Playroom!

Hello, hello! I told you I'd post some pictures of the projects I have been working on and I'm sorry to say I won't be posting those today, but I wanted to show you what has me completely side tracked instead! It's my kids' playroom! It's been screaming to be cleaned from top to bottomed and organized for weeks now, but I just wasn't sure where to even begin......let me share with you what it looked like when I'd walk in and turn on the lights..............

That beautiful little girl standing smack in the middle of the picture is my sweet Grace, just up from nap and eager to play! Anyway, this is what I walked into each time I came into their playroom. Anyone who knows me well enough will tell you this makes me crazy. It gives me anxiety on some level, seriously. I start looking around at all the craziness and the little voice in my head starts going, 'oh my God, oh my God, oh my God....' it's just too much and I've let it sit for too long. With colder weather coming I've got to have some place for the kids to work out their energy. I think I've been able to ignore it for so long because we've been able to go outside for so long, I haven't been forced to face it.....until now. I want it done and over with before I get too pregnant and bending over to pick things up becomes more of hassle than what it's worth!

Here are some more pictures of the rest of the room......

Picture from the corner on the right.......

Picture from the back right corner........

Picture from the back left corner..........

Here's the even better part for this space......this is also doubling as our guestroom! HAHAHA!! Sorry that kinda makes me laugh when I think about everything this space has to serve as! My hope is that the corner there straight ahead where the printer is can house the guest bed when we have people come in??!!

Picture from the right corner.......the door on the right is a bathroom, a whole bathroom actually which is really great so my little ones don't have to run up and down the steps to use the bathroom (well, only one of my little ones right now, but eventually there will be two of them using this bathroom). It's also great since we're trying to have a guest room also. They'll have their own privacy when they stay instead of having to go up and down the steps. The other door to the left of the bathroom is actually an entrance to our garage which has come in very handy since I've been moving stuff out of this room to the garbage. I can take it straight upstairs through the garage and out to the curb. No piles sitting and waiting to be taken out.

Do you see what I mean that it was SCREAMING to be helped! Now keep in mind we are renting so what I'll do to this space is limited, but if the house was ours, I'd be throwing a great coat of paint on these walls and replacing this terrible navy blue carpet! So, I don't know if you can gather from the picture that the room is rather large so that is a plus. But my kids have a lot of toys and they just had a huge birthday party so the toys doubled!

So my overall goal for the room is organization (obviously) and functionality. I'm hoping to put several sets of shelves along the wall where the boxes are currently sitting and the boxes will be emptied or gone through and put in storage. The guest "corner" I guess you should say will have the playhouse in it until company comes because our guest bed is just a nice double stacked air mattress that works perfectly for us. So it can be taken in and out very easily. I'd really like this space to have some openness to it because this will be a great place to get back into my workout routines. The kids will have more than enough to keep them occupied so I should be able to get some good stuff done, especially after this next baby comes :)

Currently the room has some organization going on in it. I've been moving toys around and steam cleaning the carpets by sections so that the kids can still enjoy some of the space as I clear the rest of it out. There is only one box left in the area and I've gone through most of the toys and put them in labeled bins. Now most of them are just sitting in a corner waiting for a shelf to come along that they can call home. All the bins, buckets, tubs, etc that I'm using are ones that I had around the house either sitting or just had stuff piled in them. So essentially getting this playroom organized is also forcing me to purge other areas and recycle what I already have! Double score!! My goal is spend little to no money at all in this room because I don't want to set it up, have it be amazing and then we move in a year and our next place not have the room for something like this playroom. So I'm really forcing myself to hold back on making the room something that I fall in love with because it can't be permanent for us :( at least not for awhile (double sad face). I'm going for simple organization here, but one day I'll be able to go crazy and let all my creative juices flow when we have a home of our own.

