A Laundry Room Transformed and...

One thing I'm learning is that the more organized I get the more I love being organized!  I know shocker, right!?! Especially after you saw the before pictures of my laundry room.  My husband and I joked that my poor laundry room looked like some of the homes we saw on the reality t.v. show Hoarding.  Yikes!  One could hardly walk in the room let alone do laundry.  It definitely needed to be transformed into a room that was much more functional and while we were at it why not cute too?  After all, I do spend a lot of time in there.  So I purged, sorted, scraped, patched, decided on a paint color and painted.   My husband helped with some of the painting and then along with the help of my father-in-law they put up shelves for me.

Here I am trimming out a wall in one of my husbands old shirts. 

 Are you liking the color I picked? To tell you the truth I was not sure about it at this point.  The contrast between the old and the new was shockingly purple...but when it was all finished I was quite pleased!!!  Picking a color for me is always hard but it was even more challenging this time because you see into the room when standing in the kitchen.  I wanted it to look cheery, but not clash with those other rooms.  Take a look at the photo below and you'll get a better idea of why I was concerned.

Well, what do you think...do you like it?  You are looking into my laundry room (purple) as if you are standing in the kitchen (red), and to the right is the family room wall (camel).  Do you now see why I had to really think about what color and what intensity of color would work best? 

This is as you walk in.  The outside door to the left (which you barely can see) was stained a dark 70's color and is now white.  We don't have a cabinet yet.  We will have to wait on that, but that's o.k. because I have my shelves up!  Check them out...

My husband decided to not use the closet as it originally was.  Instead he used the wall across from the washer and dryer that ran into the original closet (you can still see the header from the closet in this picture).  That way I would have more shelves and no wasted inaccessible spaces.  It also made it so I could use this room for a mud room too!  See the Backpack, pink bag, and my purse on the shelf ...and next picture. 

Underneath where I hang shirts to iron are two baskets and a shelf.  The shelf and floor provide space for some of the family's shoes.  This has not completely resolved the issue of the shoes by the back doorway but has helped.  In the baskets I'm thinking about storing the hats, scarves, mittens etc... that now are taking up needed space in the front hall closet.  Next to the shoes is a hamper (one that I already had) so that the dirty laundry people throw in the room can now be off the floor and out of sight. Phew!

This was the coolest idea!  We were puzzling about what to do with this space when I realized my laundry baskets would fit perfectly in there.  I asked my husband if he thought he could put some shelves in this space that were just tall enough for my laundry baskets.   My Handy husband and his dad who is also very handy went to the hardware store and bought some white laminate boards cut them and spaced them just right!  I love it!  There's no more wondering what to do with the laundry basket full of unfolded clothes until I can get to it.  It's the perfect solution!!!  FYI I do have enough laundry baskets for each shelf, but they have clothes in them that are waiting to be put away...such is the norm in a busy home!

I shared with you that my motivation for redoing the laundry room was because it desperately needed it.  We had another pressing reason...

Meet the newest member of our family: Charley!  He is a two year old Golden Retriever that we adopted from WAAGR Wisconsin Adopt A Golden Retriever.  He is such a Sweetheart!

Awwwe!!!  Isn't he cute!!! 

We needed a place for Charley's dog food and the laundry room seemed to be the logical place.

Don't you just want to pet him and tell him how cute he is!

Charley and two of our girls

Best Friends!!!  Charley and our youngest son

Charley arrived the day we celebrated my birthday.  Isn't my cake just beautiful!  I have the best husband in the world, thank-you honey!!!  All my guys (hubby and three boys) got me real flowers too,  I love you guys!!!

Me and almost all the kiddo's (unfortunately one daughter had to work).  FYI My handsome hubby is taking the picture! 

What a great birthday!  I love my family!  I loved my flowers!  I love my redone laundry room!  And we all love Charley!

Whew! What a whirl wind!  We finished the laundry room just in the nick of time for Charley and with very little money spent!  My motto is work with what you got...you can make anything cute!  Even if the floor is still 70's green, you have to paint the ugly woodwork,  and your appliances are temperamental.   I may not have a whole lot of new in my redone room, but nonetheless I do have a very cute, cheery, and functional laundry room that I love!  Therefore I no longer cringe when I see the door is left open. 

