Organization is key

This summer was my favorite.  It was the first summer since having Lilli and Scarlett that I was able to really relax and enjoy the long days and nights.  When they were babies and toddlers the summers were harder because being a mom at home was tougher than being a teacher at school most days! But I guess the ages of 4 and 7 created the magic combination.  The girls slept in (or at least let ME sleep in!) and stayed up late.  We did crafts and went to the pool and played LOTS at home.  I won't lie, they spent too time on their IPads.  But it gave us all some sanity and that screen time has already dropped since we are back at school this fall.

The point of all of this is to say I finally accomplished some mini goals I have had around the house since we moved in almost 3 years ago.  I tried to really focus on organizing our spaces and making them more efficient.  I trashed tons of junk and sold the rest at yard sales.

I started in our kitchen with our craft closet.  I use this space for any of the painting, playdohing, magic sanding and coloring that the girls do in the kitchen.  Even though we have a playroom, I don't trust Scarlett upstairs with scissors.  We also use this space for some random paper goods like napkins and ziploc bags and batteries and party games. It was driving me crazy that it was all mixed together!

Just look at this hot mess of fun.

I had to take everything out first.  Needed to see what I was working with.

I immediately started questioning my life decisions.  And sent pictures to my friends as an SOS.  No one showed up.

I spy a little girl on an Ipad...otherwise every counter is covered in junk.

 I worked for a good hour trashing and organizing.  I pulled any items that I didn't want the girls to get into, like superglue and lighters.  How did we dodge a bullet thus far without Scarlett burning the house down I will never know.    I started in this closet because I knew that I had baskets and some cute containers on hand.  Because that's the most important thing, cute organizers.  Here is the finished closet! 

Surprisingly it still looks like this a month later!  The baskets up top have ugly stuff in them.

 

Pretend they say "create", "color" and "paint" because that is what they will once my girl Beth comes over and writes them in her pretty handwriting.  

What I noticed when cleaning out that closet was that I needed my own space for MY crafts.  Like sewing and painting with big girl paints.  Sometimes I get around to doing that.  So I moved to our cabinet by the fridge.  I found more goodies there.

Found some familiar names in here!

If it is hand written in Granny Margaret or my Granny's cookbooks, it is ALWAYS worth trying.

So many cookbooks.  And I don't even use them, I just look it up on pinterest.  Shame.

I pulled my pretty cookbooks out and put them on display in the island.  But now this has a section for all the letters and cards I never write and send.  And it has a place for my DSLR that I never get out and use.  

I wish it always looked like this, but unfortunately this is our "catch all" space. 

 A few days later I tackled the pantry!  I am embarrassed to admit I threw away food from 2012.  We didn't even live in this house in 2012.  It wasn't messy but it wasn't organized like I wanted it to be.  Fixed that!

Everything we eat is processed and packaged.  Don't hate.

After the pantry came the cleaning closet.  Also known as the closet under the stairs that we threw stuff in.  I had some brooms in there. And three vacuums.  For someone who hates cleaning floors I have lots of vacuum cleaners.  I had cleaning products all over the house and I wanted them all in one spot.

Blank space.  So I asked Jason to install a shelf and some hooks for me that I already had.  He is also going to install the light fixture.

 This one is my favorite space yet!

I just love it so very much.  We still have access to the space under the bottom half of the stairs.

The over the door organizer is also handy to use on vacation/cruise for your hair and beauty stuff where space is limited!

I also organized the girl's closets, but no pictures of that.  Jason loves efficiency so he was super excited to come home and find these spaces!!  I like feeling accomplished and crossing these projects off my list!

Painting outdoor cushions!

Several years ago I bought some cushions for my rocking chairs on my front porch.  The first year I brought them inside for the fall-spring to keep them safe.  The next year...notsomuch. I got lazy and just left them out all winter.  Then we moved to the farm and I put them on the rockers knowing that they were faded and not what I wanted anymore but that I would think about it later.

 

"Later" came this summer!  I did some searching on pinterest for ideas about how to revive old cushions.  These are not the chairs we use often.  We rarely sit on our front porch (not sure why, but we always go to the back deck) so I knew I didn't want to dump more money into them.  When I looked into recovering them (which my mom could easily do, she is very talented) I found that outdoor fabric (or anything thick for this purpose) was not cheap!  I would be better off to buy new ones.  But they were perfectly fine other than the fading, so I refused to replace them.

