Time to Straighten the Playroom!

Today was one of those rare times that I had the house to myself!  I was supposed to go the oncologist for a checkup at 3:30 so Aaron brought the two youngest kids to his mom's house for her to watch them while he worked.  My oldest daughter was at school.  Right before I left my house to head to the hospital for the appointment, the nurse called to reschedule for another day.    Since Aaron was already gone with the kids, I had the house to myself! 

I decided to make the most of my time.  I looked around the house and saw that the playroom was a disaster!  (Yes, those "before" pictures are real.  The kids have really been slobs lately!)    Since the kids weren't there to distract me, it was a great time to straighten up in there and throw out broken toys and donate unused toys to the church nursery.  It is so much easier to do that when the kids aren't there making the decisions about whether they can separate from every single toy.   I was so excited to finally throw out all of those old McDonald's Happy Meal toys! 

You can read my original post about how we turned our dining room into a playroom here.

Some of you may be looking at the "after" pictures and thinking, "that is still a lot of clutter."  Well, it is.  I have to cut it down in shifts.  If I take away too many toys at once, they will notice.  The changes I made today are subtle enough that they will enjoy the neatness of it without noticing that things are missing. 

I didn't touch the large closets against the wall because Sydney and I just recently organized those together.   You can read my post about organizing those beasts here.

Some tips for you if you decide to take on your playroom:

 1.  Make sure the kids are not home.  They will try and distract you from your mission.

2. Devote at least an hour to the project.  Turn on the TV or radio to make the best of the time. 

3. Bring a garbage bag or three.

4. Have a vacuum with extensions handy, you will need them. There will be food in every possible crevice.

5.  Use Sterlite boxes or totes to keep things contained.  I especially love Thirty-One products. 

 

When the Playroom is too Quiet

We live in tight quarters here but we try to make the most of our square footage.  My husband Aaron turned what was supposed to be a formal dining room into a playroom.  You can read about that transformation in this post.  It is a great place for the playroom because it is right off the kitchen.  We put a baby gate between the playroom and kitchen and now the babies are secure in their own space.

So this morning, like most mornings, I am in the kitchen making breakfast (scrambled eggs) for the kiddos and chatting on the phone with a friend.  The babies were in the playroom together.  I realized that the playroom was too quiet.  In our house quiet is a cause for concern.  It is like sounding an alarm!  I turned around from the stove to check on them and this is what I saw

At first, I didn't see Ella.  I was concerned that my son had piled all of that on top of my daughter.  I spotted her and questioned my two year old as to what he was doing.  He said, "Tower- Knock it down- baby." Apparently he was making a tower and then planning to knock it down on his sister.  As the toys precariously hung over my one year old daughter's head, I snapped a quick picture and dismantled his "work of art."

To give you a little perspective on what I was seeing, here is a before and after shot of that corner of the playroom:

So I guess I can now add, "Don't build a giant tower of toys and knock it down on your sister," to my list of rules that I didn't think I needed to tell you!

30 Days to Organization- Day 4

I know.  I know.  This is turning out to be the 30 week challenge instead of the 30 day challenge.  I get it- I am a little behind.  OK- a lot behind!

I have completed Day 4 of the challenge.  You can read the the original 30 Days to Organization post here.  Day 4's assignment was the laundry room.  I have more of a laundry nook here in our little townhouse.  You can read about the size of our home in this blog post.

Our laundry nook is located in the upstairs hallway right outside the bedrooms.   Growing up our laundry room was in the basement so I always associate laundry with the long trek down to the dungeon basement.  It is nice to have the washer and dryer right outside the rooms where the laundry is generated and where it is folded and put away.  No stairs to climb!

For the challenge I cleaned off the top of the dryer that was covered in socks that were looking for mates.  Both the washer and the dryer needed a good wipe down both inside and out.  I made room on the shelf to store the laundry baskets when they weren't being used.

It was a small project but I still feel a sense of accomplishment.  Plus the house seems bigger with the laundry baskets stored on the shelf instead of on the floor in the hallway.

30 Days to Organization

This is my 30 Day challenge to get my home organized.  Depending on the size of your home, you may need more or less than 30 days to complete your own challenge.

1. under beds

2. closets in playroom

3. fridge/freezer

4. laundry room

5. pocket books

6. diaper bags

7. jewelry box

8. under bathroom sinks

9. car

10. coat closet

11. kitchen cabinets

12. lingerie drawer

13. kids clothing drawers

14. backyard

15. linen closet

16. mom and dad's clothing drawers

17.under kitchen sink

18. kids closets

19. playroom shelves

20. Bookshelves

21. mom and dad's closets

22. desk and desk drawers

23. photos and albums

24. coupons

25. medicine cabinet

26. makeup/nailpolish collection

27. videos and DVDs

28. shoe storage

29. receipts

30. Sit back and enjoy your 

organized home!!!

For God is not a God of disorder but of peace...

I Corinthians 14:33

Operation Clean Closet

When Aaron turned our dining room into a playroom, he built three huge closets along the back wall.  You can read about our dining room makeover in this post  It did not take us long to fill all three closets!