Do you think God cares about laundry rooms?  I don't know for sure...but I do know He wants us to be good stewards of those things He's blessed us with.  Such as our finances, our home, our bodies and even with our creative gifts too!!!  As long as His will and His purposes always remain as our number one priority!!!

Thank-you God for blessing me in so many ways!  Thank-you for your sustaining grace that provides what we need in the moment we need it!  Thank-you for my new laundry room and for Charley!  For my family and friends.  Thank-you for showing me ways that I can make my home more efficient, more beautiful, and more welcoming to everyone who enters it's doors so that they might know Your love in ways they could not otherwise.  Help my sisters to be keepers of their homes too!!!  But in their own way, celebrating the way You have uniquely made them, and with the provisions you have provided for them.  Keep us from comparing ourselves with each other.  Most importantly help us each to be content with what we have and to give generously to those who don't!


"For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." Philippians 2:13

Step 3: Yes, I Googled it!

In case you have missed the previous posts my husband and I are redoing our laundry room because, well honestly, it desperately needed it. If you're courageous enough you could look here to see pics of the room before we started and here to see pics of the demolition process.

Day 3, Step 3

We had a problem that was stalling the whole remodel process.  The problem?  How do we patch the two larger holes in the drywall???  My husband and I discussed all sorts of ways we could patch them and we just did not feel good about anything we were coming up with. Finally I suggested that we google it! Within three minutes of googling I was led to eHow and found a simple solution to our problem. We already had all the materials I needed and so now I can get to work on patching those holes. Woohoo! My room is going to be painted in no time and then my husband can start putting the cabinet and shelves in.

In case you happen to have a hole in drywall that needs patching too you can check out the solution I found here: How to Patch a Hole in Drywall | eHow.com

Steps 1-2: Let the Demolition Begin!

Woohoo!!!  The Laundry room renovations have begun!!!  I spent Friday and all day Saturday clearing it out.  Phew!  Who could have imagined such a little room could hold so much stuff.  I took three large bags of clothing and items to goodwill, gave three smaller bags of clothing away to others, and threw away atleast three bags.  Whew!  That really emptied out the room!!!

My husband took care of the next phase which was to remove the closet doors, the frame and half the cabinet...

My handsome hubby hard at work!

Wait, that's not half the cabinet down, that's the whole cabinet.  Yikes!  My current cabinet was all in one piece and so the choice was remove the whole cabinet or leave it and then not have a place to hang wet clothes.  My wonderful husband said he will be able to get me a new cabinet.  Sounds great to me!  But meanwhile there's more work to do.  Such as I have some patching, priming and painting  to do...

One of the holes left behind after tearing out the cabinet

I've picked out the paint color and have it ready to go.  I don't want to tell you what color I chose.  I rather surprise you with it later.  For now I have to get nail holes and three larger holes patched like the one above that were a result of the cabinet frame being nailed into the wall.  There just was no way to get the cabinet out without prying it out and taking some wall too. 

Yikes!  What we thought was going to be a simple project of cleaning out my laundry room and adding shelves has exponentially grown.  In other words it's grown to be a much much larger project then I had anticipated.  My husband says that's the way it always goes when doing these kinds of projects.  I wish I could feel as calm as he sounds when he says it...I need a cup of coffee!

Help! I Can't Find My Washing Machine!

From birth it seems I've been a messy person.  Don't believe me ?  Just ask my mom, I'm sure she'd be happy to share with you all of her exasperated attempts to get me organized and keep me organized when I was young.  Or, you could just open one of my closets and look in...or worse yet take a peek at the current condition of my laundry room... 

My washer and dryer surrounded with dirty and clean clothes, mops and brooms shoved between, and that's my utility tub beneath the overflowing clothes basket.

Laundry room closet (pretty scary huh?) filled with shirts to iron, stuff to go to goodwill, laundry basket of single socks (where do they disappear too??? UGH!) with misc. items piled on top, work out videos, stuff I didn't no where else to put, etc... Yikes!  This room and closet need desperate help!!!