Oh I did want to share this with you too....as I've been cruising the internet and stores for inspiration to organize the playroom and any space in the house for that matter, I found this AMAZING bedspread that I oh so want desperately for our bedroom!! I mean I seen this beautiful quilt hanging in a store and I knew it was exactly what I've been looking for for our master bedroom. I fell in love with it just like I did our curtain fabric! And I still adore my curtains and have yet to find anything that makes me half as giddy as the ones my friend and I made! Here's a picture of the quilt......be prepared to fall in love.......with bedding!

Isn't she lovely?!!!! This is a great color for my room, but the one I found in the store was a much darker grey and would be just as beautiful! Doesn't it just make you want to crawl in bed and snuggle!! Maybe that picture isn't doing it for you, so I'll show you another one, just to be sure........

Anything?? Anything at all?? Maybe it's just me, but I just love this quilt! So why didn't I come running out of the store with my dream quilt in my arms dancing to a song only I could hear in my head? How about the fact that my dream is going to cost me $280!!!! Yeah you read it right TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY dollars! I knew it was too good to be true. When I found it in the store my BFF Nikki was with me and we both temporarily lost our breathe and slowly backed away from the quilt because if we broke it we definitely couldn't buy it! Although Nikki didn't help matters any by pointing out that this quilt would match my curtains and current pillow cases perfectly! My husband being the great man that he is says to me, 'why don't you ask Santa to bring it?' Well, dear husband I would ask Santa, but our Santa is either you or me so I guess Santa is out of the question! I've been pondering for days on how I could get this quilt....I surfed all the websites looking for one cheaper, but came up with nothing. So I figured I could just save a little cash each month until I come up with $300 so I can possibly get this quilt. Until then I will be scanning websites regularly looking for coupons, deals, sales, etc! I REALLY don't want to pay full price and to make matters worse.....it's getting fantastic reviews! No matter what website you're on everyone loves it. They all say it's a lot of money, but worth every penny. What a kick in the money saving pants! Well, thanks for listening to my rant :)

That's about it for tonight, so after I get the carpets cleaned and toys back in place, I'll take updated pictures of the playroom so you can see my progress! Then after the playroom is done, next will be my craft room....here's a sneak peek at the horror that is waiting for me in my tiny little box of a room.....

Did you let out a big 'ol shriek!? I do every time I think about all the work waiting in this room! So there you have it....everything waiting for me when I go to my basement.

Anyone else out there trying to conquer a space that you've been avoiding or putting off?

blog re-do!

Hello everyone! Sorry for the ever changing blog theme. I'm stuggling to find one that is blog reader friendly! I'd like the page to be bright, cheery and easy to read so please be patient with me while I figure this whole thing out! I'll be posting pics tomorrow of the projects I've been doing around the house. Like the kitchen cabinets that I cleaned out and re-did. I hope everyone is having a good week! Talk to you tomorrow.

Additional car organization!

So today has been kind of a long day. The kids and I made the almost 3hr trek home to spend the day with my mom and then made the 3 hour trek back to our house this evening.......like I said, it's been a long day. The trip wouldn't have been too bad except on the way back home I realized that I had never actually driven the route from my mom's to our new house in southern Ohio!?!! So there I was on the highway....driving..... alone.....pregnant.....and I have a 3 year old and 1 year in car seats and only a "general" idea of how to get us home! Awesome! Enter frustrated, 'UGH!' followed by a tiny voice behind me saying, "yeah mom, this is frustrating!" That would be my daughter! Generally, I would shrug and say, 'no problem' and punch the info into the handy dandy GPS, except my husband has the GPS with him.......in his car.........in KY!!!! Double awesome! Thankfully I have an iPhone so I have a mapquest app there, but it's really not great having to look at the phone and drive because this smart lady didn't realize the phone would talk to me and tell me the directions until after I had pulled in the driveway and went to turn the app off and accidentally hit a button that made it start talking!!! Really??!! I mean really?? None the less we're home and the kiddos were immediately put into their jammies and put to bed because it was late and all of us were exhausted! But my whole sob story does have a point. On the way home my son got super fussy out of no where and began crying. I don't mean just fussing like I want out of my seat or I need a drink fussing, I mean crocodile tears, screaming, barely catching his breathe crying! So I pull over and he is just uncomfortable, tired and of course, running a little bit of a fever! Why not, right! I mean the trip was going so fantastic anyway! But I knew when we left my mom's that he was probably teething because of the drooling and constant gumming of anything he could get his hands on. Not wanting to drive the 3 hour drive with an uncomfortable kiddo, I pulled out my newly stocked car bin that I created yesterday (perfect timing) and had some medicine for the little guy! What does my car bin look like you ask......well let me share with you!

