ready to plunk down my precious moolah for one unless I was totally in love, or blown away by the brilliance of the system.

One morning I was thinking about the impressive volumes of boxed cereal my family goes through, and that's when it hit me. A moment of pure genius. 

GENIUS, I TELL YOU!

 Why not use the cereal boxes to create my very own organization system--for FREE!?

Materials Needed:

Cereal Boxes

Scissors

Hot Glue

Break down your boxes.

This may seem silly, since we'll be gluing them back up later, but it makes cutting the boxes a lot easier when you can lay them flat!

Measure the height of your drawers. You want your organization boxes to to come no higher than the sides of your drawers. Then you will measure that far in from both the top and bottom of your box not including the flaps--these will form the bottom of your boxes. I like to mark both sides of the box and draw a big fat line all the way across with a sharpie and a ruler. Fancy, I know. Then cut across the line.

Glue the flaps back down/together (I used hot glue) to create a box again. I used boxes that varied in size, so I'd have more options.

Use the side panels of the leftover box material to create dividing walls within the boxes, if you need them. The awesome thing about the side panels is that they are already the perfect width to sit cross-ways inside your boxes. Just make sure to include a bit on each side of the folds for flaps for the glue.

ORGANIZE! Fill your boxes, and fill your drawer!

They're not gorgeous (but could be made purtier with some pretty paper, if you were a little less lazy than me), but they are about as functional as they get. Plus--since the boxes are just placed in the drawer and not connected to each other, it's easy to reorganize down the road.

Confession: I went a bit crazy (we had a lot of cereal boxes) and organized my bathroom drawer, too. It's still a work in progress, but it's so nice not to have everything sliding to the back of the drawer where I can't see it very well.

Aaaand I may have made a little box for the girls' bathroom, too. For the ponytail holders. And hair clips. They love pulling the box out to look at their "pony" options.

What drawers in your house could use a bit of organizing?

Day 4: Hot Chocolate Bar

 

Our advent activity on Tuesday was a hot chocolate bar!  Yummy nummy nummy!  

It doesn't take a lot to get my kids excited, so our mix-ins were pretty simple.  Besides, I knew they would want to have EVERY SINGLE ONE in their chocolate and I didn't want the flavor combinations to turn nasty!

Extra points for you if you can tell me where the quote on my mug comes from!  Here's a view of the back so you can see the whole quote:

Aw.  My sweet Mr. Darcy husband had this made for me after I showed him a similar one on Pinterest.  Ladies, if you share my love of Pride and Prejudice, might I suggest some subtle (or not-so-subtle) hints?   Print it out and put it on your wall...e-mail the picture to your honey...create one yourself and tell him that you've got his Christmas present to you covered... (does anyone else ever buy their own presents?)

Wait.  We were talking about chocolate, right?  It's hard to stay focused on two of my favorite topics at the same time!  What else would you stir into hot chocolate?  Do you have a favorite schmancy kind?  I'm in the market for a "Mommy only" variety!

The Fruit Fly Trap Experiment

Pinterest is a fabulous thing. So much inspiration. 

But there's a heckuvalot of hooh hah, too. Lots of tips for how to do things faster, easier, cleaner... some are fabulously brilliant, and others just plain don't work. 

Which brings me to my experiment.

The fruit fly trap experiment. 

Yesterday I made the mistake of leaving half of a very ripe banana out on our counter. It's other half met his untimely end (or rather--quite timely. He was rather brown after all...) in my lunchtime oatmeal smoothie. Lunchtime is not the most relaxing time in our house, and one thing led to another, and... well... that other half was completely forgotten. 

Needless to say, we had a rather large colony of fruit flies in no time, and my husband was a wee bit irritated with me. 

"Don't worry!" I said. "I pinned a fruit fly trap with apple cider vinegar!"

"Do we have apple cider vinegar?"

"Um... no. But I'll get some! PROMISE!"

And I did. 

I was worried the trap wouldn't work because I had heard good and bad things about this method. Maybe those who didn't have any luck with it did it differently. Or maybe they have some super genetically advanced species of fruit fly lurking in their homes. Who knows. 

