Home Organization

This year I have been working on trying to be more organized.  I am not a very organized person, so this has been a slow process, but I am working on it, slowly but surely.  My addiction to 31 bags has helped quite a bit with this project!

I am slowly working on organizing my linen closet.  It was a jumbled mess of sheets, blankets, and towels.  This project is still a work in progress, but I am slowly buying Large Utility Totes from 31 to use in there.  I currently have a deluxe utility tote, for my towels and 2 medium utility totes (they were a limited edition special) for sheets and pillow cases.  I do have 2 Large utility totes, but I have not put stuff in them yet.  That is in the works for this week.  1 shelf done, 2 more to go!

In the office I had 6 crates full of back to school supplies stacked together against the wall.  Notebooks, loose leaf paper, folders, crayons, rulers, erases, glue, pens, pencils and more.  It's a huge eye sore, but I wanted the kids to easily access anything they needed as they needed it.  I got some of the brand new Oh Snap Pockets from 31 and hung them up on the wall.  I have some supplies in each of the pockets, and the crates have been moved up to the attic.  As the kids take stuff from the pockets, I'll bring stuff down from the crates to refill it.

Before

After

Finally, in my office, I always have a bunch of clutter on my computer desk.  Especially a bunch of post it's, or papers the size of post its with information I need written down on them.  So I got a board to hang by the computer for me to put those papers on so I can try to clear up the clutter on my desk some.  I have a few other things planned for my desk, but this is a good start.

I still have a long ways to go, and lots of areas I need to better organize.  But it's a start!!

Do you have any organizational tips or tricks?

1 year already!?!?

1 year ago today my husband and I closed on our very first home.

I can't even begin to tell you how happy I was. I wanted to buy a house for years and years, but the timing, and the location were never right. We hadn't planned to buy when we first moved to North Carolina. We wanted to rent first, learn the area, etc. I had this vision of taking my time looking at houses online, researching and comparing them until I found my dream home.

We showed up on a Sunday to go house hunting. On Monday we started looking, and there was just NOTHING large enough for a family of 6. It was crazy. On the west coast, in AZ and CA since there is such a huge market for flipping homes and for investors there are always homes for rent. Here on the east coast, people who buy larger homes usually do so planning to live in them, not to rent them. That night we contacted a realtor (who by the way was fabulous!). On Tuesday we sat down, talked about what we wanted, went through the list of homes and decided what we wanted to see. Wednesday was spent driving around looking at houses. By the end of the day we knew what we wanted and got the ball rolling. By Friday we were filling out the paperwork at the bank. That Saturday we headed home, under contract for our first house. Everyone back home was amazed at how quickly we did everything LOL.

A month later we showed up in NC ready to close on our house. We closed on our original closing date, which I believe was only 32 days after we went under contract. Everything just fell right into place for us. We had no problems what so ever, it was as if it was meant to be. I always believe that everything happens for a reason, and this was one of those moments that shows that it is true.

To top it off, not only is today the 1 year anniversary of buying our home, but we do not have 29 years left on our mortgage, we only have 28 years left on it! We paid off an extra year during the last year!

Deco Mesh Wreath

I made my very own University of Tennessee deco mesh wreath about 2 weeks ago.  It was SO, SO easy (even easier then the tulle one I had originally planned!).  I absolutely love it and can't wait to make more for other seasons/times of the year!

I had been wanting to make one for a while, and had planned making one with a foam wreath form and tulle.  Then my SIL Michelle started talking about making one and I made up my mind and went down to Hobby Lobby to buy the stuff to make it.  As I walked in I saw that fall deco mesh colors were on sale 40% off, and of course Orange is a fall color.

I have seen the deco mesh wreaths before, and had always been interested in learning how to make one, but had absolutely no clue what I was doing LOL.  They had a 21" and 5" across size, figuring I was making a wreath, I grabbed the 5" size (makes sense, right?).  Walked around the store so I could find white (which I also got in the 5" size) and saw the metal wreath forms next to a book that taught you how to make the wreaths with 14 designs included.  No way was I buying the book, but I figured those would be the right forms to use since they were by the book LOL.

