Monday, June 19, 2017

Home Office Makeover

My Hubby started working from home back in February of 2016.  Back then we still lived in Utah and his office was squeezed into our guest room so we bought a smaller table/desk and just made it work until we moved that summer.  

Fast forward to now, we've been living in Georgia for nearly a year, he is still working from home, but he now has an entire room on our main floor for his office.  

Sadly, up until this week it's looked like this:

Random stuff and all of our important files sat in this corner pretty much since we moved in.

So this closet was actually full of boxes and all of our board games! I didn't think to take the before pictures until after I'd already hauled out all of the games and started unpacking the boxes (which were mostly all books).
Not very inviting.  
I can't believe we've let it look like this for so long!

He went out of town for 3 days this past week and I decided to give it a complete overhaul to surprise him for Father's Day!

 So I worked really hard to unpack boxes, move out excess stuff that shouldn't have been in there and then I got to work pulling the room together!

I did all of this and I could have easily stopped here:

Curtains, new shelves to display things and a new (to him) desk.  He would have still been super happy and surprised with this much done!
The desk was brought up from the basement. I was using it for my craft desk but we are going to do a much bigger one so this one was free for the using! It was so much nicer and hid all of the ugly computer cords so well.  Plus--more storage!  I hung curtains to make the room feel cozy and go these shelves from Target and put them together after the kids went to bed.  (Only took 4 episodes of Friends doing it on my own...)

But why stop there?? 

Ta-Da!!
 
I bought a real plant for the top of the shelves and then got new updated pictures for these frames that we used to have hanging in our old house.  I created a gallery of family photos for him to look at every day!  Very "Father's Day" appropriate, too :)

(The cats really liked Scott's new office... )

On the other side of the office I got another plant (which we have to shew the cats away from!) and pulled up this black chair from the basement.  The chair isn't super nice, but it was left behind from the previous homeowners and it actually works really great in the space! Plus now I have a cozy chair to sit in when I bug hubby at "work" :)

The closet is holding a bunch of our books (until we figure out where to put real bookshelves) and the file boxes are organized and look much nicer in the close than in a heaping mess in the corner of the floor.  Plus, the doors can stay closed and the mess will be hidden.

Bonus points:  I filled Scott's desk drawers with organizers and office supplies from the dollar store.  

His trashcan is hidden nicely in this lower cupboard part of the desk

I'm really happy that I found a great way to display his Garfield comic book collection that he had from childhood.  So much better here than stuck in a box!


 
Hubby came home late on Wednesday night, so I had to stay quiet all night and all morning he was really taking his time "getting to work" so I was patiently waiting for him to walk in and get the surprise of his life ;)  It was so much fun to watch!  I totally wish I got it on video, but he was just a little too quick for me to grab the camera. Totally worth all the hard work and late nights. 

 What do you think?
 


Monday, May 08, 2017

Cute Finds ~ Affordable Cute Girl's Dresses

Sometimes I find super cute things.

And I buy them.

I couldn't decide which one of these adorable dresses to buy, however, so I took pictures of them to share with you instead.

These dresses are perfect for play days or even slightly nicer things that call for a dress.
And they are only $5 at Walmart!

{I like Walmart and I'm not ashamed to say it.}

What do you think? Cute, right?!




They are still there and I might snag one but I still can't decide what style.
 I might size up, too because Ruby has way too many clothes right now and she'll need bigger sized eventually, right??

Which one is your favorite??
 

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Kitchen Experiments ~ Homemade KFC


My hubby really likes to watch a few guys on Youtube that cook. 
 One of our favorites is Binging with Babish.  
Usually with these cooking episodes, his desire to cook something new comes forth!  
He really wanted to try to make fried chicken so we did our best!


It actually turned out pretty good.  We will definitely have to try again to try to improve our technique and recipes. 

Thursday, April 20, 2017

One Day for Laundry Method and other Laundry Tips

Everyone has their own way of doing laundry, so if you are happy with your ways feel free to skip right along past this post.

However, if you are feeling overwhelmed or like the laundry is taking over your life...
I finally figured out what works for me and our family of 5.  So here's what I've been doing the last couple of years and how it works for us.

ONE DAY
I pick one day a week to do the majority of the laundry.  I start in the morning and I end the day with folding and sorting. 

For me, Mondays usually work the best for me.  Monday tends to have less scheduled activities and therefore less conflicts that get in the way of getting the task of it all done in a single day.  Our current laundry day is actually Tuesdays, because we had a Monday night conflict, but once the school year it out, my laundry day will be switching back ASAP!  I've tried many days of the week over the years and Mondays have been consistently the easiest to keep as laundry day.

