Fall List :: Shoe Storage

Hello!

 

I know I said that I would be back with my normal posts this week, but I wanted to do just one more from my little Fall to-do list. Because, really, who doesn't love a good before and after??

 

Here's where we left off:

 

{check out how we revamped our good deed system, redid our junk drawer, found a place for school papers, redid our kitchen command center, and took control over our snacking situation}

 

Awhile back, I had mentioned that I had gotten a bug in me to basically rearrange every room on our main floor. And by me, I mean I told Jason where to move everything :) Well, when we did that we totally opened up our living room....but totally took away the shoe storage we had. Originally I had a sofa table behind our sofa that faced our entry. It held four baskets that the kids used to throw their shoes in. Each child had their own basket (and one extra to throw other stuff into), and this system had worked better than any other system I have tried. Therefore, I knew I wanted to stick with the same general idea.

 

A couple of months ago, I had picked up this little bench at (you guessed it!) Goodwill:

 

Simple, and thin, I actually bought it planning to use in our family room, but then I got the idea to put it at the beginning of our hallway. I bought a few baskets from the dollar store that I planned on recovering in fabric to make them look amazing....but they were just much to small for the shelf and drove me crazy {let it be know that I did attempt to keep this project super cheap! ha!}

 

So, they were gone and replaced with some beautiful baskets from HomeGoods that fit the shelf perfectly. And, better yet, they required almost zero work from me. I believe for all 3 I spent less than $25.

 

Next came work on the bench. First I primed the entire thing. Then I spray painted the bottom shelf and legs since I planned on doing a color dip method like our dining room chairs.  

 

The pictures below show the first green we used. I hated it right away, but Jason kept saying it looked great, so I went ahead with the painters tape.... just to tear it all off and repaint it in a much better color :)

 

While I repainted the legs, retaped it all AGAIN, and painted the top a nice cream, I switched up our baskets just a little bit. The name plate in the front was awesome as is...it just happened to be a little too dark for this project. Since this bench is in the hallway, I wanted everything light and airy. I just used some acrylic paint I already had and painted the fronts. I also printed up some labels {Jason had a great idea to use chalkboard paint, but I eventually went with white labels to make it lighter}.

 

Ready to see it all together??

 

I made two small pillows. The blue one was fabric I bought for a different project but ended up not using. It looks off center in the photo, but it's even in real life :). The small pillow I made using this method of printing on fabric.

{hey, mom, does the quote sound familiar??? :)}

 

To get an idea of where this bench is, here is a photo taken from further away.

 

To the right is the hallway that leads to the kitchen; etc. In front of the bench is our living room.

 

 

...and how it all came about:

 

We love how it turned out. The kids are {pretty} good at using it. The shoes almost always end up in the baskets. It's just the baskets don't always end up in the bench! I choose my battles around here, and I would much rather move one basket back, than 15 pairs of shoes ;)

 

 

Happy Tuesday!

 

xo,

Rachel

 

 

Linking Up....

 

 

 



Fall List :: Junk Drawer

Happy Labor Day!

 

Here's a quick post to show you how I fixed our out of control junk drawer, a must on my Fall Organizing List:

 

 

Our drawer {I'm sure like many others} had gotten out of control.

 

I mean, really!

I honestly think that cleaning out your junk drawer is a {relatively} simple task that gives you a big sense of accomplishment. This time, however, I wanted to fix two of our biggest issues as well.

 

 First, the drawer we were using is set at an angle. I don't know what is wrong with it, but everything slides down, into the cabinet. Super annoying. I didn't want to switch drawers with anything {like our silverware} because the same annoying issue would still be there.

 

My second issue was the cheap, blue containers we had to "organize" the drawer.

We bought them at the dollar store when our first little guy was still a baby. They are supposed to lock together, but they are constantly coming apart and "drifting" around the drawer.

 

First thing, I did was take the top drawer of our kitchen cart {freshly moved into our kitchen from the garage as part of our kitchen command center redo. } and turned that into our new junk drawer. The old drawer now houses our cutting boards-something I don't mind moving around!

 

 

I found a great drawer organizer at HomeGoods. I knew that I wanted a nice fabric covered one, for no reason other than wanting something nice after dealing with those plastic ones for so long :)  I also like that it was large and one piece.

