Weekend Projects

Happy Friday!  This week went by really fast, but wanted to update with a few projects that we accomplished over the 3-day weekend last weekend.

First, we did MORE rearranging and I think we've finally come up with a working solution for toy storage!  At least for the time being.  Big thanks to Mark for brainstorming with me!

We moved the majority of the toys that used to be in Molly's room (before it was her room) to Jack's room.  Here's what his room looks like right now:

This is where a lot of his toys and some books are now stored.  It seems to be working out well.

Oh, hai Kitteh.

We added these vehicle decals recently and Jack really loves them.  I'm planning to take down the animals the are currently on his wall, but I haven't yet done this because I think Mark's going to have to touch up the paint when I do.  I'm also planning to paint his name letters white and probably get some sort of artwork or something to go above his shelving unit.

Also this weekend, I made Jack a superhero cape.  He has recently taken an interest in superheros and really wanted a red cape.  This was a quick, fun project.  I followed this tutorial, except I turned and top-stitched my cape and then added the lightening and "J" embellishments with felt.

Another quick sewing project accomplished this weekend was a new changing table pad cover for Molly's room.

I'm just starting to turn my focus to decorating her room and it's going to be a lot of fun!

Here's what it looks like now:

Pretty boring at the moment, but we're just starting to get things situated.  She's only been in her room for a few weeks now.  We recently put up her new curtain (ruffles!  Girls are fun :) ) and I have a new hamper and trash can, but we don't really have room for them yet.  I think we're going to end up rearranging the furniture in this room, just have to figure out how it's going to work best.  Right now it's functional, but I don't like the set up very much.  The room is small, not tiny, but the placement of the door, closet, and window kind of make things challenging with the bulky nursery furniture and keeping in mind that things need to be out of her reach once she's (very soon!) able to get around in her crib.

Garage Sale Extravaganza 2013

Garage sale?  Yard sale?  I guess it was a yard sale because it wasn't in a garage?  But we got rid of stuff in our garage.  Whatever... it's ovah!

We've been working on rearranging things to make a room for Molly for a few weeks now.  The big project was clearing out the office/playroom, which also provided a lot of storage not only for toys but other junk as well.  We don't have a basement so the majority of our storage was in this room and in the garage.  We had a ton of stuff stored that we just needed to get rid of so the next logical step was a garage sale.

Garage sales are a lot of work.  A lot of not fun work.  BUT they're worth the effort in my opinion.  Or at least I think so after the fact.  We haven't done a sale since 2009, which was plenty of time for me to forget just how much work goes into preparation.  (And hey, that was in preparation for a baby too!  Apparently our garage sales coincide with adding children :) )  We cleared out space, got rid of unused items that were just taking up space, and made some money.  Winning all around.

Of course it took us 4 weeks to accomplish our garage sale.  I spent a weekend really sorting things out and then continued to work on it periodically throughout the week.  The night before we tagged everything and then on a Friday afternoon we did our first sale.  We didn't get a lot of action on Friday (although Friday sales are common around here...), but it was actually nice because it helped us to sort everything out and group things together so that we were ready for the next sale.

The next day, Saturday, it rained (of course it would!), but we ended up doing a sale on Sunday that weekend.  We sold quite a bit, but I think Saturday is the biggest day for garage sales so we planned to do another sale the following Saturday and of course it rained again.  The garage sale gods clearly hate me.  SO the following Saturday (week 4!) we were finally able to do our Saturday sale.  I'm glad we persisted because we sold a lot more.

All that work and we got rid of nearly everything we had to sell, definitely all of the big stuff.  I have a handful of sale-worthy items left so I put them up on Craigslist to see if they sell.  I have some clothes that I need to try to consign (I sold some clothing items at the garage sale, but it's hard because obviously it has to be the correct size for people and that sort of thing), and we need to arrange to donate a box or so of goods that are leftover and not worth the hassle of trying to sell on Craigslist.

We moved Molly to her new room on Saturday (::tear::) and she's doing really well.  We still have a few things to move into her new room (changing table and her clothes and diapers) and then it's onto the fun part - decorating!

My house still feels like it's a total wreck.  I guess finding new places for things is kind of a slow process.

Our Office Project.

I haven't been posting because the majority of our spare time has been spent working on our home office.

When we moved into the house about 2 1/2 years ago, it was set up (and used) as a functional office. Then we started wedding planning, and had wedding showers, and got wedding gifts and it took over the room. Embarassingly enough, wedding stuff at one time was taking up both the spare bedroom and the office.

In December, I tackled the spare bedroom and got everything cleaned up in there and we even got a bed set up! Yay us!

Two weekends ago I got the productive bug and decided to tackle the office, which has pretty much sat untouched as a storage room since May-ish of last year.

Here's a before pic:

Here's after I mucked it out:

You'll have to forgive my photography skills above, I snapped those with my cell phone.
We aren't 100% finished with everything because we still have a few accessories to hang, need to reorganize the stuff on the bookcases, and maybe a few other things, but here's where we are at right now:

Please note Kitteh demonstrating how to sit at the desk! ; )
We (mostly meaning Mark) tore down wallpaper, fixed walls (and recently discovered holes...), painted, hung curtains, put together 2 book cases, and refinished the desk! He's so handy!
The walls are painted gray, which look a little bluish in the pic, but I'm sure it's affected by the natural light coming in, and obviously all the furniture is black. We're very pleased with how it has turned out.
I'll share some more pics once we get all of the final touches taken care of!

