Organizing Archives - Page 8 of 14

Shelf Tutorial & Pantry Organization {Settled In September}

September 11, 2013 by Jules 3 Comments

I love having a pantry! A place designated for something. And of all things- FoOd!

I've been blessed with a pantry in all our houses {even the 1200 sq ft one}. This is the smallest pantry I've ever had but I am not complaining. When we moved in, the pantry had great thick wire shelving. It was installed so even, level, and secure. The only downer? I use canned food. Lots of them! That, and stuff kept falling through the slats.

These poor shelves were buckling under the weight of my "can shelf". So, my sweet hubs did yet another perk project for me; I mean really, this wasn't necessary but I love how it turned out.

Taking the old shelves down was possibly the hardest part of the task. They were anchored into the wall in at least 3 places.

After removing the shelves {which will be used in the kids closets 😉 }, Matt measured how long and wide the old shelves were and then added a couple inches to the depth so I would have just a lil more space in this closet.

He used a saw and cut plywood the rectangle size of the 4 shelves and 1 bys for the braces he would use to anchor the shelves to the wall.

Thankfully, we had all these awesome tools at our house BORROWED from friends.

After painting each piece, Matt anchored the small boards on both sides and then used a nail gun to secure the shelves to the braces.

There ya go! Sturdy wooden pantry shelves!

As for our simple pantry organization:

find other post in this series HERE

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Cleaning, Home Tour, Homemaker, Organizing, Projects, Settled In September, The Ones about Post Series, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Eating Spaces: Organizing Kitchen Cabinets {Settled In September}

September 10, 2013 by Jules 2 Comments

Today, I wanna show you around our kitchen. This was possibly The first room we had set up and organized. The kitchen is most often the center of the home. It keeps the family fed, energized, and running. Its also the forerunner in hospitality. Wither that's serving a simple drink, a snack, a full fledged meal, or simple conversation over clean-up- the kitchen, although overlooked in the organizational department, can function with so much more ease if de-cluttered and organized.

Here is a simple layout of our kitchen. Its not huge but its definitely not tiny. I love the basic layout and it has plenty of storage for everything we could possibly need. I've labeled all the cabinets and drawers and then I'll have pictures of the insides of each of those below. This layout is so you can visualize where each cabinet/drawer is in relation to the staples of the kitchen: sink/dishwasher, oven/microwave, and refrigerator. I've also tried to give you an idea of where things are located in relation to other rooms so you can understand my logic in its placement.

Starting on the top row of cabinets, working left to right:

Medicine Cabinet {click for this image withOut labels}

Glassware Cabinet

Serving Dishes Cabinet

Storage Container Cabinet {click here for this image withOut labels}

Baking Cabinet {click here for this image withOut labels}

Cookbook Cabinet {click for this image withOut labels}

Plastic Serving Dishes Cabinet

Starting with the drawers from left to right:

Silverware & Empty for Baby Items Drawers{click here for this image withOut labels}

Cleaning Towel Drawer

Hand Towel Drawer

Knife & Often Used Utensil Drawer {click here this image withOut labeles}

Less Used Utensils

Starting with the lower cabeinets, working left to right and ending with the bottom 2 {of 3} drawers between the oven and fridge

Plates, Bowls, and Cups Cabinet {click here for this image withOut labels}

Pitcher Cabinet

Cleaning Supplies Cabinet

Paper Goods Cabinet {click here for this image withOut labels}

Pan Cabinet {click here for this image withOut labels}

{Frying} Pans and Lids Drawer

Pots Drawer

Moving to the other side of the kitchen past the laundry door and pantry is the "buffet".

Starting with the drawers, left to right:

Baking Tools Drawers {click here for this image withOut labels}

Random Drawers

Starting with the lower cabinets, left to right:

Snack Cabinet

My "Monica's Closet" Cabinet {click here for this terribly nasty image withOut the labeled excuses}

That's our kitchen...I didn't give much description of these images but I'd love to answer any questions you have about them. I didn't want to bore those who just wanted to see. Thanks for coming by!

find other post in this series HERE

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Cleaning, Decorating, Home Tour, Homemaker, Organizing, Projects, Settled In September, The Ones about Post Series, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Living Room: Organization {Settled In September}

September 6, 2013 by Jules 2 Comments

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!