Generally, any time I know I'm going to be traveling with the kids either by myself or with my husband tagging along, I try to prepare for just about any situation so that I can just sit back and enjoy the time with the family. I say this so casually, but for me "preparing" tends to lead to WAY over packing for even the smallest trip! But I've come to accept my moderately paranoid personality and instead of fighting it, I just embrace it. My husband on the other, well, he's still working on that some times! Here is a picture of all the contents of my "car bin": small trash bag, scented diaper bags, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, feminine products, toilet paper, Tylenol/Motrin (adult & child), band aids, neosporin, comb, cough drops, chapstick, pacifiers, wipes/diapers, deodorant, sippy cups, wet wipes, lint brush, sharpie, car freshener, snacks for each child. My kids are little so I need 'baby items' on hand just about every place I go. This isn't going to end any time soon seeing as I already have a 3 year old daughter, a 1 year old son and I'm currently 17 weeks preggo for baby #3....sex undetermined. So like I said, baby items will be much needed for some time for our growing family.

All those contents fit perfectly into this nice little container! And I picked this one because it fits perfectly in the front of my car right under the middle console by my seat so it's easily accessible (when I'm not driving of course!)

From this angle it doesn't look very organized, but everything went in so well. I was really happy with the way it turned out.

And I wouldn't be me if I didn't include a label on the outside listing all the contents! I laminated the list so that if I ran out of something I can put a check mark next to it so I know I need to re-stock that item and when I've replenished, I can easily wipe it off! Of course, after I printed, laminated and put the label on the container, I noticed grammar errors and that I completely forgot to list some items! So I'll be redoing the list in the very near future!

This bin went together so well, I thought, "wouldn't it be handy to have car tools organized and easily accessible also!?" Things like my jumper cables, first aid kit, etc that were previously just stuck under seats or in compartments in the back with no particular home. Well, that is no longer the case. With winter only a few months away, I always put a blanket, travel pillow, gloves, a hat and extra socks under each of my kids' seats just in case. You never know and since we have to travel good distances to see family, this is a season I don't mind over preparing for! But remember, I'm paranoid, probably almost to the point that I could be a therapists' dream!!!  So here are just a few things I've put together in a little bit of a larger bin to go in the back of my van. (yes, I'm the proud owner of a mini-van and I'm not ashamed to admit that I absolutely ADORE it!!). The contents of this bin are First Aid kit, extra oil, de-icer for the windows, jumper cables, flashlight, extra window scraper, windshield wiper fluid, febreeze and Lysol wipes. The only extra thing I could think that I might like to add would be an extra set of wiper blades because unfortunately, I've been in a situation where I wish I would've had an extra set with me in the middle of winter! Obviously, the sippy cups went into the first bin and the febreeze and Lysol are for more of a personal comfort!

All these contents wouldn't fit into one bin because when I put the windshield wiper fluid in, I originally laid it on it's side....not so smart. It started leaking. So I took it out and fit everything else in.

So here's an after shot!

For my flashlight, I taped the batteries to the outside so they didn't go dead sitting in the flashlight. Also, this keeps it from accidentally being turned on while driving and then you'd be stuck with a flashlight that was no use to you. I'll be getting extra batteries to put in here as well.

So here they are....all the extra contents of my car (and then some) fit snuggly in an organized and labeled place with easy access! Best part, this whole "idea" cost me less than $5 because everything in these bins and one of the actual containers were things we already owned! Cha-Ching!!!

So what about you guys? Anyone else paranoid about random things or feeling the need to be over organized with anything?