Through Every Season

Tag: Organization (Page 2 of 2)

Introducing the Laundry Room

My laundry room is usually the last room unpacked and the one I am most excited 
to have done; there’s something about weeks and weeks of 
trying to get the wash done admits chaos.. then wa-la.. order!
The lack of storage and the fact that the mirror/coatrack (a garage sale find) 
that’s hung near our backdoor for the last seven years broke in the move 
inspired me to buy some paint and shelf paper and go a little over the top coordinating.    
Our laundry room is right off the kitchen.. here is a view from there.
The door straight back leads to the garage.
Here’s a close up of the back wall.  I made the clock for our kitchen in FL.
All my left over decor ended up in here so it’s mix matched.
See the tall plastic thing with the polka dots?
I bought it at the Container Store for our last house.  It opens up.. (see below) 
A family of six can never have too much space for hanging clothes.
Here’s a view from the garage.  The door on the left is a pantry.  
I use it to store our vacuum, light bulbs.. etc.
If I re-mat the “Train up your child” verse over the
 window in blue, it might go a little better.
This is what the shelves looked like before I recovered them 
with the new polka dot shelf paper I found at Target.  
The shelves held Josh’s rock collection and dinosaurs among other things for years.  
For the last two houses, Josh hasn’t unpacked the stuff 
that goes on the shelves, so I repurposed them.
My friend, Suzanne, gave me this cute breadbox 
that she found at a garage sale in Germany (I think).
My dusting supplies are in it now.  I hung the selves so it’d just fit.
The little covered can next to it is a little trash can for my dryer lent.
I found the canisters years ago at Goodwill.  
They are too fussy for my new kitchen, 
so I am using them to hide my dry cleaning supplies etc.
I labeled them so I can remember what’s in which.
I found the plastic carafes at Target and made labels for them on the computer;
 there’s one for bleach, softener, vinegar.. and several for detergent.  
 Two or three times a year I buy this huge bottle of Ecos laundry detergent 
at Costco that washes a whopping 150 loads.  
My new front loading washer (love my new washer & dryer) uses half as much 
detergent and washes almost twice as many clothes in a load than my 
old washer and dryer (that broke in our last move).
There are so many small detergent bottles because I divide up 
the large, heavy bottle of Ecos into smaller bottles to make it easier to manage.
I moved my gift rapping supplies from my closet into this basket in the laundry room.. 
I am not real happy with the way the two baskets look together.. 
I moved two Raggedy Ann ornaments from my bathroom vanity 
to the window sill to make a collection.  I like them all together.  
I made the message board from a frame I found in the trash.
It’s hung over my kitchen sink in our last two houses.
I need to find coordinating fabric to re-cover it and dress the window.
I use the trash cans between the washer and dryer for sorting whites etc.
I got the wash rags in a white sale at Kolhs.  They cover the washer drain hose nicely.
The rags I’ve had for 20 years all but bit the dust.
I bought the mail box years ago as a place to put videos in 
that need to be returned to the store.
We have Net Flicks now and I am not sure what to do with it.
I bought the laundry baskets years ago to sort the kids’ laundry into.  
I color coded them with ribbons.  The idea was that they were to take their basket
and put their things away once a week, but instead they just use them like drawers.
They hardly even use their dressers for clothes anymore.
The posters are from DoorPost.. I don’t use them any more.. 
I need someone to give me a rule about what to keep and not keep for grandkids.
I am keeping plastic shopping bags in the container with the blue lid.. 
found it in the neighbor’s trash a couple weeks ago.
I made the shelf from left over parts from a porta-crib I slept in as a child.  
I used most of it when I made Joel and Josh’s beds a couple of years ago.
Here is my inspiring mirror.  I had a new piece of glass cut for it.  
It was a darkly stained, oak mirror with brass hooks before I painted it to match.
I used dots from the shelf paper to dress it up.  
The raincoats are handy for we have to walk Sally in the rain.
The door on the left houses our AC and the one on the right is to our half bath.
Judi’s claimed it as her bathroom and keeps it locked so no boys can use it.
If it were up to her, it’d have a shower, too.
One last piece of the porta-crib is currently holding family photos.. 
One day when my photos are more organized I’d like to change them up.
Last photo.. I love this broom/mop holder.. 
so nice to have the stuff up off the floor where it won’t fall over.
I miss it when it’s packed away.
That’s a lot of photos for one of the smallest rooms in my house.  
Don’t know if you’ll ever really be able to get a sense 
of the lay out without coming to visit in person.
We are sure looking forward to Mom and Dad coming next week.
Miss you all,
J