::Pats Self on Back::

I accomplished a lot yesterday evening, and it was a Monday. This is nearly unheard of in our household : )

First, I had to break the news to Mark that we - emphasis on the 'we' part - were going to tackle the messy spare bedroom that has been taken over by wedding items as of late. Not wedding gifts - that's what the office is for - but decorations, glassware, empty boxes, etc. etc. Also a spare coffee table and end table.

We ended up straightening everything out, neatly stacking all of the empty boxes - I need to keep them as I am still selling some of my wedding items and may need them for shipping purposes - throwing out all of the trash, and condensing all of the remaining wedding items into one "Super Box" - as dubbed by H - and one smaller box. I think we did very well.

I also let Mark talk me into putting the coffee and end tables out by the curb with the trash. I wanted to save them for the end of summer garage sale that we are contemplating having, he said it's not worth the storage and just wanted to pitch them. We compromised and I allowed him to put them to the curb, but I said that if they didn't get picked up by morning, then he had to bring them back in the house. I wasn't going to let them go to waste at the dump. They ended up getting picked up within the hour, so we are both happy. I know they will get some additional use, Mark doesn't have to cart them back into the house.

Once everything was straightened, we manuvered the remaining items around so that we could get our old mattress, box springs, and frame into the room. They aren't actually set up, they are leaning against the wall, but at least it's the wall in the spare room instead of the wall in our bedroom. It's an improvement. Once we can get rid of the Fooseball table, we will then be able to actually set up the bed.

Next, we - a grumbling Mark and I - moved on to the office which has been commandeered by wedding gifts since my showers back at the end of April. I took everything out of the gift boxes - which I wanted to keep for Christmas present-wrapping purposes, but Mark talked me into getting rid of - Mark broke them down so that they could be recycled. We got rid of all of the ripped gift bags, threw out all of the trash and tissue paper, recycled some old wedding mags that I unearthed from underneath the gifts, and then my husband so nicely offered to stack up all of the gifts neatly. So now, they only take up about half of the office, instead of all of it, and they are ready to be put away as soon as I make some storage room in the house. That's the next unfortunate step towards my goal.

When everything will be accomplished for Goal: Re-organization has yet to be determined.

For Sale!

Step one of Goal: Re-organization is to get the all of the wedding items that I no longer have any use for out of my house. I'm not going to organize things that I don't need to keep!

This weekend, I took pictures of all the items that I would like to pass on to other brides. I found secondhand wedding items to be very helpful while I was planning our wedding on a budget, and I hope that I can pass that on to another girl who is planning her wedding.

I put my "for sale bio" out on The Knot yesterday and I've had a really great response so far, I've sold the majority of my glassware, all my leftover candles, and a few other small items. I spent yesterday evening printing shipping labels, and packing these items up for shipping. It was a much bigger job than I thought it would be! First I had to haul everything out, then I had to find a box that it would fit in, then I had to wrap everything and get it wedged in there so that it would be safe to ship. I'm so glad to be getting this stuff out of my house! I feel like I'm heading down the road to completing my goal.

Here is my For Sale Bio if you're curious.

Mid-year Resolutions.

I didn't really get to make any resolutions in January, because my only goal for that time was to get through the next few months and have a successful wedding. Mission accomplished. Now that all of the wedding related things are wrapping up, and the thank yous have been sent, and we've made it through the mad rush of birthdays in our family during the end of June/beginning of July, I'd like to lay out a couple of mid-year resolutions to accomplish during the next 6 months.

1. Get control of our finances.

Not that they are currently out of control, actually, they are pretty stagnant, which can be a good thing when compared with the sliding downhill option, but I would like to get them to the point that our money is working for us. We are taking this oppurtunity, while everything is getting messed with to change my name, to sort out all of our banking needs, combine, separate, and delgate as needed. My pet project is to make us Millionaires over the next 6 months. Okay, maybe not Millionaires, but I would like to start out 2009 being able to look back and this year, and identify right where we started to really take firm control of our financial situation.

2. Organize the house.

Ugh. This is really something that I need to work on. We moved into our house two years ago next month. We still have unpacked boxes stored in closets. Long story short, if we haven't needed these packed items in the last 2 years, we don't need them taking up space in the 2 spare rooms that we have.

Currently, our spare rooms look like a disaster area. The closets are both packed full of crap we don't need, the office floor is completely covered with shower and wedding gifts that I have no place for because I need to organize our storage space, and the other spare room is packed to the hilt with all of our wedding crap that I need to dispose of ASAP! I'm planning to sell everything, but again, there's where organization rears it's pretty little head, first I need to go through it and figure out what the heck I even have.

We have plenty of room in our house, more than enough storage space for the two of us. We just need to properly utilize it. If we do, we will be much happier on the storage front.

So, these are my goals for the next 6 months, I hope to accomplish these things which will obviously benefit us as a household.