Wednesday, we talked about “Big Betsy” and that fun process. One of my favorites thus far by the way.

Today I wanna talk about the seemingly eternal process of organization… I love organization but I hate the “it gets worse before it gets better” truth!

Today I'm going to share the four general areas of organization in our living room that keep it functional and uncluttered while storing sooooo much!

1. Blankets

• After getting rid of our giant coffee tables, I was very aware of just how many throws we have. Don’t get me wrong, we prefer to keep our house cool year-round and not all of guests are cool with that so it’s convenient to have lots of choice for our frigded friends. I chose to get rid of several, store some in the newly emptied guest closet, one on the back of the couch and others folded and stacked under our up-cycled end tables.

2. Movies/Entertainment Center

• Our awesome entertainment center, the only piece we bought when we got married we haven’t gotten rid of, has crazy amounts of storage. The only reason I haven’t replaced it. It has these really cool drawer door things that slide out with shelves upon shelves for movies. They are large enough for VHS or DVDs. We have gotten rid of all our VHS but have tons of movies and TV series because we don’t have TV in our house.
• One drawer is full of nothing but grown-up movies organized by rating. The more grown-up rating the higher the shelf. The opposite door it full of our TV series.
• The 2 bottom drawers are full of kids appropriate movies {which are taking over and may likely needed on of the larger drawers after Christmas this year}. We placed them down low for easy kid access.
• We removed the top part of the TV console door so we could keep our DVD player open to the remote as well as open to replacing movies easily without having to open and close the glass doors all the time.
• The glass door storage are just full of more decorative items like picture frames {imagine that} and scrapbooks.

3. Games

• This hall linen closet works great for our stockpile of games. Having everyone’s extra bedding in the room it goes with as well as only enough towels that would neatly store under the cabinets in the each bathroom saved us this closet for just such storage.
• We organized these similar to our moives. The more mature the game the higher the shelf. I also stacked them for easy access otherwise no one would want to play a game much less put it back wehre they go it.
• Things like cards or card games went into a big ben on the floor. Theres not way those jokers were going to stay on the slotted wire shelving.
• We also have an upcycled wipe container for “Missing Pieces” because, let’s be honest, there are always random dice, cards, or figures/paws for random games. When you get that game out next time, you’ll know exactly where to look for that missing piece.

• 4. Craft Supplies
• This was the biggest organization undertaking in the living room.
• "My name is Julie and I am a craft crap hoarder." I know its illogical but you never know when you’re going to need 10+ round cardboard pieces from frozen pizzas for making…something. If it helps any, this was at Least 8 years of collecting that was unorganized so I had no real count on the amount of craftiness I had stocked up- hence the nearly 30 glue sticks. {blush}
• You can see the pictures above of how I ended up breaking down and sorting our craft tools and supplies.

Organization {basically}: sorting into like things.

I hope you enjoyed today's peak into our living room organization! See ya next week for "eating spaces" {i.e. dinning room and kitchen}!

find other post in this series HERE

When we moved into this new home, I wanted to get rid of all of our old furniture. We’ve had our furniture for almost a decade. We got them when we were first married. They’ve been loved on through our first 3 kids and although they are still small, I wanted to sell these pieces before they weren’t worth anything 😉
My hubs was okay with this until I sold them all so quickly we were sitting on lawn chairs. Among the fun transition time, I found “Big Betsy” on an online garage sale. I thought it was a pretty good deal until I sent my hubby and his buddy to retrieve my find and they returned with the clunker including but not limited to a handle missing, another handle that looked like they got it off the bottom of the ocean from the titanic, and 2 bullet holes. YEP. You read that right. GUNSHOT HOLES.

First, I ask Matt if the wife seemed…okay. Any bruises etc. lol She was said to be in ‘good condition’. After my concern for her well-being, I ask if he requested a discount after discovering its condition. Like a good hubby, he didn’t question my agreed upon purchase price and simply handed over the cash and heaved this amazingly heavy solid wood junker into the back of a truck and brought her home to me. She sat in the garage for a week until we were completely moved and I had a lil time to love on her. I laughed every time I saw her. I wish I’d gotten better before pictures for you.

When I finally got started, the process didn’t really take that long. About two days with the assistance of a painting pro friend, my handy hoss husband and a rain delay.

• I removed all the handles and soaked them in a white vinegar and backing soda mixture in the sink overnight. I don’t think that much time was necessary…I just forgot about them.
  
• I removed all the drawers and wiped them down Really Well. Gross.
• I taped off the drawers so only the fronts were exposed. I did this for a couple reasons: I thought other people projects looked cool with some of the original wood showing and it would take less paint. 😉
• My friend and I toted all the drawers into the back yard onto a giant plastic drop cloth we had left from painting the kids rooms. We had to place logs on the corners of the plastic to make sure they wouldn’t blow around as well as place logs inside the drawers slightly so they would stay face-up for easy painting. This literally took less than 30 minutes. Read HERE for my silly non-pro tips for spray-painting.
• When I realized this project was trucking right along, I hurried into the garage to glob some wood puddy into the big gun hole that went through the middle of the left side, through a drawer, and out the back. I only filled the giant side hole and left the drawer, back, and smaller side gunshot hole.
• After I remembered the handles the next day, I hook a magic eraser and very easily wiped each handle off as best as I could. They cleaned up pretty nicely. I considered saving myself the paint cost and leaving them this color…
  
• until the titanic handle refused to come as clean as the rest of them.
  
