When Life Gives You Mud, Make a Mud Room

We've been making some progress on the garage mudroom lately. Now that it's spring, we've been using this space so much more. All the clutter that used to accumulate in the kitchen is now in the garage. It is so nice to have a space where muddy shoes and kids can shed the dirt before entering the house. I love it. 

One of the first things we did was get some cheap bath mats  at Target. I had been looking at some beautiful outdoor rugs online, but as we all know, I am incredibly indecisive about my home decor choices. So when we saw these rugs on clearance for $12 each, we snatched them up as a temporary solution. Now that they're on the floor, I really like how soft they are, and how they are machine washable. So the temporary may be a more permanent solution.

During a craft night a while back, I took a giant canvas and some stencils and created the big sign above the top shelf. I intended it to be a little greener to match the rug, but I guess the paint had other ideas. I also plan on hanging it on the wall instead of leaning it, so that you can see the bottom line better from the ground. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.

 On the baskets on the side, I picked up some cheap cardboard letters from the craft store and mod podged tissue paper to them. Now each family members has a basket with their initial on it.

So what's left? We still need to put some baseboard molding and trim in a few areas, including around the back door, and drywall the entire garage. I'd also like to put some kind of stair tread on the kitchen doorstep so that it's not just an ugly concrete step.

There's also some general cleaning, spider web removal and trim painting to be done. Eight years of scratch marks to cover up there. Now that it's finally warm, I just need to be less lazy.

I'm also debating painting the two doors a fun color. Maybe purple like the front door? Or navy? Or some kind of green/blue/aqua? And maybe some fun vinyl decal? "Hello" on the kitchen door and "goodbye" on the back door, perhaps? I'm open to suggestions. I also ordered some navy blue fabric to make a bench seat. We've been a little hesitant to sit there for fear of scratching the paint, so that will be nice when I get it done in a couple years.

Overall, we love the space and we use it often. And it's a huge improvement from where we were last year. Hooray for progress!

Project Awesome Garage

I love our house. It's a great fit for us and certainly has enough space for us. And while there are a few small things I'd fix, I'm generally really happy with it. There is, however, one thing that must change. We need a mud room.

We have a small coat closet by the front door, but we seldom come through there. We typically enter through the garage door into the kitchen and there is no room there for all the winter coats, hats, scarves, boots, etc. that accumulate. Despite multiple command hooks hanging everywhere, everything ends up on the kitchen floor and is constantly in the way.

Time to initiate Project Awesome Garage. Our goal is to create a mudroom-like space in the garage to contain all the clutter. We don't have room to add a finished room with walls, but we do have a blank wall connecting the kitchen and back doors where we can add some much-needed storage.

Before we can do that - we need to take care of a few more things out there. As you can see, the garage is a cold, damp, crowded mess. And this photo is after an initial clean up!

 The project has four major steps.

1. Insulate the garage. Only one of the four walls of the garage adjoins the house, leaving three walls of uninsulated shiver-inducing plywood. If we're going to add a space to put on and store coats, it needs to be at least 32 degrees at all times. We're hoping some added insulation will also keep the fourth bedroom (directly above the garage) from being so cold in the winter.
 
2. Update the garage door and opener. The old garage door was dented, uninsulated, unreliable and incredibly noisy. Combine that with two light sleepers and a husband who leaves for work early, and everyone is up before the sun. We need something quieter and warmer. (Oh yeah, and one that goes up and down when it should!)

3. Add a new floor to the mud room area. The current concrete floor is cold, damp and not very pretty. We want something that creates a room-like space in the corner of the garage where the mud room will go. (Between the back garage door and the kitchen door.)

4. Install a custom-made bench, shelving unit and hooks. This needs enough storage for all our stuff, a bench and hooks low enough for the kids to use, and a plenty of floor space for things like boots and shoes.

We're making great progress, and I'll go into more detail in some future posts. I'm hopeful we'll have everything done by Christmas!

3-2-1 Contact!

As our oldest daughter gets older, our schedules have become busier and busier. We've noticed she responds better (and behaves better) when she has a good sense of what's coming. She is a kid who hates surprises and is pretty slow to adjust to new environments and routines.

With a lot of new stuff coming up this school year (Jr. Preschool! Swimming! Puggles!), we thought it would be helpful if we put up a big calendar where everyone in the family could see the planned activities for the week.