Organization Gets Always Gets Worse Before it Gets Better 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

Filed Under: Cleaning, Decorating, Homemaker, Organizing, Projects, Settled In September, The Ones about Post Series, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Living Room: “Big Betsy” {Settle In September}

September 4, 2013 by Jules Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under: Cleaning, Decorating, Homemaker, Organizing, Projects, Settled In September, The Ones about Post Series, The ones about the Rothacher Home

1st Day of Rothacher Academy {2013}

September 3, 2013 by Jules Leave a Comment

I'm tired. But not as tired as I expected to be today. I'll equate that to not being on social media until now and feeling lots better in the sinus department. I have always been curious about what different people's homeschool day looks like so today I wanna share a timeline of what our day basically looked like.

1st School Day of Rothacher Academy {2013/14}:

6:45 I got up {with an alarm 🙁 1st time in years other than Sundays} and shower

7:00 Girls show up in my bathroom bright-eyed. They had already made their beds, put PJs at the end of the bed for a second night of wearing, and dressed head to toe in their "first day outfits" we took separate special mom-daughter shopping dates to pick out.

7:10 I put biscuits in the over and finished getting dressed and drying hair while the girl went to brush teeth and hair.

7:20 The girls returned and got their "chore assignments" for the morning: put away dishes and move wet laundry to the drier and start it.

7:30 We all ate breakfast and finished chores. I had to write my fun HIPPY request for acceptance before our meeting.

8:00 The girls played with computers until everyone was finished {mainly me and my letter} then we finished putting up hair and took 1st Day of School Pics

PreK-3

8:15 We cleaned up toys and headed into the school room to do the rest of our 'morning routine': calendar, season, weather, chore credits, and talk about our routine {combination of our old morning routine and chore chart} for the rest of the day.

8:30 Finished cleaning up breakfast, loading the dishwasher, grabbed shoes and items we would need for our HIPPY meeting, put a diaper over J's "unnies" so if he had an accident while we were out it would be less...clean up.

8:45 Loaded in the van, hit up the Sonic for a morning DP and took off for Library Day.

9:20

We had a discussion about how we behave in a library, unloaded and marched into the new-to-us Faulkner County Library.
At the desk, we got our forms to fill out for 3 library cards {every "School Kid" gets a library card in our house 😉 }
Constant wiggling, talking too loud by the one with no volume control, and poop. Yeah. I was a sweaty mess just trying to fill out tiny forms and correct children.
We turned in our forms to be processed, got to pick out what color card we wanted: I bet some of you could guess, Mags- Pink, Izzie- Purple, Me- Yellow.
She said it would take a while so we headed to the really cool "children's section" where we got to see a "service dog" and read several books.
I let each kid pick one book to check out. Mags got one of her 1st "Level 1" Readers :'(
The cards still weren't ready so I let the girls go into the bathroom by themselves while Jamin and I looked at the sad selection of movies.

10:00 We checked out our books {each with our own cards}, change the nasty poopy pants, and head to library #2 for the day.

10:30 We made it back to Vtown with just enough time to scout out the library here in town. We had enough time in the little bitty library to each check out one more book each.

10:45 We swung by our house and picked up Matt so we could all go to the HIPPY orientation meeting together.

11:00 We signed in, turned in our letter & other documents, set a weekly meeting time, and picked a seat for our meeting.
During the meetings here in Faulkner county, the kids were taken back to...do something while the parents sat and did the meeting part.

11:30 We got our supply & snack bags for the girls and headed home to figure out what was for lunch {we weren't sure if they provided lunch like the other HIPPY program or not so I had nothing planned}.

11:45 We ate ham & cheese sliders, grapes and the juice boxes from their HIPPY snack bag. One by one, each kid finished lunch and showed daddy all their library finds and told him what all they'd done that morning.

12:15 We finished cleaning up lunch, loaded dishwasher, pottied, and headed to naps.

12:30 I started in on the catastrophe that was the school room. I have no idea when all this went down but I feel fairly accomplished having

unloaded the closet of all items the kids had been grounded from and added them back to their rightful place {this is usually the kids' responsibility since Not Cleaning Up is probably why they were grounded from it but I was reorganizing so I went a head and put them where I wanted them.}
organized and loaded book shelves
cleaned out and sorted writing utensil drawers

started the slow cooker for dinner {stew meat and potatoes already in the pot in the fridge from when I thought I'd make it Sunday}

rearranged some of the shelves to work better
hung all the printed/laminated/hole-punched labels on the canvas bins
Sorted, organized, trashed, moved to a new location, etc things like scrapbook paper, stickers, toys to be sold at the consignment event in a few weeks, etc.
traded out drawer organizer for better usage

got together snack and juice cups for when the kids got up from nap

hung kids name canvases and other framed canvases
created a new dress-up center using a quilt rack I've had forever
unpacked a box of "older kid" books and curriculum
lined the wire shelf in the closet with cut up canned soda boxes so the books and curriculum wouldn't fall through
sorted paper/new reader books into bins.
created a new coloring book center
set up pictures of my babies on top of the shelf 😀
made a basket with empty folders {for easy access later}, old center signs {if I ever use those again}, and our laminated letters I plan to hang each week along the top of the room as we talk/learn about each new letter

