Spin Spin Sugar

The Sneaker Pimps are pretty much the soundtrack to me doing laundry.  Every time I look at the spin cycle on the dial, I can't help but bust out some awesome 90's club music

                             

As we were painting the kitchen, we decided to just go ahead and paint the mudroom the same color as well.  The mudroom is an addition right off the rear of the house, and can be clearly seen as you walk into the kitchen.  I really just wanted all of that hideous green gone from my life.

The only 'before' picture I have of this space is on our House Tour page, and it was before we picked up our washer and dry, but let me paint you a visual of this room:  there is a washer.  and a dryer.  And a bunch of shit (cleaning supplies, paper towels, trash bags) shoved between the wall and the washer.  Since it is the main thoroughfare to the backyard, I needed that stuff hidden.

We desperately needed more storage in this room, and I had this great idea of using Billy bookshelves on either side for storage with a shelf above.  I even spent time mocking something up in Photoshop to aid in my presentation

When I presented my idea, JEGs was all "We can't do that" and I was all "Says you, dream killer" and he was all "No, seriously, we can't do that.  The floors are so uneven that the bookshelves would tip in".

 ..and I was all "Dammit, we can't do that".

We decided that no matter what, we needed to level out the washer and dryer.  The center of the mudroom its its lowest point, so anytime I opened the dryer door, it would swing closed again.  It damn near gave me fits everytime I had to flip the laundry.  In order to level the washer and dryer, JEGs  had to adjust the four feet on the bottoms of the units.   He did that by simply screwing the feet to their highest point, and adjusting them from there until they were all level

 Since the feet are hard plastic and the tile is slippery, he cut out non-skid padding so that the dryer wouldn't walk with a heavy load in it. 

JEGs agreed that we needed to add some sort of storage in this room, so he made his own mock up.




..have I ever mentioned he is a draftsmen by trade?  Yeah.  A little nicer then my shoddy Photoshop picture.

Anyway, so JEGs sends me this picture and after some consideration, we decide that it would probably be better to have the lower cabinet between the washer and dryer.  Since we can't just verbally agree on something, JEGs made another mock up.

Show off.

We started stalking Craigslist and found some amazing deals.  First off, we got a bottom cabinet for $10 (similar new ones from Lowes are nearly $175!)  It was so cheap because it didn't have a top, and it didn't have any hardware, but we knew we could easily fix that.

                                    
We stopped at IKEA and looked around in the old faithful AS IS section and found a piece of wood that fit the width of the cabinet perfectly for $2.99.  It was too long, but we figured that the leftovers could be for the shelf next to the upper cabinets in the mock up.  Knowing there would be an unfinished edge after JEGs made the cuts, I snagged a sample size of Valspar's Dove White (an almost identical match to IKEA white) for any touch ups needed.

I desperately wanted upper cabinets that matched the beveled look of the bottom cabinet, but we couldn't find any that were A. affordable, or B. wasn't an entire kitchen set.  JEGs found a set on Craigslist for $45 that matched our needs perfectly, but were flat paneled.  I fought him hardcore because I didn't think they were pretty enough.

Yes, I am that vain.  I will balk at cabinets that are not pretty enough.

I eventually came to my senses and JEGs snagged them.

When it all came together, this is what we had:

You may notice there is an extra shelf above the washer and dryer that was not in the original plan.  This is because as JEGs was bringing the top to the lower cabinet up from the basement, he dropped it and it split.  So another run to the IKEA as is section and another $2.99, we had a new top and extra shelving to play with.  That, my friends, is lemonade from lemons.

JEGs was able to notch in the shelf so it sat flush with the wall and the window sill, and the cabinet didn't over hang-- unlike my brilliant Billy Bookshelf idea would have.

The shelf next to the upper cabinets holds laundry detergent, bleach and the basket holds all our winter gear (hats, gloves, scarves, etc).  Since we don't have a coat closet in the house, the hanging bar is a perfect place to hang our coats and store Hunter's stroller below.

                         
I would like to get some sort of hook to hang the ironing board and iron on the wall, but it just has happened yet.  Eventually.

The frame is hiding the washer and dryer hook ups because I thought they were ugly.  I haven't set on what I'm going to put in there yet, but I promise it won't be sideways ballerinas.  It will be something a little more laundry appropriate.