Van Moved In

I’ve been working really hard towards having all my boxes unpacked; 
everything either in use or thrown out.
Exceptions are in the garage.
I don’t like putting stuff in the attic.. it gets too hot up there.
This is what Mike’s side of the garage has looked like for months.
Scraping ice of your car every morning before work isn’t much fun,
so we made getting his car in the garage a priority.
The shelves hold tools, camping supplies and holiday decorations.
The totes that didn’t make it on the shelves are what’s left of the kids’ toy collection:
legos, Lincoln logs, cars, and stuffed animals.
We donated two more big bags full just a couple of weeks ago.
Ta-da!! My side of the garage today.  
We had to catabolize two of our bikes to end up with two bikes in good condition.  
Montgomery + no garage = rusty bikes.
The desk armoire won’t fit into the house until a couple of kids move out.
It has school books in it that the kids have out grown.  Grand kids??
The paper boxes are full of packing peanuts.  
One day Josh is going to sell some stuff on e-bay…
if not, I don’ think they will last long.
The chair on the armoire is broken.  I have the pieces.. but not the talent to fix it.
I really need new chairs… but it’s more fun taking weekend trips.
I hung the large list on the walls for the movers.  
Hoping they’d organize my boxes for me as they unloaded them off the truck.  
They kinda did.  One day soon I’ll climb up and take the lists down.
🙂 J

Unpacking Pictures For Mom

This week I rearranged my plastic containers two more times.
I usually have one cabinet that holds all my plastic, but this time I didn’t have one that big.  I am pretty sure I have more cabinet space than before it’s just more spread out.
I think they have finally found their home because I love having the lids so easily accessible and organized in the drawer.  I brought all the kids in and showed them my wonderful accomplishment one by one.  Partly because I was so proud and partly because I knew soon enough they’d be asking me where it all went this time.
I stowed all my party plastic and paper goods under my island cabinet.
I thought that keeping them there would make them easy to get out and put on the island for guest.  Want to come visit and try it out?
These are my mixing bowels and towels.  They are between the oven and sink for easy reach when baking.  I spent a couple of hours on line this week trying to find some kitchen towels that actually dry things.  The ones I bought at Costco 3 years ago are driving me crazy because they push around more water than they absorb.  My sister, Courtney, says she uses cloth diapers.  I may be buying some this week.
I unpacked my kitchen rugs.  I bought these to help sell our house in Montgomery.  Joel says they don’t match this kitchen.
Mike helped me organized our office center.  It’s not real pretty.. but it’s organized and easy to access.  I can watch Joseph Prince pod cast while I work in the kitchen.  And I can see the lake from there.  đź™‚
I worked a whole day hanging these curtains.  Curtains are so much harder than they look.  I couldn’t get one of the screws to go in all the way.  I am planning to iron the package creases out while they are hanging.
See our new discounted, discontinued chair from Macy’s that I bought over the phone last week?  Mike loves it and says he’s never going to sit anywhere else.  I am glad he’s happy because I picked it out.
Our whole neighborhood in Montgomery hung up Christmas wreaths every year.  The house there came with ready with nails to hang the wreaths, so Mike and I found some wreaths 75% off after Christmas our first year there.  We only got to use them the one Christmas before we moved.
Here I was baffled at how to hang up our wreaths.  There was no place to put a nail.  Then I noticed that a neighbor used suction cups.  I went to Lowes, Home Depot, and Walmart before finding them at Michael’s.
I’ve been to the store way too many times this week.  I finally broke down and bought my 7th set of curtain rings because I couldn’t find any of my other sets and I was tired of the kids taking showers in my bathroom.  If we move again, remind me to pack a set or two with my suit case.  Ok?
I worked on my closet, too.  We put everything from the apartment in our closets the night before the movers came so it wouldn’t get lost.

So I had to move all that stuff out first.  Then I had to donate a large garbage bag of clothes because not only is this the smallest closet I think I’ve ever had but also I have no coat closet.
It’s built in the corner of the bathroom.  If it was 3″ deeper I could open the door all the way.
See how the clothes stick out too far?
I hung my short sleeve shirts behind the door.  I’ll switch them out with my sweaters in the summer.
I made this rug for my bathroom in Montgomery.  It covered most my bathroom floor.
This is my bathroom floor now.
To be fair.  My vanity in Montgomery was in the carpeted part of my bedroom.
I found a place for my linens.
I got creative with where to store these extra large bedspreads that Mamalene crocheted.
I actually have 3 of them.  One I use on my bed to keep warm.  Hope that I remember where I put the other two when that one gets ratty.
When Mike and I were putting together my bed we discovered that we could raise the bed up higher.  I was so happy because it’s always been about an inch too low to store anything under it.  Only problem is that now my head board and foot boards are floating.
I had some extra finials left over from my curtain rods and I used them as pretty little feet.
James helped me raise the bed so I could get my drill under the feet to make a hole for the finial feet.  Lovely.
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