 

 

Next, I took some of the purple fabric I bought to recover our hanging file and lined the inside of the drawer with it. There are several ways to do this, but I just cut a piece of cheap posterboard to fit the drawer and glued our fabric to it.

 

One of the great things about clearing out a space {even a small one like this} is going through everything and really seeing what you need and don't. For me must-haves were a post its, a notebook, our tape measure and some of the chalk board labels I made.

Because you just never know when you may need to label something. ;)

 

So, there you go! An easy project, but for me, has made a world of difference!

 

Hope you are enjoying your last day of summer!

 

xo,

Rachel



Fall List :: Good Deed Jar and a Freebie Friday

I don't know about you, but I am super excited for this Friday! Jason actually has the weekend off and we will *hopefully* be putting together the desks in our family room- the biggest project in there {so, naturally, the part that we have been putting off the most!}

For those of you sticking around to see me tackle off my little self-made Fall to-do list, THANKS! I plan to show off a few more next week as well as some of the other projects we have been working on over here.

So, we last left off with my little list looking like this:

{check out our new systems for our snacks, homework, and kitchen command center}

Next up, was to revamp our good deed system.

Awhile back, I had pinned these good deed cards and printed them up.

 via eighteen25

They worked out great, and our kids loved them. Every time they did something nice, they were given a hole punch. Once the card was full, they got to pick out something from our good deed box.

{the box is filled with candy and small toys.....they are only interested in the candy!}

The problem? The cards were often out of sight, and I had to do the punching-which meant that there were often times that I was in the other room, and would "owe" the kids a hole punch.

With the new school year coming, I really wanted to amp up this idea and get them excited again.

Then, in one of our gazillion trips to the thrift store, I ran across this object for only 99cents.

I have no clue what it is, or what it does (there are small hole in the bottom, so it's not a bud vase...), but it had three tubes (and we have three kiddos!), so it came home with me ;)

I gave it a quick coat of paint, added some scrapbook letters I already had. Already prettier! Our plan is to keep it on the counter where it is always in sight.



We purchased the glass rocks at our dollar store. Every time one of the kids do something nice, they get to grab a rock and put it in their tube. They can do this themselves!

Another fabulous thing?? When the do something BAD, I can now take a rock back. {or, as the mean mommy I am, I can opt to give it to the other child they were being mean to! ha!}

I also wanted them to work as a team towards a common goal. This summer, we held tons of movie nights, where the kids got to stay up past their bed time, watch a rented movie with popcorn and milk with silly straws. They LOVED this. I wanted to continue with this in our good deed system, so I created some punch cards (like the previous good deed ones). Every time one of our kids fills up their jar, they pick out something from our good deed box and I punch a hole in our new Movie Night card. Ten punches =  a movie night (on a weekend, of course!). The fourth movie night will actually be to go to the theaters.

They are already excited about it! And as you can tell, we are well on our way to our first and second punches :)

Like the card? Well, I am posting it for a

I left the cards blank, so you can use them however you like.

Just CLICK HERE to download the free sheet of four cards. 

UPDATE: 

sooooooooo, remember  how I said we were super close to two hole punches? Well, I gave them out this morning and realized {:::sigh:::} that the card is to big to fully punch all across the line. Ooops! I am going to revamp this card in the future, but am leaving this one up as well, because you can still use it to cross off, put stickers on, or put in a small frame and use it with dry erase markers. See how mistakes always make you more creative :)

Have a great weekend!!

xo,

Rachel



Fall List :: Kitchen Command Center

Happy Monday!

 

I am so excited to show you our new and improved "Kitchen Command Center".

 

Last week, I left you off with my fall list looking like this:

 

{you can see how I got our snacking situation under control here }

 

To me, one of the most important things to get under control was the place in our kitchen that holds all the stuff that comes into this house. The bills, the homework, the shopping lists, the receipts....the list goes on and on!

 

Our previous system was not really functioning well, and was {in short} UGLY.

 

 

Ready to see what I did?

 

 

The first thing I did was redo our chalkboard.

 

I rearranged the things that were working for us, and added additional storage on the wall to the right, to help with what wasn't working. {Big help--having a spot dedicated completely to our "needs to be filed" stuff (manuals, bills, etc) Yes, I have a file of things to file. No, I cannot believe this is my life!}

 

Things that were ugly, I redid. The square fabric piece on the top (middle) is our original black magnet board that we had. I reupholstered it in extra fabric from our dining banquette.  The purple hanging file is actually our cheap, plastic one recovered in fabric.