We have a big pantry cabinet in the kitchen that has a long tall exposed side. Until now, we had some of those 3M command hooks hanging there for coats and backpacks, with a shoe bin below. We moved the hooks over to clear the way for a huge calendar.

After exploring quite a few options, I found some chalkboard ConTact paper at Amazon and decided to write out our own calendar. The reviews were decent and it seemed cheaper and easier than chalkboard paint, so I decided to give it a whirl.

This stuff is great. It comes on a roll like typical contact paper that you would use to line cabinets and drawers. It's as simple as peel and stick. (Although it can be a little unwieldy at times, so having a buddy during the sticking process may be a good idea.) My cabinets are wider than the 18" roll, so I had to piece it together.

I read a couple reviews online that suggested using a nylon pan scraper to help ensure there were no bubbles. I had one lying around from a Pampered Chef party. Worked like a charm.

It was difficult to measure everything so precisely, and the product does stretch/shift a little, so I cut it a little big and planned for some overlap. I used an X-acto knife to clean up the edges where needed.

Once it was all done, I seasoned it like you would a regular chalkboard. Just cover the whole thing in chalk and wipe it off. I have no idea why this works, but it does.

This little project took a little less than two rolls, about 30 minutes and about $16. Although the chalk ink markers are a little expensive, they make everything stand out nice and bright and are harder for a curious 2-year-old to wipe off. (They wipe away easily with a damp rag.) Time to brush up on my hand-lettering skills.

So far, we're having fun with it. Putting the schedule in a place where everyone can see it is helping make sure we're all on the same page. I'm thinking of putting more ConTact paper on the opposite cabinet for a grocery list, and possibly some on the kitchen door for reminder notes. I sense an addiction coming on...

Milestone Monday!

We've hit a milestone here - this little ol' blog of mine has hit 10,000 page views. Exciting! So thanks to all of you for reading my ramblings and sticking with me through infrequent posts, crazy projects and my sub-par photography. (And I realize it is not Monday as the title suggests, but Milestone Tuesday doesn't sound as great, now does it? And I did think of it yesterday.)

Honestly I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately with all the projects that are unfinished around here - the mud room in the garage, the bonus room window treatments, the unpainted upstairs hallway, etc. And did I mention that the basement flooded again? That's the third time in seven years. Ugh. Fortunately we learned our lesson the first time and everything was off the floor or in a waterproof bin. And we caught it before there was too much of a mess.

Lately I've kicked it into high gear and am finally powering through some things that should have been done ages ago. Our bedroom is now painted and has curtains again, and yesterday I finished sewing the kitchen window valance. I'll post pictures once the house is not a complete disaster. Oh yeah, and the valance still needs to be hung up. Lucky you, tomorrow is cleaning day and my handyman (i.e. Bubba) is coming over tonight.

Because I have many projects going on at the same time, one of the ways that I keep everything organized is my house binder.  I like to have all the info about every room handy when I'm out shopping for stuff, because you never know when you'll wonder whether the fabric in the quilt is raspberry pink, bubblegum pink, or pinky pink.

I bought a small 7x9 inch binder from Office Max and some business card inserts and filled it full of paint swatches and fabric samples. Each room has its own page, so it's easy to find what I'm looking for when I need it. I love having everything all in one place!

The 40 day clutter challenge

I'm embarking on a new challenge. I found the idea on pinterest, and it is brilliant. You write out a list of 40 areas in your home that are full of clutter and need a little organization help. They can be as simple as your underwear drawer or as extraordinarily cluttered as the garage. Each day you tackle a new area and in 40 days you have an organized house.

Today is day three and I'm loving it! I couldn't believe the amount of junk we hauled out after just doing our sock drawers and the master bathroom cabinets. Sometimes it's hard to get rid of stuff - even stuff you didn't know you had - but it's safe to say that sunless tanner wasn't going to give anyone a sun-kissed glow anymore.

I'm working my way through the master closet right now, and *sniffle, sniffle*, 10 pairs of shoes are about to find a new home. I haven't worn any of them in at least a year, and so out the door they go!

I hope we can keep this up for the next 37 days. It feels so good to purge. As you can see from the list, big projects await!