Why air my dirty laundry in public?  Well, I thought about just simply sharing with you in words about my journey to organize and redo my laundry room and then only posting the final pictures when I was all done.  But then you really wouldn't have any idea on just how bad it is.   I also thought about sharing a pic. from a messy laundry room that I came across on this cute blog: A Scrapbook of Me: Laundry Room Ideas I found while I was searching on google for organizing ideas.  After thinking on it, I decided it would be better if I were just honest with you and myself about the desperate condition of the room!  Besides just knowing you know will keep me accountable to get this project done.  And that would make my husband really, really happy!  My mom too!

Now that I've shared with you the embarrassing condition of this small room I'm hoping some of you might help me come up with ideas on how to get this room organized.

Here are some things my husband and I have considered so far:

1) Taking the doors off of the closet and putting in some sort of organizing system (inexpensive one).  Which  would include:
                       a) Shelves for laundry baskets:  atleast five
                       b) A place for dirty laundry: could be another shelf & laundry basket
                       c) A clothes rod for out of season jackets (maybe) and/or shirts that
                           need ironing
                       d) Shelves for Storage baskets for misc. items such as lonely socks
                       e) A place for my vacuum cleaner would be a bonus (it just takes up
                           floor space now)
  
* Here is the current dilema with the closet situation:  behind the utility sink is a wall and behind the wall is the closet.  If I wanted shelves back in there would I be able to access them?  If not then I think my only solution is to have a closet rod that sticks a little past the opening so I can access the hanging clothes.  What do you think?

2)  My husband is considering removing a cabinet from above the utility sink and put up a rod to hang things that need to be ironed.  I'm debating about the loss of the cabinet, because it is full after all.  It would look something like this, but without the cabinet above it:

http://www.generalcabinets.com/ laundry_rooms.htm

3) I would like to be able to have a place to dry delicates.  Right now my only option is to lay sweaters and things that need to lay flat on the washer to dry.

4) I currently have my ironing board and iron hanging on the wall adjacent to my washer and dryer.  This works fine now, but I'm wondering if there is a better option...

5) Perhaps painting the cabinets and trim white (like in above pic.), along with a cheery color on the wall (like below pic.)?

www.houzz.com/ ideabooks/26969/ list/ 10-Tips-f...om-Better

Wow, I love the cheeriness of this one but don't think it's the right color for me!  What a contrast compared to my current laundry room!!!  I'm starting to get excited!  Time for me to get off the computer and start sorting and getting rid of the mounds of unneeded stuff in my laundry room.  For that I'm going to grab some garbage bags: one for goodwill, one for the garbage, and one for putting away in another room.  Wish me luck and I'll let you know how things are going in a few days.

Tah dah! It's Finished!

The cabinet that is.  You remember, I shared a picture of it in it's before state with you months ago.  I'm sure you haven't been waiting in suspense to find out how my cabinet has turned out,  but I wanted to share with you the end results anyways.  It's been done for awhile now and I'm happy to say it is definitely a much more efficient cabinet for me!

First thing I did was find a way to create and store files since I don't have a file cabinet in my desk and this has been a source of frustration.  I have been searching for a solution for quite some time and was relieved to finally find one!  What I found was silver wire wracks that are meant for sorting files and or envelopes (I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of them before I filled them up so you could see what they look like).  This worked perfectly and so I bought two of them and put them side by side on the bottom shelf of my cabinet.  Then I easily filled them up with files filled with all of the misc. paper that was previously just shoved in the cabinet.  Now I have a file for every important paper and when I need too I can quickly find what I need.

The second thing I did was use two small wicker baskets (that I had already) one in front of the other to keep my envelopes and mail tidy.

Since I did not have enough drawer space in my desk my next priority was to find containers for my misc. items like tape and batteries.  For this I found two white rectangular CD boxes: one I used for my favorite CD's and one for all the misc. items.  These boxes are really nice and I would like to get more of them.