 

How perfect is that print on the right??? I just HAD to get it once I saw it :)

 

 

 

:::sigh::::

 

Much better!

 

 Better yet? With this little redo of ours, I have brought in our old kitchen cart from the garage {seen above}...which means even more projects are ahead! We are in the middle of so much family room stuff, I don't even know if that is a good thing or bad thing at this point. ha!

 

xo,

Rachel

 

 

Linking Up...

 

 

 

 



Fall List :: Kitchen Command Center & and Ikea Hack

Hi there!

 

Yesterday I showed you my little "Fall List" and even got to cross of an item:

 

 

Next up, was our Kitchen "Command Center". We moved into this house in the middle of a school year, and things were ca-razy. Paper work all over the place. Case in point: a week after our son began his new school, we received a packet for registration for this school year, due back by the end of that week. I placed it aside to look over 'later'. ...I found it again a month after it's due date :)

Needless to say, I made it a priority to come up with a system. So, I bought some cheap hanging baskets {with the intention to fix them up}, and hung up a chalkboard we had bought months before {and never hung} at a Goodwill for $2.99.

 

The problem? Besides being BORING and UGLY, the system just was not working!

 

 

Obviously :) 

 

In theory it had everything we needed: storage, magnetic board, pin board, files....but it's boring "office-y" look drove me crazy. Then one day, I ran across this image on a link party I linked up to {gotta love blogs!!}:

 

via Intentional Adventures 

 

And it suddenly dawned on me. Gallery wall. Part pretty, part functional. Duh...why didn't I think of that???

 

Now that I had a plan, I knew the first thing I had to do was redo that chalkboard of ours.

 

{if anyone is wondering, that rambling on the right has to do with our son's speech therapy :)}

 

I loved the purpose of it (and definitely the price!), but hated this odd, empty space below. It never seemed to serve a purpose except to act as a dropping ground for random things. Plus, it is angled.

 

For the past year, I have thought it was clearly just missing the bottom part. Then, this past month, I walked into Ikea and found this same chalkboard....still with nothing on the bottom!! What.the.heck.

 

I began this project with absolutely NO idea with what I would do for the bottom. I just knew that I at least had the inspiration for the chalkboard: 

This is a board I found at HomeGoods, for $30. I loved the details with the days on it:

 

And for the size, the price wasn't too bad. But I had this other piece waiting at home, and I could just hear Jason's voice if I brought home a new one! Know what I mean?

 

So, painting it was! I used some cream colored paint we had leftover from some other projects {read: free!}, and covered over the chalkboard part with cereal boxes and painters tape.

I bought a pack of cheap, small letter stencils at Michael's. I used painters tape to create a straight line to measure where the top of all my letters should start.

 



 

Using a small foam brush, I dabbed on some of the paint I had leftover from a sample of paint we had.

 

Since I am impatient (and you need to wait for the paint to dry before you can do the next letter), I jumped around a bit.

 

I have stenciled quite a few things, and this one turned out the worst (true story). It was really hard to keep the small stencils flush against the board. And even though I measured equal distances between all the days, I was still left with a gap between Friday and Saturday.

:::sigh:::

So, in an attempt to make it look intentional, I added a heart between the days by cutting one out of tape:

 

 

And, you know what? I kinda like it.

I then used some of the leftover fabric I had from our banquette, and glued it to some poster board (with all purpose adhesive spray) and then glued that into the spot below.

 

 

This I LOVED. Already better, right???

 

I wanted to do something more with the space, something functional. So I took four of our smaller mason jars and filled them up with the supplies that we use for this area all the time- thumb tacks, paper clips, magnets, and clips.

They fit in the spot perfectly, but I wanted to make sure there was no way that one could just fall out (say when a certain small person is having a tantrum and kicking the wall below it....not that any of my kids would do that!), so I glued on magnets to the fabric and then onto the jars with hot glue. 

 

Success!

\

Although, I love the look better without the jars, I love the functionality they bring to this area.

 

I love how this little project turned out! I can barely remember how ugly it was to begin with:

 

Of course, that was only step one in this kitchen command center redo- be sure to come back next week so you see what I did with the rest!

 

Have a great weekend

-it's our last week of summer vacation over here :)

 

xo,

Rachel

 

 

 

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