Finding a solution

June 29, 2012

by — Posted in Baby, Life at Home, Solutions

Well I’ve/We’ve been extra productive the last week or so. Wednesday Ansen had to burn a vacation day. It was super hot and I thought it’d be fun to go swimming, but he said it was “too hot to swim”. (Come again? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when it’s hot?!?) So instead, we cleaned the garage. It was kind of a back up plan because we were supposed to pull weeds from the back flower bed or the front flower bed… but Avie woke up as we were heading outside. So, we opted for the garage (for the shade) where she could hang out with us for a bit before her next nap… which was sooner than normal since her nap was short! I wish I had a before picture, but here’s the after…

The stuff in the foreground is from a project I’ll get to in a minute. But the shelves got a nice organization. We bought bike hooks and hung Ansen’s bike (although we’re not sure where we’ll put mine yet). The stuff to the left is all a pile for garage sale/recycling and will be taken care of in the next month or so. Anyways, we can now walk around BOTH sides of BOTH vehicles, and we have a Vue and a minivan!

Then this morning, I finished cleaning (and repairing) the baby walker I found for $2. Baby girl is finally big enough she can make use of it! And boy did she like it! She could look at the puppy and laugh at him and talk to him all on her own! Ansen even coaxed her into moving it this evening (on the tile of course… carpet doesn’t work too well).

So now for that project. See I like solutions. I like neat organized systems (like above). But our closet has needed some help for a while. I did simplify our laundry by presorting and giving unused hangers a home:

These baskets are from Walmart. Each one comes with 3 stickers (I don’t understand… they’re sold separately): whites, colors & darks. Since I had 3 sets (one for each basket I bought), I have them in 3 locations (top, side and front). Anyways, back to the project…

The rest of the closet looks like this:

Now, the wire racks are working better than clothing on the floor, but they usually don’t look this organized. (I accidentally started cleaning before I took a picture.) There really isn’t enough room for all of our stuff, and it’s delapidated. Also, there’s usually a HUGE pile of “partially” worn clothing on top. You know, the ones that you didn’t wear long enough to really be dirty, but they’re not really clean either. But since I started laundry to prepare to pack for our 4th of July trip, it’s mostly gone.

Enters the solution!

I found this bad boy at a garage sale Thursday. I paid $7 for it. It’s particle board, but I knew what I was getting. We already have a dresser in our bedroom (that we’re hoping to replace soon), but this is for the closet, so it doesn’t have to look pretty… except that it does!

So I painted it:

We already had some black paint, so I slapped it on (somewhat lightly, it makes it look kind of mocha and distressed that way).

And I bought brushed nickle spray paint. It was $4!! But I’m sure we’ll find something else to use it on too.

That is all currently drying in the garage. Hopefully tomorrow I can move the wire rack out and the dresser in and begin organizing it all. More pictures to come!!