Next, I needed to organize the kids construction paper, loose leaf paper, misc. cards and note cards etc...  I already had two stacks of three silver trays and so used those to organize all of those items.

Finally, on the top shelf (which you cannot see in the picture) I used a clear plastic container to hold all the misc. pictures and then straightened all the small misc. items.  Not anything spectacular but much nicer then what it had been.

Yes, I did need to purge things too.  I think that was one of the hardest parts, besides the fact that whenever I organize a cabinet or closet I always end up with a greater mess then when I started. Ugh!!!   This is short lived though since things are thrown away and put away etc...

Here is the after picture:

 

I still struggle with keeping it tidy, after all organization does not come naturally to me.  But generally speaking it has remained much more organized and I can now find the things I need!  

Let me know if I have inspired you to clean out your closet or cabinet that keeps spilling out anytime you open the doors!  I'd love to hear all about it!

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters."  Col. 3:23

The Good, the Bad, and the Messy

Organization has never come easy for me.  In fact I distinctly remember fighting against it as a child to my poor mom's dismay since she was always neat, and always well organized.  I on the other hand loved mess and it seemed I preferred it to orderliness.  As an adult I've gotten myself in a lot of trouble as a result.  I've missed Dr. appointments, birthdays, lost things (I have way to many safe places), etc...I wish I would have learned from my mom the discipline of organization instead of rebelling against it as a child.  It is definitely much harder to change bad habits the longer you've practiced them. 

Having said that I want you to know that I have come along way.  I'm not where I once was, but yet I still have a long way to go.  I also want to encourage you by letting you know that that the more organized I become the more I love it.  In fact I prefer it.  I love being able to find items right away and I've discovered that clutter along with piles of paper overwhelm me.  If you decide to take this journey towards being more organized with me I can guarantee that you too will love the difference it makes in your life.

This section on organization will be about this journey towards being more organized.  Notice I didn't say completely organized but more.  I know my limitations and that I will never be a perfectly organized woman nor do I want to be.  My desire is to simply continue to improve from where I am, understanding that I may have setbacks and slipping back into old habits.  If I do, I will start again reminding myself to "forget, reach forward, press on" (Phil. 3:13) whenever I fail.  This tip and many more which I'm sure I will continue to share with you I found in a book I've read by Donna Otto called "Get More done in Less Time."  

I hope to honestly share with you both my successes and my failures.  So that if there is any of you out there who struggle with being organized you will be encouraged to make small changes towards being more organized too. You are not alone and you are not a hopeless case destined to be buried in piles of stuff.  There is hope!!!

One area where I have made improvement in is keeping the house tidy and the clutter down.  At least on the main floor of the house, lol.  Although with as many people living in our house as there is this is an ongoing challenge with days of failure.  Keeping the house looking clean means that I have to go somewhere with all the stuff that commonly clutters a house.  You know what I'm talking about: school and Sunday school papers, mail, misc. papers, and all those things you just don't no where to put but you know you shouldn't throw away.  Usually I simply shove them in my cabinet above my computer.  Or things other then paper get shoved into various closets and cabinets until they start overflowing getting to hard to close.  My dad always joked calling these closets "Fibber McGee closets."  This is from a popular radio show that aired from 1935-1959, every time Fibber McGee would open the closet door stuff would come pouring out at him making a lot of noise and causing a lot of laughter with him saying "I gotta get that closet cleaned out one of these days."  Can anybody relate?  I can!!!

Today I will begin organizing a "Fiber McGee" cabinet of mine above my desk.  I'm posting the before pictures then when my cabinet is organized I will post the finished picture.

Nice and tidy on the outside but don't be deceived quite messy on the inside.