The middle closet was for Sydney's toys, games and craft stuff.   She likes her stuff in the closet so that the babies can't get to it when they are playing in the playroom.

As you can see from the pictures below, the closet is out of control!  I don't think that Sydney was able to find anything in there.

Before Pictures

I began operation Clean Closet!  It only took about 45 minutes and two giant garbage bags.  

After Pictures

Thriving in a Small Space- Dressers and Cribs and Beds, OH My!

There is no denying it, our living quarters are tight.  You can read about the size of our home in this blog post.  The three kids are sharing one room.  We are fortunate that is a pretty large room.

Some of the benefits in the space are the full bath and the three closets.  There is plenty of storage for all three kids.  The closets need some organizing but that is for another blog post.

We have managed to squeeze three dressers, two book shelves, two cribs and a bunk bed into this space. 

The biggest challenge of the space is getting all three to actually sleep in there at the same time.  Sydney has trouble sleeping in there when the babies make noise while they sleep.  Lucas wakes up Ella and then Ella starts to cry.

So I needed a temporary solution.  Having a room for each child would be the perfect solution but that is not possible.  We aren't in the financial place to move and since we are in a townhouse, adding on bedrooms to this house isn't possible either.

So I decided to use the rooms that we do have.  If Ella can't sleep in the bedroom when Lucas wakes her up, she goes into the living room to sleep in her "pack and play."  Sydney has an alternate place to sleep in the playroom. You can read about our playroom in this blog post.  The sofa in the playroom pulls out into a twin size bed.  Sydney loves it!  

Thriving in a Small Space- TOYS, TOYS, TOYS

Disclaimer: This is not my house

TOYS!

If you live in a small space with children, toys can take over your whole space.  Toys over run your home like a plague of locusts.

It wasn't terrible with one child and a 1,000 square foot two bedroom townhouse.  We were able to contain the insanity in her bedroom.  When Lucas was born we began to lose control.  By time Ella came along, the living room was packed!  You had to climb the Mount Everest of toys and baby gadgets to get out the front door. 

Instead giving the children climbing gear and a sherpa, we decided to contain the toys in another space instead of the living room.

Where could the toys go?  

We only have two bedrooms.  Aaron and I are in the smaller of the two bedrooms, so the kids have the larger bedroom.  One would think that the toys could go in there.  With three dressers, 2 cribs and a bed, their bedroom is full!

Downstairs we had a living room, dining room, 1/2 bath and kitchen.  I wanted the toys out of the living room so that left the other three rooms.  The kitchen and 1/2 bath were not going to work so that left the dining room.

We didn't need a formal dining room anymore.  Our kitchen was big enough to fit a table with enough room for three chairs and two high chairs.  We spent most of our time eating in there.   

I didn't want to get rid of my dining room table, 6 chairs and china cabinet.  I liked them and thought that if we ever moved to a full sized house that we would need them. We looked into renting a storage unit and keeping them there until we needed them.  That was too costly of an option.

So Aaron came up with the solution.  He decided to close off the opening between the living room and dining room.  This gave us another wall in the living room to put the couch against.  This freed up the space in the front bay window area.  We were able to squeeze my dining room furniture there.  So now our living room is a living/dining room combo.  It works for us!

This is the living room with the couch in front of the wall that used to be the
 opening to the dining room.  The white trim frames out the area that was open.
Aaron made the new wall temporary so that when we try to sell this house,
 it will be easy to convert it back to the original design.

This is our new dining area in the front window of our living room.

The dining room was now closed off with only one entrance to it through the kitchen.  Since we are an end unit, we have a nice sized window in the room.  Aaron built closets against the back wall for storage.

  Welcome to our new playroom!  

The white trim shows the outline of where the opening to the living room used to be.

Here is the window we have since we are an end unit.  You can also see the chair rail
 that is still there from  when it was a dining room.

It was exactly what we needed to thrive in this small space together with all of the toys!  It is a safe place for the babies to play and their toys are no longer under foot.  They love it!

Thriving in a small space

Our family lives in a small space.  It is a two story townhouse with about 1,000 square feet of space.  It is 

2 bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room and 

2 1/2 baths.  Sounds spacious, right?  Did I mention we have 5 people living here?

I am so grateful that we own this home- I am not complaining.  With a place this size, there are challenges.  Aaron and I have done what we can to thrive in this small space.  We plan on being here for at least 4-5 more years so we need to find ways to make living here enjoyable.

So here is one way that we have made this place seem larger and have made the space work for us:

Aaron got this TV cabinet on Craig's List and we transformed it into a scrapbooking armoire.  It stores all of my scrapbooking supplies and everything is organized.  Now I am able to work on my scrapbooks without having to hunt for my things in three different closets.  Before the armoire I had shoved my supplies into any spare space that I could find.  I had things spread our into almost every room.  With the doors closed you can't see all of the clutter.  It is a neat and clean look.  Most of the furniture in the living room is darker wood so eventually we will stain the wood a darker color.