My point is--this worked for me and I'm going to give some specifics on how I did it, because the "recipe" I found didn't include some steps that made a difference for me. 

  

Place some apple cider vinegar in a small bowl or cup.

Pour in some of dish soap. 

I didn't measure mine. I just drizzled it in. The soap is what actually traps them.

If you find that the fruit flies aren't heading towards your trap, you may have added too much. It's the smell of the apple cider vinegar that attracts them--if you add too much it smells too much like soap.

STIR.

This wasn't specified in my "recipe". The soap will just sink to the bottom if you don't mix it together, and your trap's trapping skills will plummet to a big fat ZERO. Your fly cocktail should look murky like this:

Place your trap right next to whatever fresh fruit you have out on the counter.

TRAP FRUIT FLIES. 

We had a LOT of flies, thanks to my boo boo with the banana. So I was able to watch them get drawn to the trap almost immediately. Okay--once I figured out I needed to stir the dang thing. Laugh all you want--it wasn't explicitly stated in my "recipe," and I always follow recipes exactly the first time.

Within 10-15 minutes we had caught at least 10! It was fun (and a little bit addicting) to go back and count all the flies sitting in the bottom of the bowl!

Microfiber Care

I had heard about how fabulous microfiber is for cleaning.  The tiny fibers (thinner than a human hair--sometimes by 1/200) clean anything with just water, so you can ditch harsh cleaners and stop using paper towels--saving money, time, and the planet! They are also great for dusting when they are dry, and for cleaning cars, glasses, and screens (TV, computer monitor, etc) because they don't scratch.

So when I saw a pack of microfiber cloths at the grocery store a couple of years ago, I snagged them.

They cleaned well-I especially liked the way they removed waxy buildup from my kitchen table: magically.

I did NOT like the way they held onto stains!  I could not get them too look or feel clean!

So I pulled out the big guns and bleached those suckers.

Are you cringing?  I know.  Me too.  I didn't realize that bleach will destroy those tiny little microfibers.  As a side note, fabric softener, instead of softening these cloths, will clog the fibers and make it so they can't pick up dirt or dust anymore.

My poor, pretty, microfiber cloths.  They just got more stained, less soft, and worse at cleaning.

My mother-in-law heard that boiling the microfiber cloths would restore them.  I tried it out, and it helped--though I think that my cloths are probably past saving, the poor dears.

I may try again, and not with grocery store cloths.  Real Simple Magazine says that the best microfiber cloths are from e-cloth.*  But at $30 for a pack of 5 cloths, I had better figure out how to take care of them!

Use Toothpaste To Clean Your Grout?

My kitchen grout is black.  It's not supposed to be--turns out it is supposed to be a light gray color.  Fortunately, I can tell my conscience that it isn't my fault--it was that way when I moved in.  But that doesn't help me get it clean, does it?

Potty Mouth

When we bought our house, it had already been sitting empty for several months. It was a short sale, and if our offer didn't go through, it was going to go into foreclosure, so the family had already moved out. We were lucky enough that the family didn't go through and punch holes in the drywall, or take all of the light fixtures with them.

BUT--the toilets had been infected with the dreaded toilet ring.

It happens, people. If a toilet is never (or rarely) flushed, The Ring is likely to plague it.

I scrubbed ours. Oh, how I scrubbed. THIS is what they looked like AFTER being scrubbed. Heck, you can even see the soap bubbles in the bottom there...

Yeah. Not much motivation to clean them, right?

After a great deal of weeping over my toilet's condition, I discovered THIS:

Within 10 minutes apiece, my toilets went from that horrific state above to this:

PERFECTION! 

Okay... so nothing in life is ever actually perfect, but this is about as close as it comes!

Seriously. Here's the side-by-side:

This is how much of the stick I used to get three toilets cured of their toilet ring:

About an inch. 

I just plunged as much water out as I could before going to town--I don't think you want to submerge the pumice. My hands didn't get wet at all. I just held the other end of the stick.

But for those of you who are more squeamish about toilet water, you can check THIS out!

Pumice on a stick!

It's three times as expensive, but hey--$9 for sparkling toilets in my opinion is totally worth it!

*This is not a sponsored post. Simply an awesome discovery I wanted to share.*