Laundry Shelves

Ohh. . . look what I got my husband to do!!!

Our laundry room was "finished" about 2 years ago. We installed a counter top and shelf over top, and had a "leg" or "peg" holding the counter top up.
Then a half year ago+ our hot water tank broke and things got re-done.
And I liked it, but I didn't love it.

But then I was directed to the Ana White website, fell in love with it . . . and gave my hubby a choice. Buy a cabinet with drawers for laundry to go in and fit under the counter top we have (which could mean re-doing the counter top, filling the wall, re-painting, re-caulking, etc. if the cabinet didn't fit perfectly) or build a variation of this.

It may have helped that I had been up with a teething child for the whole night minus 3 hours of broken sleep, that a few other issues came up that he may not have handled well causing LOTS of additional work for me, and that I was just plain overwhelmed with life even at 9 a.m. that day, but he started building. (And I didn't stop him!)

Maybe there are a few blessings that go with bad days for moms! :)

I can't find a "before" picture (sorry!), but here is what he did- his progress:

The frame of it all
The painted finished product

A close up of the "shelves."

In the end, the project cost about $60. . .but it could be less if you used pressed board or more if you used fancy trim or melamine board. Hubby said he thought it was pretty easy, that I could have made it on my own. A nice compliment. . .not so sure if I could, but that means it is also an easy-ish project.Like I said, we had to make it work for us, so we used Ana White's tutorial as a guide for us. We had a "foundation shelf" to deal with in the back, and for cleaning purposes, I wanted to keep the back open. We also had a specific height to work with, so there is room on the bottom so I can store smaller, flat totes (see in above photo).

I am extremely happy. . .(and extremely happy to have a hubby who can do this!). . .and now have a place to store some of my sewing totes as well (on top), and can kinda use it as a sewing table. (Thinking of finding/making a flip-out or slide-out table to go with this for the sewing machine. . .we'll see)

Check out that website--there are tonnes of ideas. . .my hubby doesn't know what all I have planned for him to do still! :)

Organizing Paper Clutter

It's a family trait--it must be in the gene pool. I organize myself through "piles." I have one pile of paper for this, one pile of paper for that, and it may look like a mess to you, but I know what is in each of those piles and therefore everything is good.



Or not. . .because it looks so messy! And when your "office" space is shared with your kitchen and dining room and walks right into the living room, and when you have kids constantly around it and in it all, and when that is really an excuse I use to make myself feel better about the organized mess I created, well, that is when a new system has to be put into place.



And was my hubby ever happy to see the piles leave!



But really, I didn't make the piles disappear. They are just standing up a little nicer. Let me show you:

Because my kiddos are around, they helped me with it (How can they avoid it when I had to have my piles all over the floor?!?) I used a 10 sheets of white card stock, and then one of bright green and orange. You can pick whatever colours you like--I needed the bright colours to remind me where my "piles" went to. :) And of course a magazine box. I chose a plastic one--because I already had it in the house and it fit in the spot I wanted it to stay.



Then I used my Michael's tag punch (the pink size), and started punching out those bright card stock pages. (Or you can buy those dividers--but I couldn't find any I liked--and you really don't look too terribly hard when you a bunch of kids helping you in the stores--so this was my next option.) If you do it the hard way--not buying pre-made tags or dividers--you want to glue down two of the tags, one on each side of the divider, just to make it nice and sturdy. These tags are very important and will be filed through constantly!

I used two colours and made one coloured tag stick out on the top, and one stick out on the bottom. And I got my kiddos to help me. . .oh the joys of running tape. . .and help!

Then I labelled the things I liked to keep in my piles. Unfortunately, "bills to pay" has to stand out first. . .one of the reasons I figured I better do something with my "piles" system. . .that wasn't always happening on time! After that, file away. . .

Then of course, if you have used bright colours like me, they kind of stand out as being kinda ugly-ish, so I look through this box . . . enough to pay the bills on time anyway!

You can use a system like this for anything really--storing art work from school years (just label each divider by grade and put the artwork behind it all), sorting pictures to put in an album (just label each divider by month of activity), organizing recipes (especially if you are the type to rip out of magazines or have photocopies! Just label each divider by category), whatever it is you need to organize.

So, there is my simple way of organizing a mess. Works for me!

Thank-you Snapfish

This is a very belated thank you to Snapfish. So, to say thank you to them, I have a great story to tell you!

Back in March I had posted (see that post here) about a Snapfish book my hubby and I made for my mother-in-law. It was a book full of pictures from a PowerPoint presentation and memories that people has shared about her late husband at his funeral celebration. After posting, a comment was left by Otto Imken, Customer Support Manager of Snapfish. He said he was touched by the story posted. He generously sent us 3 more copies of this photobook--one for each of the brothers! We were thinking about purchasing more copies anyway, so this gift was just wonderful! Each of the brothers LOVED their books and the memories they held.