Remember all that shit that I said was sitting on the floor between the washer and the wall?  Well now it is stored away in cabinets.  And I love it.

In an attempt to bring the two set together (and to make the cabinets seems less garage-like), we replaced the hardware with 3 inch satin nickle pulls and the matching knob.

Total cost breakdown:
Wall paint-  Free (already had)
Curtains-  free (made from fabric I already had)
Shelving paint- $3
Upper cabinets- $45
Lower cabinets-$10
Selving- $6.33
Brackets (for shelves)- $3.88
Hanging bar- $8.98
Hardware- $12.82

Total: $90.01

For under $100 we transformed that horrid green box of hot mess, into a tidy and pretty laundry room that I am not ashamed to have people walk through.

Always & Forever,
  ME

Office Space

A couple weeks ago, JEGs and I took this sweet little baby home with us:


It's the Canon i560 Printer/Scanner/Copier/Photo Printer.

Oooooo. Sexxay. And BIG.

So big that the only place we could put it was on the bookshelf in the Great Room. This, of course, spurred my inner design diva and decided to make an office area.

Now, I don't know if I've stressed this enough, but Falconhead is only a mere 900 square feet. Space is very precious to us and if there is anyway we can better utilize dead space, we will figure out a way. Also, JEGs and I both have laptops, so we have no need for a desk. This, in turn, made it hard to designate any area as our 'office'. We had everything scattered all over the apartment. Pens were over here, hole punch over there, it was an [organized] mess.

Enter, stage left, the bookcase in the boudior.

This bookcase is identical to the one in the great room, but just a different color. I bought one when I lived in an apartment for a TV stand in my bedroom, and JEGs liked the idea so much he bought the same thing for his apartment. When we moved in together, we had two.

The bookcase in the bedroom had become a catch-all for useless electronics. There was a DVD player that wasn't hooked up, a VCR, a bunch of random cables, four towers of burnable DVDs and a binder with guitar tabs.

I was over it.

One afternoon, I decided to move all the books from the Great Room and put them in the boudior..

..and after a quick trip to Michaels (complete with 40% off coupon in hand) I created a little area to store all of our office-like needs.

I got these great bins in two different sizes- a two larger bins for printer paper and bigger items (such as a hole punch) and two smaller bins designated for pens and staplers. They are super sturdy, and I love that the texture mimics the fabric on the couch.

I quickly typed up labels on the computer, added a little cardstock, and popped them on each bin for easy identification.

It is so nice to have everything in one, central place now.

Share with me, friends and follwers, where is your office area? Do you have a designated room or are pens shoved into whatever drawer is closest?

Always & Forever,

ME

Jewelry Board

While we were getting nailed with snow over the weekend, I decided to kill some time by organizing the baubles in my closet.

I saw this great idea featured at Young House Love and thought, that is so easy! I could do that!

So I decided to attack this mess:

When we first moved in this was the best place to keep my necklaces from a jumbled mess, but it was kind of a pain to get to the purses behind it and I had to keep clipping the necklaces back together everytime I took them off. I know, I know... I lead a rough life.
After about an hours worth of work, I ended up with this:

All I did was grab a corkboard and cover it with fabric bought at Walmart. I then added some screw cup hooks to hang the necklaces from and strung the ribbon above it for my dangy earrings.

It had made my life so much easier when I am getting dressed. I don't have to rummage through my jewelry box looking for my earrings anymore!

Cost breakdown:

Corkboard: Free (already had it)

Fabric: $3.17 for a yard and a half (I didn't use all of it. I plan on using the rest of another project)

Ribbon: Free. (I was a cheer coach, I am trained to have white ribbon in reach at all times.)

Hooks: $.99 for 8

Total: $4.16

BAM. How you like me now?

I'm still debating if I want to paint the frame of the corkboard. I'm kinda digging the original wood. What are your thoughts? Paint or not to paint- that is the question.

Always & Forever,

ME

Top Shelf

By the end of this post you are going to be amazed by my organizational skills, or think I'm a complete dorkus.

..I'm leaning towards the latter. Just a heads up.

About a two months ago when I reorganized the kitchen I made the laundry nook go from this:

to this:

and was quite proud of myself. :::pats self on back::: Good job, LB.. way to organize a full shelf.
What I didn't show you was what was lurking on the floor next to the washer.
Of course we forgot to take a 'before' picture, but trust me all this

was jam packed in there. It was a holy mess.