• I took all my newly clean handles into the backyard on broken down cardboard boxes and spray painted them white.
  
• I chose to start with the backs an only did a light coat.
• My hubby was getting ready to head to his office so ask him to through the same plastic drop cloth over his dad’s dolly and but the bones of “Big Betsy” onto the dolly. He was a bit skeptical but this way my pregnant-self could roll it out of the garage, into the driveway and back in if it started to rain or if it was taking too long and I didn’t want to be THAT neighbor.
• I used my amazing palm sander to tackle the top of the bones where it looked like someone had taken a very angry, not-declawed cat by the torso and drug it up and down the center of the dresser to add precious claw marks deep into the top. Sweet huh? I chose not to fill it with the wood puddy simply because I’m lazy and impatient. Using the puddy on the gunshot hole was the first time I’d ever used the stuff and wasn’t confident my mad skills would work as well on the TOP of this piece.
• While the dust settled, I returned to the backyard where I flipped all my handles over so the fronts were showing. I also flipped the handle piece up as if they were hanging upside down on the dresser. I put a thin coat while they were in this position
• Going through the house feeling like a traveling crazy, I went back to the bones in the front yard and washed her down really well with hot water, rolled her into the side yard, took a deep breath, and then started spraying. It took about 3 cans of my fancy dancy gray paint to cover her. Again, if I wasn’t impacient, I would have gone to buy one more can for that extra coat…but I didn’t.
  
• Did I mention it sprinkled for 1/2 a second while I wasn't in the front yard? Yeah...
  
• Making the treck again, I went back to the handles and flipped the handle pieced downward in their natural hanging position. I did that so my final top coats of paint where on the side that would be showing 99% of the time.I let the handles dry for about 45 minutes- an hour. It was super hot outside so it didn’t take long with them basting in the sun. While they were drying I distressed the drawers and wiped them down.
  
• While the bones dried for hours while my husband and I put all the handles back on.
• When the bones were dry I distressed it, wiped it down, and the hubs toted inside the house for me. Adding the drawers felt like such a success!
  
• The last think I did before loading her down with my craft supplies was add that foam-ish shelf/drawer liner to each drawer. Not all of them cleaned up perfectly and this would keep things in place as we opened and closed the drawers so often.
  

I love the end product!!! I originally thought I would put board games in “Big Betsy” but after discovering her quirks I also realized the drawers were extremely shallow. Each one might have held a single board game box. After much thought, I decided to swap the “craft closet” and what I thought would be the “gaming shelf”. I love the swap. It works so much better. Tomorrow I’ll share with you my embracing confession of craft crap hoarding and all things organization in our living room. Those include the throw blankets, movies, games, and craft supply storage.

find other post in this series HERE

In our world today, many times Christians are encouraged NOT to settle down. I hear it even more so in or about ministry. "As pastors, you are never settles. Never in one place for long. Always on the move." To some extent I totally agree. As Christians, not just pastors & family, we are to be willing to follow God's will even when that means a physical move. Location should always be determined by God's plan for your life at the time. How He wants to use you in a specific season of life. WHERE He sees fit for you to be for the most growth in you.

Sadly, when we finally started moving our essentials into our new home, my youngest daughter kept asking when we were going "home". My oldest daughter nervously ask if we could "never move again" because she was "tired of moving in circles". I felt their pain and confusion. Although I wanted to promise my littles that we had found our forever home, I couldn't. I did reassure them that this is our home & do not plan on but moving. BUT as a follower of Jesus Christ, I always had to keep my heart and ears open for if and when God was leading us somewhere else.

Every time the hubs and I move, we plan to stay. After our first move as a married couple, we were there 5 years. That may not sound like long but regretfully, for ministry families {especially youth pastors} that was eternal. We started our lives there together. We bought our first home there. We started our family there. But, God ask us to be willing to give up that comfort and head out to be apart of His grand plan somewhere else.

We've talked a lot about not wanting to move again. How our 5 and 3.5 year old have lived in 4 different houses. Our 2.5 year old has now lived in 3 different houses. Our prayer this time? Our prayer is that of Jeremiah's word from God for those carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

"Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." -Jeremiah 29:5-7

As I begin this Settled In September series, I want you to keep all this in mind. With conflicted hearts after "settling in" to our Big Blue house and moving after only 2 years, it brings joy and anxiety to settle down again. Fear of moving. Excitement over a forever home, neighborhood, community, friends, and a growing church family. This month, I want to show how my family is trying to settle as quickly as possible so we can get on to the seek the peace and prosperity {doing life with} of the city to which God has carried us!

All the posts in this series HERE