how to make "white space" happen

So, i'm sure you remember my chaotic "before" picture of this school room shelf? Well, as i mentioned earlier, i had previously tried to organize it by getting several plastic containers AND putting labels on them. Buuuuuut, it still looked messy and disorganized. THEN my friend mentioned the whole "white space" idea and i instantly knew that my clear plastic bins were the problem. However, i had just spent money on them and besides, sturdy, plastic, solid white containers are not to be had in my neck of the woods. I did found some online at IKEA and The Container Store, but those were inconvenient and more expensive than the walmart sterilite bins i already had.

So, what did i do with this clear plastic problem of mine??

Well,  I bought a couple cans of Krylon FUSION spray paint for plastic. It took about 2 coats, and i only did 3 sides on most of the containers to save on paint. But in the end, the fronts and sides were nice and opaque.

 Cool, right?!  i will admit that it can rub/chip off just a bit, but it gave me the white space that i needed and in a hurry and will do just fine until i decide to replace them. (IKEA did just move an hour away from me!!!)
Oh, and just fyi, the green crates are from Target this season. They were about $3.50 a piece.

There you have it, now you can make white space happen too. :-)


linking to

Book Storage System

I'm here to share a little system that i {HOPE} will preserve my sanity and maybe yours too.
The kid books in the playroom have always been a source of irritation. No matter how many bins i put on the shelf to keep them standing up right, or how many times i tried to organize them into different categories etc, they ALWAYS ended up in a disorganized, half stacked, mostly stuffed-in-bins heap. Plus i could never find the right book at the right time. NOW, they all happily reside in color coded bins according to theme with matching labels on the spines. Here's how:

*Organize your books into as many categories as you want or have room for.
*Buy that # of clear plastic bins and sticky labels (1x3inch)
*Spray paint in the same # of colors.

 *Spray paint the labels. Some colors took a couple coats to get a good coverage

*Since some of my books were extremely thin i realized i could cut the page of labels into halves or smaller 

Here's one of my piles. These happens to be the non-fiction/science-related pile and since i had so many i went ahead and gave them two bins

*Wrap the label on the spine. i chose to wrap it close to the top so the kids would notice more easily.

*I might end up wrapping a small piece of clear shipping tape over the label to better secure it, but so far they seem to be sticking really well.

Ta-Da! Now, i can confidently say, "Go put the books away" and know that they should be able to do it neatly and quickly every time! Sanity restored! .....at least in this one area! :)

p.s. in case you are curious, here's the list of my bin categories:
orange: non-fiction/learning books
yellow: fiction: read-aloud/early reader type books
dark blue: poetry/rhyme books
light blue: board books
green: children's bible-related books


linking to A bowl full of lemons and SerenityYou

school/play/craft room panic

So, i was walking in Target today and had a mini panic attack when i turned a corner towards the back of the store and realized i had just entered School Supply World.  I have always felt a twinge of anxiety when school supplies show up in all the stores towards the end of july. Even when i was little, i felt annoyed that the stores were stealing my last few weeks of summer...the same way i feel when i see Christmas decor in Hobby Lobby by August....grrrr.

 Anyway, today the anxiety was because i promised myself i wouldn't buy the fun stuff like markers, crayons, paper, glue, notebooks etc. until my school/play/craft room is ready for September- aka KINDERGARTEN! And boy, is it a LONG way from ready.  For the record, i know we could start kindergarten on our kitchen table [and that's probably where we'll end up eventually] but for me, and my mental state, its very important to have our school space official and organized before we start our first year. So, right now i'm making lists, collecting paint chips, sorting through junk, moving furniture and hoping to start making some real progress soon. In the meantime i thought i'd share some inspiration photos. The color in these just makes me happy. :)

{pioneer woman}

{anthropology}

{land of nod}

{thehandmadehome.net}

{http://megduerksen.typepad.com/whatever/}

And just to keep it really real, here's a photo taken of our school room a few months ago. I'm happy to report it hasn't looked this bad since this pic was taken. yikes. Stay in touch. i'll keep ya updated.

house paint continues...

Well, i'm happy to say that the bulk of the house has been painted. All that is left is the trim and a few touch-ups here and there. However, i'm going to wait to show you what color we chose until after the trim is finished. For now, here's how it looked last week. We first primed the brick using Zinser latex Primer (not the oil-based version that we often use on stained furniture) I primed the dark bricks first so that they would get two coats. This worked well when we painted our fireplace bricks inside See Here for pics.

Our house was speckled like this for a better part of the week, which garnered several comments from the retired neighbors that surround our house and other On-lookers.  Here are two of my favorites.
1) Neighbor: "So, what are you doing with the brick?" Us:"Well, we're going to paint it. "
Neighbor: "Where did you get that idea?" hmmm.
2) Me: "i just finished priming all the dark bricks! now we're ready for a full coat." On-looker: "Oh, i thought maybe you were trying to insulate certain bricks or something." WHAT!!??   :)

This picture shows the patchwork of colors we were trying out.  Paint is just plain tricky we decided.

Once again, here's our "before" We affectionately called the old color "swine".  SO happy its gone.

House Painting pt 1

An update on our house painting/painted brick post - yes, we're going to paint the house, brick and all . It's now a matter of just getting it all ready to go :-)

I really have no idea how soon we'll finish this project. I got a good start when I got an entire week off, enabling me spend some dedicated time on paint prep. I figure that if I do the prep part well enough, I'll save time when I actually get around to painting. 

Or till we finalize the new colors. 

Here is what I've done so far:

Step 1. Remove/replace damaged siding, trim or any other "house parts"

we had one rotted trim section, a few damaged siding boards, and some old siding corners

here you get a good idea of the nice pink undertones of our current paint color.

the result of sloppy lawn mowing :-)

Our font porch railing had rotted out after 30
years so it got removed as well.
 So great to have some quality help!

 Stay tuned for new shutter design ideas,
but for now the old shutters are gone for good.

Here we are, half way through the process: