Next up

We enter our house usually through the garage, where we park, into a mudroom/laundry room/pantry. We also store the litter box in there and so want some kind of design that will hide that a little more. It is a good size room but needs a makeover.  The room is an 8 by 11 box with a pantry closet built out into it.  The door to the kitchen opens right into the pantry door which is incredibly frustrating, and the pantry is small and has a lot of unusable nooks because of the closet walls.

A while back I came across this image:

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I thought it was possible that this could be the solution we were looking for in regards to the pantry situation.  Of course, Emily's whole butler's pantry is gorgeous!  The hubs liked the idea of maintaining some closed storage so we hit on the solution to install some drawer cabinets underneath shelving.  

We also have a front load washer and dryer that I want a counter top on for folding, kind of like at our first house.  

And we currently have a bathroom sink and vanity as a laundry sink which is kind of dinky for any real use.  I came across a new product at Home Depot the other day that I want to try.  I don't think they are in all the stores yet but they are basically very large format granite tile (18" x 31") for $9.99 a square foot.  I want to try using them around a bottom mount IKEA Domsjo sink on a skirted sink cabinet a lot like this (I figure I can store the litter box behind the skirt):

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Also the sheet vinyl floor is a little dated, so when Lumber Liquidators was having a great sale we scooped up some wood look vinyl plank flooring at $.32 a square foot.  I think at that point I was channeling a little bit of Alison Giese also:

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Anyway, we have a plan and so now we just have to find the time to pull it off between loads of laundry!

Kitchen Cabinets Organized!

Well, over the long weekend I managed to get at least one of my target spaces organized!  The kitchen cabinets were bothering me most since we cook at home most nights and a lot of the things we use were just thrown into two deep, hard to reach cabinets.  Those spaces still have lots of deep, hard to reach areas but at least the things we use often are easier to get to now.

This:

Became this:

And this:

Became this:

None of the photos are much to look at but you can see how deep the cabinets go.  It is much easier now to get at the things we use for dinner on a regular basis!  Hopefully soon we will be able to address the yucky, brown, 90's era cabinets!

A Moment of Composure

The Nester wrote a post the other day on the benefits of having one sane space amid the chaos of life.  I have been thinking about that a lot lately since we still aren't completely unpacked or organized from our move in May of 2014.  We are busy people, with both my husband and I working full time day jobs, and with two littles (4 and 2) around.  Add to that church commitments, family, and a 4 year old who just started pre-k, and there is very little time to even get basic cleaning done let alone figuring out where the things that used to live in our walk in pantry need to go in the new house.

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When we moved in my mom brought us an antique desk that had been in our house when I was growing up.  She thought it could be a nightstand as we needed those since our old master was too small for them.  Unfortunately it was a little too big for the space and wasn't the best layout, it's a flip top, but it was perfect as a drop spot in our foyer.  

Once we put it in place, I had to do a little decorating on it and eventually got a few prints that I had had for several years framed so that I could use them in the space.  

The foyer isn't used on a daily basis, we enter through the mudroom off the kitchen, and so the space stays reasonably neat.  When we first got it "together" I remember telling my husband how happy it made me to have one decorated space.  Never mind that the light fixture in the foyer is hideous and the inside of the desk is crammed with all of my stationary just stuffed in there.  This was my moment of calm and pretty in a disaster of a house.  

Having that one spot can sometimes help serve as a distraction from all I still want to do with the house.  It serves as a reminder to keep it intentional and that spaces do not all have to be done immediately.  Sometimes you do have to wait for the perfect piece to come along, or for the time to organize things, or a period when you no longer have small ones careening around corners and grabbing at every pretty thing you put out.  And that wait can be okay.