I got home and sat down at the computer and fired up YouTube.  Come to find out...most people use the 21" for making wreaths!  But I found a super easy tutorial that used both the 21" and the 5", so I exchanged my Orange 5" for the 21".  I also found out I needed pipe cleaners...which btw, for those un savvy crafty people, like me, pipe cleaners are also referred to as Chenille Stems (so I picked those up when I did the exchange).

I was able to make the entire wreath, on my own, without the tutorial after I had watched it the 1 time.  Here's a link to the Youtube video I watched Deco Mesh Wreath Tutorial.  See how easy that is?  Here are the pictures I took of my wreath!

 Painted my T orange

 Added some white polka dots

 My supplies

 Doing the first ring

 End of 1st ring, starting the 2nd ring

 After the 2nd ring

 After the 3rd ring, which is the accent color

My finished wreath on my door!!!

I can't wait to make more!  Debating if I should do a fall one...or a halloween one next!

Pinterest for the Home 2

Yep, my next post about Pinterest for the home.  I realized after I had posted the other one I had left something out, and then I just ordered some more stuff for the home this week too.

Let's start with what I left out of the last post.  I had pinned a while back an idea to use a hook, such as a command hook on the wall opposite of the shower head, then you hang your shower caddy on it so it's not under the shower head in the water and your way.  We have a HUGE shower now LOL but 2 of the walls are glass.  So on the tiled wall is where I hung the hook for our shower caddy.  It's all the way at the end of the shower wall, across from the shower door, and completely out of the water!  I will take a picture and post it later, right now I need to find the charger for my camera battery so I can charge the battery.

Next is something for my pantry.  The pantry I have now is about half the size of my old one....and my old one was FULL before!  We have quite a bit less storage space here.  In California we had closet's and cabinet's every where.  I really like'd the idea of rotating can holders (I had several different kids pinned on Pinterest LOL).  I like that I can put my newer cans on top and take the older cans from the bottom and it rotates it all for me.  With my old pantry I would have to rearrange my cans whenever I bought new stuff so that I took the older ones first, it was a lot of extra work.

I went to www.pantrymaid.com and bought a ton of rotating can holders.  I got them in various sizes for all the different kinds of cans that I have.  I can't wait for them to get here so I can put them to use.  The great thing about these is that down the road I can use them on my shelves that I am putting in my garage too!  Once they come in and I have a chance to get everything re-done in my pantry I will post picture!  I can't wait to see them!

Pinterest for the Home

Well, now that we are home owners *does a little happy dance* I can put some of the things I have pinned on Pinterest into use.  This makes me a very happy woman.....my husband on the other hand, does the eye roll when ever I start talking about this neat idea I found on Pinterest LOL.

The first idea I did, I didn't actually get from Pinterest, but I'm gonna share it anyways 8).  I bought a bunch of contact paper (we had to buy 4 24' rolls!!) and we put contact paper down on all the cabinet shelves in the kitchen.  Man that was a lot more work than I thought it would be!

I got this fabulous idea from Pinterest to get peel and stick tiles and place them underneath the kitchen sinks.  I bought a case of the tile and am planning to put the tile down this week....not just under my kitchen sink, but all 4 bathroom sinks too!  I just need to get an exacto knife so I can easily cut the tiles that need to be cut.  I am all about quick and easy clean up and protecting the wood!

Next, I saw on Pinterest this great idea to use a spice rack for nail polish!  Since I have less counter space in my bathroom now this is a fabulous idea!  My old bathroom actually had a separate vanity area.  I had looked around in the stores some and not seen anything I liked.  Today another friend had pinned this same idea and I decided to follow the link (usually it goes to a blog post) but I got lucky and it went to Amazon!!  Needless to say, I ordered one LOL, it should be here on Tuesday!

Now I ordered it in silver (nickel satin finish) because that would go with my bathroom.  That one was a tiny bit more, but I didn't mind.

The one it direct linked to had a black finish and is about $6 cheaper, so I will share that one too if you are interested.

I can't wait for it to get in!  Once I have it up and all my nail polish in it I will share a picture!

Now I just need to decide what kind of wreath I want to make for my front door for the fall.....do I want a fall one and a Halloween one?  Or just Halloween?....hmmm, decisions, decisions LOL.