Day 1: Project Home Organization

It’s Day 1 of my home organization project. I’m finally ready to get on with organizing all the things in my life that are driving me crazy.  It seems that most days, being a mom and daycare provider, takes all the time I have to just get through the day.  Tasks such as organizing a closet, a desk, a drawer or even my paperwork, gets pushed aside.  I’m sure most of you can relate to that being a mom and taking care of the kids always comes before the “extras”.  Organizing is not something that I want to put on the back burner, it just happens.

I’m not the most organized person in the world, but I want to be and I felt like now was a great time to get started.   I’ve always looked forward to the 1st day of school, even when I was not in school or had kids in school.   There’s just something about it that gives me a sense of new beginning and renewal.  And so, I have decided that now that I am a mom of a preschooler and have a tiny bit of free time each week, I’m going to tackle organizing my family, my home and my life. In my quest for finding the best tips on accomplishing this,  I’ve visited several blogs that I would consider “pros” in this area and will be using some of their tips on becoming a more efficient, productive and organized mom and I’ll share this information with you as I go along!

Today I started with my 1st project: Organize my daughter’s craft supplies.

My daughter, Ella,  LOVES to color, paint, cut, sticker, draw, and do puzzles and spends most of her free time doing so.  It’s the first thing she does in the morning and the last thing she does at night.  We didn’t have a designated area for all of her supplies and she normally works at our island on her projects.  Ideally, this was not the best set up.  Her stuff would be scattered and cluttered and she would always loose things since we only had them in a basket on the counter.  I knew I needed something to keep it all in, but didn’t know what.   Here’s what I came up with:

1.  Preschool Desk from Pottery Barn Kids.

(I was going to link you up to this, but they must have sold out since I ordered it last week.)

This is an adorable little child-sized desk and the kids all love it.  I actually think my 15 month old need his very own.  He spends alot of time sitting here as well.  As cute as it is, it’s not very practical for keeping Ella’s supplies in order.  The two drawers are narrow and not very long – just enough room for  some pens and pencils and maybe some other little items.  So, I came up with another storage solution.

2. 4-shelf Organizer Cube

I picked this up at Michael’s but also saw one at Target.  This was a snap to put together and holds all of Ella’s construction paper, drawing paper, notebooks, coloring books and marker and crayon holders.  I even placed some of her scissors and stickers in closed containers on top of the cube. For now, it sits on the island in the kitchen so that the little kids don’t make confetti out of the contents.  My plan is to sit Ella’s desk beside my desk (that will be delivered this weekend) and place the cube on my desk for her to use.  I also have another modular storage system on order that we’ll put together later.

But  this is a good start.  It doesn’t look like much, but I feel a ton better AND more productive since I got this all organized today.  I’m also going to be working on a great tip from Simple Mom for all of Ella’s completed artwork. She has some great ideas to storing and displaying all those special pieces that I’d like to save but not have it just cluttered into a drawer or taped all over the house like it currently is.

I’ll keep you updated every step of the way on my Project: Home Organization.  In the meantime, send me your tips and tricks that you use to keep your child’s projects and hobbies in order.  I’d love to see pictures as well.  I’ll post them right here!

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Project Home Office: HELP!

Since I’ve become much more active on my computer now that I’m blogging, doing finances, checking email, and shopping researching, I really need a much better way of organizing my work space.  Here’s what I have…

And here’s what I’d like to have….

Pottery Barn Office System with a sleek, new laptop.  Well,  what I would  really like to have is  a brand new laptop to take around the house and on the road with me AND  a new desktop for my nice new desk.

Here’s the space I have to put a new desk into….

This is the family room area off of my kitchen.  See that big cabinet in the corner?  That’s my area that I work in.  Yes, it’s an okay setup, but it’s really not functional.  I have paperwork, bills and  files everywhere because I don’t have one place to keep it all.  I have it in plastic bags, in drawers, on shelves and stuffed into about every possible place you can imagine.  I’m always late on bills and misplace important documents all the time.  I TRY to be  organized, but when you don’t have ONE dedicated place to keep everything, inevitably it gets lost.

So, my goal is to purchase a new desk system and computer in the near future with a  no-fail organizational system for my life.  Sounds easy, huh?  Well, not for me. I need your help!  I need your best tips to make my home office (or corner) more functional and organized.   I’d love to see photos of your home office space and  to hear about what computer you use and why you love it!

Send me your best tips, tricks and photos and I’ll feature them right here!  Then, when the time comes and I break my husband down buy a new set-up and get organized, you’ll be the first to know!  I’ll publish all the best advice right here and share it with you all!

Make sure to leave me your tips below AND email me your photos at kasey at allthingsmamma dot com

Well, what are you waiting for???  Get snappin’!

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Removing Wallpaper…UGHHH!!

This is my kitchen before our new table & chairs in the next pictures. Notice the apple border. Has to go!

Well, for some reason I decided to start peeling down wallpaper today in my kitchen.  I’m exhausted and still not finished!

When we moved in, about 9 months ago, everything had been freshly painted.   Nothing HAD to be painted and still doesn’t, but I’m ready to put my own touches on it.  I’m not a primitive, folksy, apple kinda gal.  I would say I’m more of  a Pottery Barn, TJ Maxx, flea market, yard sale kinda gal.  : )

I guess we’re starting in the kitchen since I started pulling the border off and  realized that they painted one shade darker above the border and a shade lighter below.  I JUST NOW NOTICED!  It was so subtle, you couldn’t even tell until the border came down.  Well, now it has to be painted.  And guess what color I’m painting it…green!  LOL!  Well, it is a completely different shade of green – Fresh Olive to be exact.

Notice the two different color greens where I pulled down the border. Do not notice the clutter and mess on the bar area.

Of course the paper came off in two layers.

The way our family room and kitchen flow together, I think I’m going to go ahead and paint them both the same color so that it looks like one big room instead of two rooms like the previous owners had it.

OH….so many choices and so little money!  I’ll keep you updated with photos as I go along.  Hopefully, we’ll finish up over the weekend.  Wish me luck!  : )

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