So once again, thank you Snapfish and Otto! We appreciate your generosity!!!

A Little Scrapbook Nook

With a little more free time on my hands, I've gotten around to some much needed organization around the house. I know I'm an Organizing Junkie has these Round-Ups every now and then if you are ever looking for more ideas about organizing pretty much anything, but I've never had the time to go along with one of them when she posts them.

A while back we re-did our play room and with kids occupying the house, offices/rooms/junk storage spaces slowly disappear! Anyway, one area that needed cleaning and fixing was all my scrapbooking/crafty stuff. My area is now in a "corner" of the playroom. My old way or organizing was having one of those stacking rolling carts with the see through drawers. When I moved my daughter into her room, instead of making my hubby build shelves in her closet right away (that part will come. . .), I used those for her clothes. My craft stuff was disorganized and not working out there anyway. Then I had some paper boxes as temporary storage, but I could never find anything I wanted. One of my good friends had a little desk and shelves in her office to work on her cards and scrapbooking stuff. That was a pretty inviting idea. I was also blog-hopping and found this site. . .phew! I'm not lucky enough to have my very own scrapbooking room, but hers is amazing! But in the end, this is what I did. . .


Here was my way of organizing all my embellishments, ribbons and odds and ends. I had my hubby go find a metal (magnetic) strip. He primed it and rounded the corners and drilled some holes in it. My mom picked up some of those magnetic spice cans at the thrift store for a dollar (I did have to go out and purchase 3 more--see my lonely one on the bottom row? ($2 a piece @ WM)). Then my mom had this "rod/dowel" hanging around at her house that I took off of her hands. I wanted to have all (all the ones that fit anyway) the ribbon hang on it. I bought some BIG hooks (again, $3-4 at WM) that I screwed in the wall. And for fun, I have a few fun magnets hanging around.
To give you an idea of where my little "Scrapbook Nook" is, here is our playroom. (Yes, this is how regular playrooms look--I didn't clean it up for you!) The area where I have my little desk is around the corner on some laminate flooring (great idea in the playroom to get those Hot Wheels racing like crazy!). This is my view from my spot.
This is my little desk. We originally bought it to fix our ugly kitchen--I mean the lack of counter space and so forth in our kitchen, but then we did a few renos in there and this desk was put in storage. Now I found a great way of using it again! The desk part of it rolls out, so I can mostly hide everything away from my kids when they are playing, need more space, or I'm not around (see below). I also put hooks into the wall to hang long, thick ribbons on where I can clip my finished products or other "stuff" I will run into. (I haven't gotten that far yet). I do have a few (or so) Scrapbook Storage Totes in a nearby cupboard. And. . .that blank canvas. . .that is another project I am still pondering over a little. In time you will see what I came up with. . . but I needed something creative up there to hide a plate (from a junction box). White makes a statement, right? :)

Snapfish Book

A (long!) while back, Oprah had a show about organizing your home. One of the ideas had to do about saving your children's work into photo books rather than having huge art pieces to save and all that goes along with the great art your children produce. Snapfish was featured for this purpose. So, I got right on board trying out one of these books. I--I mean, my hubby and I--had this great idea. My father-in-law passed away quite suddenly a year and a half ago. At the funeral, everyone was given an opportunity to share a memory of him if they wanted to. Up to this point, my mother-in-law just kept these pieces of paper in a zip-lock. While I think I might be the queen of Ziploc, I figured there had to be a better place for these memories. So, we decided to put them in a book--the Snapfish photo book.

So, we did. . .but the book never arrived. I contacted the company. . .a few times. And in the end, it turned out they had lost my order. I was sad, and too annoyed at the time and at it all to re-do it. (It was quite a bit of work!!!) So. . .I left it alone for a bit.

Then, I got an e-mail on Valentine's Day. That would be about 4-5 months after the order was ever placed. That would be 2 months after I had heard that my entire order was lost. the e-mail told me my order was being shipped. What order? I thought. Two glorious weeks later, what arrived in the mail, but the book I had originally ordered!!!

The above picture is the cover. the nice hard cover. Below is one of the inside pages (of my father-in-law and our family), to give you an idea of what we did. We inserted all the memories people had written, and also put in many of the pictures from the slide show that was shown at the funeral.
As a side note. . .the one picture of Frank holding little baby Allyson. . .that is one of the three pictures taken that day--one of the three pictures we have of Frank even holding Ally. It is also one of the two time he was ever able to hold her. To our family, that particular picture is a treasured memory.

So. . .I am totally impressed with the book (and the idea!!!). There are lots of companies that do this type of thing. . .such as blurb. Also stores, like London Drugs, Walmart. . .yah. Thank you Snapfish for following through for us. It made me happy (and my mother-in-law loved it, too!!!)