2:20ish Kids began to wake up from naps so they got their snack and juice cups and picked out one of the library movies to watch

3:00 RECESS

Since cousins and bigger neighborhood kids have been over to play, my kids have discovered Recess. They ask me all morning if they would get "recess". Maggie actually ask me last night when she was picking what shoes to wear; "Will we be doing recess?" I kicked them outside after their movie with 2 bottles of water to share. After about 5 seconds they were nonstop in and out the door asking to if recess was over. Yeah. It's HOT! I was still finishing ~~cleaning up my giant mess~~ organizing so of course I threatened to lock the door if they didn't stop opening it and let them know I'd call them in when "recess was over".

3:45 I set up the playdough center in the freshly cleaned and organized school room at the preschool table and "called the kids in from recess". After wiping down their adorably sweaty faces covered in chalk dust, I sent them in to play with playdough and big cups of water.

4:00 Matt came home and laughed that we were "still doing school". Sad ehh. I've been so disorganized that getting out the playdough center seems so structured it must be called school. LOL

4:30 I checked on the crockpot and realized the "stew meat" didn't quite look...done. CRAP

4:45 Matt makes an executive decision to get 1/2 price breakfast burritos for he and I while I shoved tater tots and fish sticks into the oven {over heated for quicker cooking time}

5:00

Kids start cleaning up the playdough center that was starting to migrate into every other room including the living room {Carpet}.
Two empty playdough tubs were thrown away becuase it was impossible to relocate the color that was supposed to return to it.
All the kids loaded up the "tool" basket and playdough tray.
J ~~wondered off~~ helped daddy set the table for dinner and waited in anticipation At the table for everyone else to finish cleaning up.
Mags wiped down the table.
I put the playdough back on the TOP shelf and swept.
Izzie helped sweep up the remains and through them away.

5:15 DINNER Yummy. The kids told lots of stories of "making and watching movies during recess" and I tried to sit. Breath. and Chew. 😉

5:45

We finished cleaning up dinner
loaded dishwasher
Matt and I put the mantel piece up that goes in the middle of the entertainment center
Matt {kinda} hung our new "Library Basket" in the school room where all of our "borrowed" books will be stored so we don't loose them from week to week & have to pay late fees.
I rearranged pictures and randomneess inside/on the entertainment center but still don't love it

6:00

started our "Bible Class". Also known as the newest "What's in The Bible" DVD {vol 8} we just found and opened for the kids.
I vacuumed up the playdough, wood scraps from the mantel projects, as well as snacks from days and days agoswept the odd lil wood floor trail around the living room and the entire dinning room/kitchen
I SAT down! Checked Facebook, email, and started writing this post.

I think not sitting as well as constantly moving leaving me no time for social media was good and helped me stay focused, accomplish lots more than normal, as well as stay more patience with my kids and what really needed to be done today.

Its also kinda dreaded but I realized how much cleaner and well run my house is when I plan. Even simple things like what activity my kids will do and for how long. Don't get me wrong; I think creative, thought-up-on-their-own play is greatly beneficial, but with fewer choices for them to sort through, there was so much less fighting, bickering, groaning, etc today. When ask about their day, they can tell their daddy exactly what they did. No more of this "played" nonsense. There were specifics, details, and joy in what they remembered. <3

6:30 The kids weren't as into "Bible Class" as we'd hoped and were tackling one another on the couch which turned into full contact wrestling over the entire living room and they added dress-up to the mix...ugg

6:45 Matt had to head up to the valley to train someone on the computer stuff and offered to take the kids. WINNING!

7:15 I'm wondering how much longer I have the quietness of my house with nothing but my thoughts, the humming of electronics, running refrigerator, and the therapeutic clicking of my fingers on the keyboard...

~~~

7:50 ...still now sign of them and we are supposed to be loading laundry, taking baths, brushing teeth, drying hair, going potty, taking/applying medicines, getting PJs & night time diapers on, and arguing with the kids about going to sleep...hmmm