Reminds me of us.  Sometimes we look like we've got it altogether on the outside, but if anyone were able to open up the doors to our insides they'd see that we're a mess.  While I'm working on my cabinet and your waiting to hear the details why not meditate with me on these scriptures:

Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind;
for your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in your truth.
Psalm 26:2&3

⁸" 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
Matthew 15:8

"Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them. ¹⁷"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? ¹⁸But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' ¹⁹For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. ²⁰These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.' " 
Matthew 15:16-22

 ⁹ Hide your face from my sins
       and blot out all my iniquity.
 ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,
       and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
 ¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence
       or take your Holy Spirit from me.
 ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation
       and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
 ¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
       and sinners will turn back to you.
 ¹⁴ Save me from bloodguilt, O God,
       the God who saves me,
       and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
 ¹⁵ O Lord, open my lips,
       and my mouth will declare your praise.
 ¹⁶ You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
       you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
 ¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
       a broken and contrite heart,
       O God, you will not despise.
Psalm 51:9-17


 

Transforming the Bedroom to be a Sanctuary

I had a friend stop over at my house the other day for the first time.  I gave her the grand tour of the main floor, but informed her that the upstairs was not in any condition to be seen (it was a mess).  She pushed back at me saying we christian women should be more transparent with one another, not trying to wear these hats of perfection but showing what we really are like.  I knew she was right, and that it was only my pride that was keeping me from showing her the upstairs.  So with the little bit of courage I had I stifled my pride, swallowed hard, and lead the way upstairs.  I cringed as I opened each door to my children's rooms, but the one I mostly did not want to show her was mine.  As we got nearer and nearer so did my apprehension.  I wondered to myself how bad is it?  What is she thinking?  I imagined in my mind that she was thinking that she had no idea what she was getting into.  That she probably thought when I said it was a mess I meant it was a little dusty not piles of books and stuff on my dressers, dirty clothes spilling out the hamper, a bag of gift bags, and a pile of boxes on the floor still from wrapping presents when Christmas was here.  The bed was unmade and completely a mess, and the dust was threatening to suffocate everything.  I didn't even realize it had gotten as bad as it did until we arrived at the threshold of my room and I really took a look around as if seeing my room for the very first time.  Ugh, what happened in here?  How could I have let our room get so bad?  My pride was crushed, but I thought to myself "she did want me to be real with her, so I'm being real."   I wondered if she would ever look the same at me again, but did it matter if she thought better of me then who I am for then it would be a false perception of me.  I think in a very real way we all have false perceptions of others, but that is a thought for another discussion...

Her visiting my home and seeing my upstairs as it really was had effected me by waking me up from the  lackadaisical attitude I had over the cleanliness of my room.  I was  reminded of something I had herd Kay Arthur say regarding the bedroom of a married couple .  She had said something to the effect that it was important that the room be a sanctuary for the couple, that it be kept neat, inviting and warm.  Wow, as I looked around I could see that my room was not even close:(

So the transformation of the room begins:

Day 1

My hubby rearranges the furniture!  I remove the Christmas gift bags and boxes from Christmas and put them away in their proper places.  Wow, what a difference a few simple changes make.  We're both excited about cleaning up the room and start brainstorming on a solution for all the books were reading.

Day 2

We decide that we need a bookshelf in the bedroom so we look online at available options and decide on one that was fairly cheap but not to cheap that it would lean to one side.  We purchased it but there was no time to put it together.

Day 3

We put the book shelf together and decide that it would better fit in the living room.  There is no time to fill the shelves today.

Day 4

I carefully choose the books from my room that will go on the new book shelf.  We have bookshelves in the family room (I know, as I've said before I love to read:) so some go back on them.  Some books from the family room go on the new book shelves and before you know it the shelves are organized and I only have a small pile of books on my night stand.

Now to finish cleaning the bedroom.  As I said earlier there was a lot of dust, so dusting was first.  Everything had to be wiped down.  Next I needed to choose what to put back on the dressers, what should be tossed, and what should be placed somewhere else.  Finally I changed the sheets and made the bed.

Whew!  Our sanctuary is completed!!!  The goal now is to keep it clean:)

Day 5

Got up and made my bed and picked up clothes from floor.  Good Start:)

Day 6

Made bed around 3p.m.   Not what I'm hoping for, but not giving up:)

Day 7 

Made bed around 6p.m. Getting worse, but still glad I got the bed made:) 



*My prayer is that by the grace of God I will keep up the good intentions of keeping our room a sanctuary for us.  How about you?  Have you taken a look around your room lately?