During my ONE day of laundry, I usually wash about 5 loads of laundry ~ Lights/Colors, Darks, Jeans, Whites, and Towels.  Sometimes the Lights and the Colors are their own loads but I usually mix them.  Whites are things that are ONLY white so I can bleach them when needed.  Sheets get washed on their own day because that's a huge task all by itself.

Sometimes the kids help me gather and sort the laundry.  Other times I'm nice and I do it all myself.  It's easier to make them help when school is out for the summer.  It's a great simple chore for them to get them involved in the laundry! You can always check their sorting and move things as necessary!

Random Laundry Tip:  My kids take baths pretty regularly, and they also get their clothes pretty dirty.  I started keeping a laundry hamper or basket in the bathroom where they take a bath.  I also started keeping stain remover spray there.  Now I can peel off their clothes, pre-treat them and then toss them in the hamper.  I know you probably aren't supposed to do it days before you actually wash them...but if I don't pre-treat them until laundry day, I have noticed the clothes tend to stay stained.  It's been working out so much better this way! 

Clean clothes go on the bed
During my ONE day of laundry, I keep up on switching the loads to make sure it keeps going until it's all washed and dried.  The clean clothes get dumped on a big pile on my bed.  I've folded laundry on couches and tables, but i like using my bed for a couple reasons.

     ~ Unlike a dining room table, you don't need your bed for other things during the day (except    maybe a nap and trust me, laundry won't stop you from taking a nap on your bed!)

     ~ It's clean ~ no food or dirty dishes or papers to clean off of it first. Couches are great, but then your back is usually facing the TV (we'll get back to this later).

     ~ Also the clothes are most likely to fall off the backs and arms of the couch ~ super frustrating.  So that brings me back to the bed!  One giant flat, clean space to work on.

Time to Fold and watch a Show
So now all the clothes have been washed and dried...Now they need to be folded.
I used to dread this part but now I don't mind it.
It's 1 hour of my day (sometimes 1 1/2 hrs) dedicated to just me and the laundry.  And I make this time enjoyable by binge-watching my favorite shows!!

In my old house I had a TV in my bedroom, but we haven't set that up yet, so I just use my laptop and open up Netflix.  I watch one season of a show and then move onto another show.  Over the years I've watched, Grey's Anatomy, Once Upon A Time, Downton Abby, and I'm currently watching Jane the Virgin.  


Sort it Out
Every body's clothes get folded and sorted.  I have 3 kids 8 and 5 year old boys and one 2 year old girl.  They have a pile for pants, shirts PJ pants and PJ shirts.  There are also piles for the towels sorted into where they go in the house (kids bathroom, my bathroom, kitchen...)  A stack of hubby's pants, a pile of shirts to go on hangers.  Same for mine...

I take over the whole bed with my piles.  The clean clothes get dumped out on one side of the bed and the piles start taking over the other side.

Most of my own clothes and my hubby's shirts get put onto hangers.  Instead of putting them on hangers as I go, I lay them out in a pile and then put them all on hangers at the same time.  Then I don't sort mine & my hubby's out until I'm putting them away in our closet.  Trust me that this saves SO much time!

Basket for Socks & Underwear
Another time saving tip is to ignore all the socks and underwear until the end!  I throw all the kids' underwear and everybody's socks in a basket until I'm done folding the rest of the laundry.


Then, I can sort them into stacks of each persons' socks.  Nothing gets "paired" up.  Ever.  Not even my little girl's multi colored socks.  (And she's the only one who has ever had more than just white socks, by the way.)  You want to simplify life??  Get rid of the cutesy socks and each kid gets one type of sock.  Ruby is my exception, but her socks stay together for the most part (we are missing a few here and there) But they all get dumped into an ikea Skubb box and I find matching socks when I put them on her feet.  No need to do it on laundry day!!

Same for underwear -- I don't fold underwear, I simply sort them out into whose it is and they put it in a basket inside their dresser drawers.

Put it All Away
After ALL the laundry is folded, I start putting it away.  I put all of my hubby's and my laundry away in our closet, and then I put away all the towels.

Since my kids are all sleeping in their rooms by this point, they each get a basket with their folded laundry.  I put the baskets outside their door and in the morning, they put the laundry away.  I help Ruby put hers away.  

This process has simplified laundry day so much!

Although I am usually beat by the end of the day, I still kind of look forward to just being able to watch my show and do my own thing for an hour that night.  I also feel so much better when I stick to this routine and get all the laundry done and folded in that one day.  If I don't fold it that night...it tends to just lay around until nearly the next laundry day and my kids constantly bug me about not having enough pants... so it's just better to do it all and be done with it for a whole week!

What are your best laundry day tips??

other posts you may like

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...