The Family Room

I've set out to reorganize my entire house.  I have no doubt this will take forever, but my goal has been/is to get through as much of it before Christmas as I reasonably can.  I started with our family room.  This is the room in which we spend 80% of our time, and therefore is the most difficult to keep clean and picked up.  I'm not a fan of "no toys in the living room" because my boys are so small that I'd rather have them playing in a space that I also like to hang out in.  Maybe when they get older we can have a rule that all toys stay in their rooms or the basement playroom, but for now, for us, it's just not feasible.

So instead I compromised.  I decided the only toys that would stay in the family room must fit in one of two places.  The way our family room is set up, we have a DVD cabinet that we no longer use for DVDs (because we stream all our media now; we don't even have a DVD player hooked up :P).  This has become a toy cabinet.  Our entertainment center also has a cabinet beneath the television that we use for larger toys.  If all the toys in that room can be put away in only one of those two places, then when the room is picked up it is all still organized and out of sight.

      

With the exception of one basket of books that sits under a coffee table, and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that sits in an unusable corner between the wall and the cabinet, ALL family room toys now fit in one of thes two places.  Of course, Mommy and Daddy's toys need a place, too. :) There is a small basket that sits on the shelf under the TV to hold the controllers, etc for the Nintendo and the Wii, and the top shelf houses the DVR and my Yankee Candle stuff that I like to burn in the holder on top of the cabinet.  FINALLY, everything that belongs in this room has a place!

I printed a list of toys (with pictures) that belong in the TV cabinet and taped it to the inside of the door.  This way, when the boys (or daddy :P) are putting toys away, they will know that if the toy doesn't appear on that list, it doesn't belong in the family room.

The toy cabinet got a set of new baskets, all of which I found at the Dollar Tree.  I have to hunt around for baskets to fit this cabinet, as I have plenty of height and length, but only about 7" of depth to work with. The toys that don't fit in the baskets got labels with my trusty label maker :) on the shelf itself.  For the tags on the baskets, I printed pictures and words on DIY business cards.  I used a hole punch and some curling ribbon to tie them to the baskets.

     

And you see the two baskets on the top shelf that don't have labels?  Well, the boys don't know it yet, but I have labels printed and ready to go for those, too - for the Phineas and Ferb and Special Agent Oso figures they'll be getting from Mommy and Daddy for Christmas. ;)

Now, instead of toy cleanup taking 30 mins at night, it takes less than 5 - a VAST improvement!  The only problem I have is that now I just want to hang out in this room and enjoy the zen instead of tackling the chaos of the rest of my house. ;)

Celebrating the Purple

I've recently decided to reorganize my entire house room-by-room.  This is no small undertaking, as we seem to have somehow accumulated more things than any family of five should ever need to have, especially when three of them aren't even in grade school yet.  I'd hate to see what it would look like if we were actually pack-rats!  As such, I find myself wanting a place to post my thoughts, ideas, projects, and various other musings about organization, my boys, and life in general.  Since I am very much the pink (purple :P) in a vast sea of blue, I decided to start a blog dedicated to all things feminine, where I can post anything I want - even if it's not related to trucks or Star Wars. :)  This is why my blog was born.  Either that, or it's because my compulsive need to chart, catalog, and list things is taking over again.


If you're reading this then you probably already know me, but if not, I should offer some background.  I'm a Christian woman and mother of three wonderfully rambunctious boys.  The normal chaos involved in raising boys is only accentuated in our house by the fact that they are all currently 4 yrs old and younger. :)  My husband is, quite simply, the love of my life and my perfect soul mate in every sense of the word.  He's also a self-proclaimed "over-grown 4 yr old".   Our life is good and chaotic and I try my best just to savor each bit of craziness and not let it all pass me by, while simultaneously striving to keep at least a tiny bit of my sanity intact.  Some days I'm much more successful at this than others.

I've been very blessed to be able to be home each day with my children while they are little, and my husband E works full time as an Electrical Engineer (no, not an electrician.  He gets mad if you say that :P).  However, I'm far from a "stay-at-home" mom.  I work part time as a Data Analyst, help at our oldest son's preschool, serve on our neighborhood association, and help out at our church as much as I can.  You know, in addition to all the grocery shopping, laundry, house cleaning, refereeing, cooking, dishes, etc that goes along with normal daily life.  I also love to sew and craft and tend to offer help freely to others (much to E's chagrin when I promise assistance too many directions at once and stress myself out).  I have a small (very small :P) side business where I sell things I make and I run two other websites.  I tend to stay busy. :)
 
But on top of all this, I still decided to start yet one more project - this blog.  Maybe I'll stick with it, maybe not.  But I DO like the idea of an outlet for my feminine interests and topics.  Because let's face it, E and my boys couldn't care less if the toy baskets are labeled or how cute my latest sewing project came out.  I ADORE being the mom of boys, but it might be nice to have a place to remember that I AM actually a girl now and then. :)