Spring Wish List: House Version

Hi guys.  It's been a while.  I've been at the gym instead of DIYing.  But I am so ready for spring and I have some ideas/plans.

First up is our yard.  This is hopefully a spring break project, assuming the weather cooperates.  We need the ground to not be frozen solid.

 

We're hoping to fence this portion of the yard.  Coming out from the east (left in the picture) and making a big square out to the pond (which is behind me when I'm taking this picture) and then around the west (right) side of the house.  That way our crazy dog can go out and get some exercise more often.  And maybe the neighbor dogs will quit carrying off his stuff.  We have plans of how we'll do it, the weather/ground just has to cooperate.

And then there's living room art.  Guys, I'm just not feeling it.  In general I'm just not in love with the stuff we have on our walls.  I feel like it's just blah.  This is what we have going on above the couch right now.

 

I mean it's okay, but it's just not doing it for me.  I'm thinking a big canvas of a sandy beach and maybe some other stuff.  It's a big honking wall and it needs some attention.

Next on the chopping block is our bedroom.  It's a super disaster.  We don't have enough storage and our bedroom is pretty tiny.  Especially with our king sized bed.  In my dream we have two six or eight drawer dressers.  One for each of us.   I'd also like to get rid of our hulking old 32" TV (which would also mean getting rid of the stupid TV cabinet that the bathroom and closet doors slam into at least once a day) and replacing it with a nice sleek flat screen to hang on the wall.  In a dream world I would also ditch those doors for the bathroom and closet, maybe with barn doors.  We have three doors in a row on one wall, terrible design plan.

I also have some plans for our hall bathroom.  We have towels that just hang in there.  They match the bathroom.  No one uses them.  It's ridiculous.

 

It's completely my fault.  It was my decision when we bought the house.  New plan:  get rid of the towel bar.  Put a couple of hooks on the back of the door for actual use.  Put those green towels in the linen closet for actual use, what's the point of having them if they just hang there.  Replace the towel bar with some built in shelving.  Also, buy a new shower curtain.  That one's fine but I'm ready for something different.  I don't know what, just different.

 

And then my last thing on my immediate fix it list is our laundry room.  Oh holy cow.  My organization is not efficient.  The layout is not great, but for the time being cannot be fixed.  The washer is on one side of the room, the dryer is on the other.  And I just don't have the right storage.  The dream is to build (have my dad build) a laundry basket dresser.  With slots for four laundry baskets:  jeans, towels, brights/darks, and whites/lights.  And along with the laundry basket dresser, I'd like a cabinet with a door to stash some of those crazy things that have no home.  Two wrought iron (ish) four tier cake stands anyone.  And maybe on the very end of that cabinet some built in storage for snow boots.  Right now they just get dumped in the laundry room doorway, it's ridiculous.  

So, that's the current house wishlist.  I think I have my work cut out for me.  I was just starting to feel like our house might be done.  And now I'm laughing at myself a little.  It's never done is it?  What are you guys working on these days?  Anybody else seriously overcome with a case of winter blahs?

 

Gold and Sand

I have a confession.  I am a piler.  I love to be organized.  I love for things to look pretty.  But I'm lazy.  We almost always have mail piled somewhere.  The table in the front hall.  The kitchen table.  The kitchen counter.  And it drives me batty.  I try to at least consolidate the piles down to one place, the front hall table.  Because obviously, nothing is more welcoming when you come home than a giant pile of mail.

Last summer I made a pretty tray to hold the mail.  That was ridiculous.  It just meant the pile spilled over the tray.  So, when we had people over the other day, it lit a fire under my bum, I had to do something.  My sweet husband told me I didn't need to clean, that nobody would care.  I gave him my best Monica Gellar look that said, "No, people I do not know cannot come over when our house looks like this."  Oh wait, I may have said that out loud.  You know, there are people that can come over when your house is in any state, other people you need to do the crazy fast panic clean.  And then act like your house is always that clean...

Okay, so I tackled that stupid table.  I sorted the mail.  Almost all of it got shredded.  Some of the junk mail just got tossed in the recycling and the rest of it got piled in the laundry room to be dealt with at a later time.  And I shut the laundry room door because that's the mess that I'm still in serious denial about.  It's bad guys.  Really bad.

So I made the table pretty.  If it's pretty I hopefully won't want to ruin the pretty with piles of mail.  Right?  Right?  Somebody please tell me this will work.

 

In case you're curious, this also doubles as our liquor cabinet.  Sneaky, right?  Oh that just looks so much better.

