After getting the boys room all organized I just felt like I could get the house into better shape. The first thing I did was organize the toys. I'm done having all this random crap. We are going to have main staples in regards to toys. Barbies, Duplos, LEGOS, Hot Wheels, Imaginext. No MCD toys and other random trinkets!
The first thing that we had to do was say goodbye to the Cars Table. Zeke got this for his 2nd birthday and he loved it! He really did, but he's kind of grown out of it. He still loves Cars and Hot Wheels, but he just wants to drive them wherever not specifically on the table. The table had just become a place for the kids to pile things on or shove things under when it was time to pick up the toys.
I posted the Cars table on the FB Buy Nothing Des Moines page and it was picked up by a lovely couple about to have their second baby and their first son is 2 years old. It went to a good home!
The cabinet that I had moved to the boys room is directly behind Michael in this picture. It held a bunch of stuff for the kids...play doh, bubbles, scrap paper and then of course things like computer games, mortgage paperwork, spare pictures frames...etc. You name it it was probably in there. Since that cabinet got moved upstairs I knew I needed to get something to go there. I actually bought this before we even moved the cabinet upstairs....I like to be prepared!
Here's a picture of what this section of the dining room looks like now. I found this awesome IKEA cabinet on Offer Up for $80 and it included 8 baskets. It was a screaming deal. I made a full price offer hoping that it wasn't sold already, but knowing my chances weren't good since it had been on there for 4 days already and come on it was a great deal. About 5 minutes later I heard the familiar cha-ching of the app saying I had a message. The response to my full price offer was...."How about $50?" At first I started coughing and then laughing....I told Michael what was going on and then I said, "Who does that?" Who offers lower than the price they wanted when I was giving them a full price offer. Then I stopped and looked at the picture of the person selling it and noticed that it was my friend Kristen who I used to go to church with! She was so sweet to let me buy it for $50! It was quite funny getting it home since it wouldn't fit in the van we had to bungee it to the luggage rack. We did go on all back roads on the way home, but still I was a little nervous. I must say though that I LOVE it. It holds so much stuff! It's all nice and organized and it honestly is what made the rest of the organization of the house possible. Why would I need to organize anymore you might ask....well after getting this cabinet in here Michael just mentioned that our dining room was wall to wall furniture and he couldn't wait for it to actually feel like a dining room.
Se here is a picture of the other side of the dining room. On the left side in the back corner is my craft desk and then all those plastic drawers that are right next to the hutch are for my crafts. What you can't see and I couldn't find a picture for is just out of this picture on the right is another desk that I had full of my stamp sets and it's where my computer was. So yes...there was wall to wall furniture.
I first started by going through my computer desk and I was able to organize all my stamps, envelopes and cards into this one video cabinet that I used to store the kids craft supplies. I say used to store because now those are all nicely organized in the new IKEA cabinet. I moved my computer desk into the kids play room downstairs because after organizing all the toys and getting rid of the Cars table I realized that a lot more toys could be moved to the upstairs playroom. After I moved my computer desk I just kept going and I was able to get ALL of my craft supplies and my desk moved into the playroom. It was a crazy couple of days let me tell you!
So now the playroom is a playroom/office. In this picture I was still in the process of organizing. I have great natural light and now when I'm crafting I still feel like I'm part of the family since they are all typically in the living room which is where I'm standing taking the above picture. I was actually able to go through every drawer, every plastic container and I really got my craft stuff organized and got rid of stuff I didn't need anymore. I love it!
It's a little dark, but now you can see that back corner is all clear and there are no plastic drawers on the side of the hutch. It feels huge in our dining room. It feels like a dining room!
Here is the wall where my computer desk used to be....it was really crowded right through here.
Here's the finished room after I got rid of even more stuff. The plastic drawers on the left of my desk are toys, but the rest is my stuff. The wooden hutch on the left is still filled with toys too. We want to make it a slow transition to moving all the toys upstairs. So far the kids have loved it and have even played more with the toys that are down here.
One last shot of the dining room. I'm standing where my craft desk used to be. It's so bright...even though my phone makes it look darker. It's so open and it's actually a little hollow sounding. We are going to bring the extra recliner we have in the basement up and put it where I'm standing just to add a little cushion to the room. I'm so happy with how all the changes worked out. I love constantly evaluating our house and making changes if it's not working for us the way it is. I honestly feel like that's a very important part of my job as a homemaker. I want to make sure that our house runs best for all of us.
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