 

So on Saturday when I came home from a cheer clinic, JEGs had a surprise for me: he was going to install ClosetMaid in the laundry nook!

JEGs has a relationship with ClosetMaid. And I don't mean casual drinks-and-the-occasional-nookie relationship, I mean full on If-I-didn't-give-LB-a-ring-first kind of relationship. It started when he was living in his first bachelor pad in the Dub C. He didn't have enough closet space so he added more shelves for his t-shirts in his closet. When we moved into Falconhead, we had ZERO storage, and I had a lot of crap. So he did his ClosetMaid magic in our walk-in and doubled our storage space (which can be seen here and here).

I have to admitt, their website is pretty cool. You can design a space in 3D and then the website gives you an exact list of every nut, bolt and screw you need. So JEGs jotted down what we needed and we headed out to Home Depot.

JEGs started off simply by adding another self above the existing self

and wrapped it all the way around. From there he added four shelves down the wall for extra storage.

Go ahead and drool if you need to. It's pretty amazing

All wiped up? Ok, let's take a closer look...

On the shelf that was already there we kept things that I access on a weekly basis; cleaning supplies (all gathered in the basket) and laundry detergent positioned directly above the washer so I can pour my cocktail of washing suds

The new shelf above that has things we really won't need that often, such as Christmas decorations, our excessive amounts of Qtips and the extra paper towel holder

The other side holds all our painting supplies, the grooviest ice bucket you'll ever see and extra plastic cups for all of our frat parties social gatherings

Right now you are thinking, 'Wow LB.. you, um... have quite a collection of paper products...'
I promise you we don't have regular bouts with diarrhea. We bought in bulk for OBX and are still living off what we brought back. So for that reason, we have an entire shelf dedicated for all things paper

On the third shelf is our impressive Tupperware collection. When I orginally put them in the drawer I must have had a multitude of dirty ones in the sink, because we could not get them to fit anymore. Now there is plenty of room for them and they can hang out with our trash bag (which we also buy in bulk)

The fourth shelf has NOTHING! We figured perhaps we can store some electronics there like the coffee maker and toaster, to make more room on the counter. Or we can use this as dry storage so JEGs doesn't have to lay on the floor to retrieve the spaghetti out of the cabinet next to the sink. For right now we are leaving it empty to decided what works for us best.

Last but not least our broom and Swiffer are up off the floor.

The end result? A perfectly organized laundry nook- and a fiance who gets giddy everytime she opens the doors to do laundry.

... and that, my friends, is worth JEGs' weight in gold.

Always & Forever,

ME

How Very Kitchy!

It is amazing what can come of two pitchers and a cup of [very strong] coffee.

When we got back from OBX, I began unpacking our stuff from the trip. Among our items where these
Innocent enough, but... I had no place to put them.

I came from an apartment with very little cabinet space and a roommate with more snacks and cereal boxes than the Navy has ships (love ya J Dizzle!) So when we moved into this:

I was in heaven.

Funny thing is, two months later it looks like this:

Packed.

I knew I wanted to put them in the cabinet above the stove, but that was already full. After sitting and staring at the open cabinets for 20 minutes I suddenly remembered I had an empty drawer!

Hmm. Now how do I get 1 + 1 to equal 2???

I had been storing my Tupperware with the pots and pans

Talk about a nightmare! Everytime we need something to store our leftover cuisine, we were ambushed by lids and other plastic debris! I figured I could move the Tupperware over to the empty drawer and that opened up space with the pots and pans, and saved JEGs and I from getting attacked every night.

Like killing two birds with one stone!

Now that there was space down below, I had two casserole dishes on the very top shelf with the glasses. I switched those down with the pots and pans…

…and now there was room in with the glasses. It just so happens that the cabinet above the stove had some of JEGs’ pint glasses and a few of my pimp cups (cause that’s how I roll). I moved those over once …

..and voila! Now there is room to put the pitchers where I wanted them to be.

[I totally had a picture of the cabinet, but I accidently deleted it and it is too much of a pain in the ass to put the picture back up. But you get the idea]

Genius, right? I know. I should plan stuff for the military, or something.

While I was on a roll I organized our junk drawer

Before:

After:

The moral of this story? Trish Suhr ain't got nothin' on me.

Always & Forever,

ME

*and yes, I'm totally procrastinating from posting about OBX.