 A close up.  The vase is one I spray painted gold the other day.  It was leftover from our wedding.  The flowers in it are ones that lived on our mantle in the spring.  The bowl is part of a set we got as a wedding present and holds my keys.  And the square vase full of sand and shells has sand from Gulf Shores, AL courtesy of my parents.  Mainly because I was a dummy and didn't bring home any sand from our vacation.  And the shells are from the beach in Siesta Key, FL from our vacation.  The perfect pretty combination of things to see when I come home.

But where did all the mail I actually needed to keep (silly bills) go?  Not far, it just moved to the laundry room.  I hung up a wall organizer and threw in a couple of file folders.  One for mailing supplies like envelopes, address labels, and stamps.  One for bills to be paid.  And one for things to file.  Right underneath is a paper recycling bin and the shredder.

 

I also have a small cork board and a wipe off calendar board.

What do you think?  Is this going to be the end of my mail struggles?  I'm trying to make myself deal with the mail as soon as I walk in the door.  It doesn't get set down anywhere, it either goes in the bin or gets shredded/recycled. 

Getting Closer

Okay, I think I just needed a name for cleaning my house.  I have tackled three small projects in the past two days.  I am ridiculously proud of myself.  Like I'm dancing.  Ba ha ha.  I'm doing the running man, in case you're curious. 

Yesterday I attempted to tackle the mail situation.  If you remember from before, we had this ridiculous pile of crap.  Paper recycling.  Paper to be shredded.  Random stuff....

Okay, there's nothing on the wall above.  But the pile gives you a good idea of the trouble I was dealing with.  It was bad.  And I had to shut the door if people were coming over.  It was too embarassing.

So a while back I had picked up a couple of picture frames with the intent of making one into a wipe off board and making the other a corkboard.  Well, mission accomplished.  Project Clean in 2013 is working so far.  Memo board and cork board are on the wall.  The mail sorter still needs a little attention.  I'm really striving for the whole zero junk mail thing.  So now that I've emptied the ridiculously full paper recycling can and the shredder I can tackle the box and make some real progress.  Slowly but surely we're getting there.

 

It obviously looks better than this in real life.  The picture turned out terribly for some reason.  But I'm pretty pleased with what I ended up with after only about five minutes of work.  Tonight it's on to tackling the guest bedroom before my parents come this weekend.  Wish me luck.  Eek! 

No-Clutter-November: Laundry Room

Oh man, get ready for some brutal honesty.  I mentioned my laundry room was bad.  But I bet nobody really believed how bad it actually was.  But, here goes.  Sorry, if the pictures are oddly blurry, they looked fine on my camera until I uploaded them.  Weird.  Anyway.

Problems in this picture:  Bag of stuff to go to Goodwill that I cleaned out of our hall closet last winter.  A case of water in the middle of the floor.  Rolls of paper towels that have no home.  A cake container, obviously those live in the floor.  My swimsuit still hanging where I put it to dry the end of August.  Clothes spread across the top of my paper goods bucket, they were put there to dry.... oh a few weeks ago.  On top of the freezer, beer one of my husband's friends made, a vacuum sealer, and the iron.  An orange rug that matched our apartment bathroom that I finally got out of our master bathroom back in the summer and haven't found a spot to store.  Jeans waiting to be washed.  Sheesh.

Problems in this picture:  Small appliances surrounding my laundry:  a deep fryer, a Dirt Devil, an electric skillet, a dehydrator, and a waffle iron.  Also on those shelves, a random bowl, about 3 spools of ribbon, and some pans on the bottom shelf.  Then we have two five gallon buckets of paint.  The mop bucket.  Recycling, the shredder, and a massive box of papers that are waiting to be shredded.

Problems in this picture (there are fewer since it overlaps other pictures):  Empty storage drawer on top of the dryer, it has never been the right size to do what I need it to.  Huge basket of socks that need to be folded and matched.  A rug that belongs in the kitchen but had an accident with dinner one night.

Problems in this picture:  Nothing is organized.  That big pink drawer is useless.  There's crap in here we never use.

So, can you tell what I'm working on today?  I've already done some serious work on the shredding issue.  I have bags sitting by the door ready to go to the recycling.  The Goodwill stuff is getting bagged up and dropped off.  I think I'm going to work on the stuff that is obvious and out first and then start on the closet.  And I'm thinking there is a mini craft project on its way.

I desperately want one of these....

(source)

Laundry basket dressers.  I am in love.  I need somebody to help me build one of these.  Or maybe two.  Sadly, these are low on my home improvement list.  So, for now we're just going to have to be happy with de-cluttering the laundry room.  It's going to be great.  Hopefully I'll be back Monday with a new and improved laundry room.  Oh, and that big pink drawer is going away.