Laundry Room Organization

Over Christmas Break, the husband and I reorganized the laundry room. This is after the previous organization that I had posted earlier.

Now some things are not that different, but really needed to be redone due to lack of keep-up.

We were able to get some cherry slot/slat board for free. So that was put up quite a bit ago, just never pictured. Adult coats and jackets are on top with children coats on the bottom. Adult shoes are on the two racks to the left. Children shoes are on the twirling rack. We just went through the shoes and donated what didn't fit. Somehow the girls grew out of almost all of their shoes seemingly overnight.

Close up of the coats and shoes.

The container to the left holds the beach towels. the green basket has goggles. These are only used during swim lessons during the summer, but I really don't feel the need to move that stuff into storage and then back out when we need it because it really doesn't take up that much room. I FINALLY labeled the bins so there is no reason for things not being put away correctly. I used my Cricut Expression and vinyl for the labels. The brown basket on top is for gloves that do not have matches at this particular time. Melodye's and Brooke's bins are for soccer stuff.

Here is the storage area. This area was my nemesis. I hated it. It had gotten so I would have to pull boxes out to get to the ones behind them. So I then just started throwing things wherever there was room. Now each row of bins is for a particular holiday with Christmas having two rows.

These bins were also labeled. The taxes bins, of course hold previous years tax information. When I put a year in, I take the oldest year out. So my tax information will not ever be any larger than these two bins. The bins with the girls' names are for school papers. There is a hanging file folder for each year of school. When the girls bring home papers I want to keep, I put them in a drawer of the buffet in the dining room. Every few months I go through the papers. The ones I still want to keep go into the file. I keep things with their handprints, special writings (especially showing their personality), etc.

In order to make present wrapping better, I bought two more bins and labeled them. Now we can grab the bin for exactly what we need without having to dig through other things.

I convinced the hubby that I needed a better bookcase. I had a little bookcase and books were piled in front of each other. We bought one white bookcase, moved the old one in Melodye's room, and moved her white bookcase downstairs. I love the look of the books all arranged. The bookcases are behind the heater and water heater. They fact the storage area.

So now it is January 13 and the laundry room is still looking like this. In my book that is a successful reorganization.

Wicked Lovely Book Review

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This ended up being much better than I thought. I wasn't too sure about the book, but picked it up on a recommendation. It got where I didn't want to put the book down. I love that Melissa has the characters be not your typical characters in looks and actions. This was my first book about faeries and I do think I will be looking for others.

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Witch & Wizard Review

Witch and Wizard by James Patterson


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this. Like always, James Patterson's books are easy reads. But there was something about this one that kept me up reading past my bedtime. Wisty and Whit are teenage twins unaware of political changes occurring around them. The political environment has changed. The New Order (N.O.) is in charge, banning books, music, and artwork. The N.O. basically wants to decide everything someone does including how they look and what they do. The first time Wisty and Whit became aware of this is when they are arrested for being a witch and wizard. They deny this, but during the arrest Wisty becomes surrounded by flames. Could they really be a witch and wizard, but did not know it? This book is perfectly set up to be a series.

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Toy Room Reorganization

Tommy and I spent some time in the toy room organizing it. The girls had semi-quasi-cleaned it. Which meant that they picked everything up off of the floor and shoved it somewhere. At first glance it was straightened, but I could not handle the way it was. Also, the girls said that they could not be able to tell their friends where to put everything. So reorganizing had to happen. Now the toy room was organized previously as shown in this post, but things had to change with all the things the girls had grown out of and donated.

This is the view to the left of the door. Now I didn't get any close up pictures of the basket and art cart, but they are labeled. This is quite an accomplishment that all of the labeling did occur. The basket categories are Build-A-Bear clothes, Horses, Mr. Potato Head, Super Hero Stuff, Animals, People, Vehicles, and an empty basket. The cart with the pink drawers holds all of the art materials like crayons, markers, glue, etc. The white carts hold odds and ends right now. The kitchen stuff used to be in them and we have not repurposed them other than holding coloring books on top and construction paper in a drawer.

This is the right far corner. The train table does not hold trains anymore. It is now the lego table. Stuffed animals are on the shelf. They have an addiction to small stuffed animals, especially dogs and cats. Swords and light sabers are in the bin next to the lego table. Baby dolls are in the beds. Brooke got rid of all of her baby dolls except for her American Girl Twins.

This is to the right of the door. The closet is in the corner. Then we have an easel from Ikea.

The closet finally has a rod to hang the costumes. There is a stool for the shorter kids to be able to reach the costumes. The container on the shelf is holding the trains until we can give them to someone who will use them. The white cart that hold the dress up jewelry and crowns from the earlier post is still being used on the right side of the closet, but I forgot to take a picture of it.

And then we have the door to enter and exit the room. I love it being a pocket door. I love being able to see what the kids are doing without going in the room. I wish that the kids would learn not to put their hands and faces all over the door.

January 2010 Monthly Goals

 
The New Year has officially started. 2010 ... amazing ... and going to be difficult to remember to write. I have thought long and hard about New Years Resolutions. Deciding how I would like to do them and keep them with keeping them being the ultimate goal. Well I read something earlier today and sadly I don't remember where, although it might have been a Facebook post or not. Basically it said why set New Years Resolutions only once a year, every day is a new day with all these possibilities. I really like that thought, but setting resolutions each day will get old really quick. So I have decided to set goals/resolutions a month at a time. I figure in that amount of time (28 to 31 days depending on the month) I will have time to achieve my goals and if I don't achieve them completely I am able to adjust them for the next month.

So here are my goals for the month of January 2010:

1. Actually complete Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. I have completed Day 1 and that is a real start.

2. Do not eat out for the whole month. Now this is a whole family resolution. Tommy has said that he is on board. Now I just have to get the girls on board. I figure this will be beneficial in eating healthier, spending less, and planning our time better.

3. Get our savings account built back up to a comfortable amount. Now this means watching our spending, continuing using coupons in the combination with sales, but mostly being mindful of how we are spending our money.

4. Keep up with the house cleaning and organization. Now don't get me wrong ... the house never gets that bad, but enough to annoy us. We spent our Christmas Break cleaning, organizing, and purging. I would like for us to keep up with this and in the process all of us will be in better moods. (The only room that didn't get done was the scrapbook room so I am going to make that a priority. Who am I kidding? It is always last on the cleaning priority list, but I am going to try to get it cleaned and organized by the end of the month.)

5. Work on the February Lady Sweater. Now I would love to say finish it, but I do not know if that is realistic. I started it in the spring and it has now been sitting for months and months. So I am not even sure where I am on it right now. Good news though, I did finish my Alice scarf which had no reason to take so long other than laziness.