Enter...outdoor latex paint! Don't you just love pinterest!?  Jason says no.  But I say yes!  I found this blog 11magnolialane and thought, that seems easy enough!  I really liked that she was using a paint sprayer.  I have a friend that has a paint sprayer so I texted her and asked her if she liked it before I headed to Lowe's to check them out.  When she offered to let me try it for myself, I couldn't say no!  Thanks, Kala! ;o)

First I had to clean off the old ones.  I chose not to spray these off because I wanted to paint them ASAP, plus they were not super filthy.

Always a zoo on the farm!

So turns out I have what I have called DIY ADHD.  When I was thinking about painting the cushions, I knew I couldn't put them on my horribly chipped and chewed on chairs!  So I needed to sand and paint them, too. 

Then that led to me thinking about the pots next to the chairs - those were old and covered in white stuff.  Again, not something worth replacing, just not pretty any more.

We don't have lava rock yet, so ignore my landscaping!

 I headed to garage and found some spray paint that I thought would work perfectly!  Score!

Super easy and worth the little effort.  But why paint them up if they don't have anything pretty to show off?  So I needed to plant.  I already had some ferns inside my pots but wanted some more color.  I added impatiens and coleus.  I like to use a smaller pot inside to take up space but also help with drainage. 

This year I've turned into a soil snob!  I love using my composted horse manure.  It has aged at least 6 months and is the prettiest dirt you have ever seen.  I like to mix it in with my potting soil.  Josie only grazes in one small part of our field and she eats hay, so her manure is perfect for planting.  I do notice she seems to judge me when I'm scooping it up, though...

Once I planted those, it was time to start sanding.  I didn't take any pictures of that process.  But believe me, it is boring.  I used a hand held sander and sanding block.  Just to get the loose paint off the white chairs. I didn't intend to really perfect them.Wiped them down and got them read to be primed. 

 Look at my fancy painting area.  Yeah, right!  I sat up in the front yard like a true red neck.  What you can't see is my half naked child playing behind me.  But just know, she is there...

That IS a fancy paint spraying machine, though!

I used Kilz primer.  Because I had it on hand.  And you can't go wrong with Kilz.

I let the chairs and cushions dry for a few hours in the hot sun.  Thankfully it was (only!) about 88 on this day.  I gave them one coat of the white gloss paint and then let them dry overnight.

The paint sprayer is easy to use, but cleaning it MUST be thorough for it to work.  So lots of my time was spent doing that!

You can see this table is damage from water and the dogs. 

A few days later I finally got the time to paint the cushions black.  It took two coats after the white primer, but was an easy job.   I chose a basic outdoor paint from Lowes.  With the sprayer I used a 1:1 ratio of paint and water.  I sprayed thin coats and used a tiny brush in the creases of the cushions to make sure paint reached it all.  The heat helped them dry quickly! 

The texture of the dried paint is sort of stiff, but not awful.  Again, these are not cushions we use often.  I know some people have added stuff to the paint/water combo that has helped the softness factor.  I like that they can be sprayed off and the pet fur doesn't really stick to them.

Not perfect, but much better!

I had it my head that I wanted black and white wide stripe pillows.  Thought they would be easy to find.  Wrong!!  So I started searching for shower curtains or other types of fabric to use for pillows.  Found these thick reversible placemats at Bargain Hunt and knew they would be perfect!  13 dollars would get me 2 pillows. Score!  Mom sewed them for me on her machine.  She's so smart she did one side of each pattern on a pillow so I could change them up and have 2 of each pattern at a time.

I had some old pillows in the building that I cut open and stole the stuffing!  Again, using things I have on hand because I'm cheap.

I found the hot pink hydrangea at Lowes.

I still have work to do on the front entrance (possibly using paint gun again!) but for now I am very pleased with the project I finally completed!

Happy Summer!

It feels like I have just ran into a friend that I haven't seen in a very long time.  Do I catch up by telling stories from over a year ago?  Or just start from today and go forward?  I haven't decided!  Honestly I couldn't even remember the password to update this blog, that is how long it has been since my last post!  Whoops!  I fixed all of that, though, and changed the look of it.  Maybe that will motivate me to share more? 

I've spent all of tonight getting it changed so I will come back again with some updates.  First I want to make sure this looks like I think it should!