An organized medicine cabinet

I don’t know about your house, but our medicine cabinet in the kitchen has always been a huge thorn in my side.  It never stayed organized, despite my best intentions.  Well, my problems have all been solved now thanks to a pin I saw on Pinterest (remember, I told you about Pinterest on my snack stations post?  Have you checked it out yet?  It’s awesome.  You need an invite to join, so let me know if you’re interested!).  You can see the blog post HERE.

I thought this was brilliant!  I headed out to Big Lots a few days later to buy a new mattress for Kyrie, and while I was there I found the perfect containers!  The 3 drawer container was about $5, and the others were $1 each.  So for less than $10 I got a lovely, totally organized medicine cabinet that makes me just giddy!  I didn’t take before pictures because I was in way too big of a hurry to get it organized! 

Here’s a shot of all 3 shelves:

 

Here’s the breakdown.  I knew I wanted/needed the adult pain meds on the very top shelf to keep the kids out.  They like to get themselves bandaids and are caught up on the counter frequently, so I wanted our medicines out of their way.  Then I put the kids’ medicines and outdoor related stuff (sunscreen, repellant, etc.) on the middle shelf, and I put anything first-aid related on the bottom shelf.  I got out my trusty labeler and went to town.  Our first aid kit we got for our wedding is stored on the right hand side, and then we have our ice pack, rice pack thingy, rubbing alcohol, and hydrogen peroxide on the left (that’s actually missing at the moment, but that’s where it belongs).  The little bottle is actually the cats’ travel anxiety drops from our vacation, and I’m not sure where to put those just yet. 

The middle shelf:

And the top shelf.  Some things were too big to fit in the container (like the big bottles of NyQuil/DayQuil), so I just put those on the side.

 

I actually did this a couple of weeks ago, and it still looks just like this!  Super easy to keep organized this way.  Love!

A reorganized pantry!

This past August, I organized our pantry.  And that worked well for a while.  But then it slowly started becoming more and more chaotic.  The main culprit was the craft center.  It just would never stay organized, and Cambria would get into it constantly without permission.  I cannot even count how many times I’d find her with paint everywhere.  So, that had to change.  It was getting so bad that I just never wanted to let the kids craft because of the messes Bri would make when she didn’t have permission!  I knew I wanted to keep the dresser in there because it’s really functional.  I just had to change up the arrangement. 

I’ve been thinking about how I wanted to do this for several weeks now.  I was waiting for my can organizers I ordered to finally arrive before I started.  Then it only took me about another 2 weeks after they did come to actually complete this project.    What I did was I moved all the craft supplies to the top shelf in the pantry.  They are still very easily accessible and visible (so they’re not out of sight, out of mind, never getting used!), but the catch is that they are only accessible by an adult!  That freed up 4 drawers in the craft center.  The top one is for our office supplies (pens, hole punch, stamps, etc.), and I knew that had to stay.  Then I realized I could put the kids’ board games into the drawers and free up a shelf in our kitchen/dining area.  The games were stored on the bottom shelf, and the printer was stored on the shelf right above that.  So I took all the games out of the cupboard, and I took most of them out of their boxes and put them into Ziploc bags.  Some of them were too big and had to stay in the boxes, but I was able to put all but 5 into bags.  This allowed me to fit something like 15-20 games (not to mention a lot of puzzles, dominoes, etc.) into 2 of the dresser drawers.  Then I took the printer out of that cupboard and put it on top of the craft center so it’s right with all the office supplies.  Now I have an entire cupboard completely empty and have no clue what to put in there!  I know, poor me, having too much storage space….  

I also moved Cambria’s easel out of her room and into the pantry.  This actually happened by accident.  I needed to keep her busy while I worked, so I decided to bring it in and let her draw/color/paint so she wouldn’t go crazy.  Then I realized I LOVED having it in there!  It’s right by all the craft supplies, so it will get used a lot more.  It’s not on carpet any more, so clean up will be way easier.  And it frees up a lot of very valuable space in her room.  Why didn’t I think of this before?! 

I went to Walmart and got 4 tupperware bins that are the perfect size to hold construction paper, coloring books, etc.  They were something like $4.75 a piece.  Then I went to the dollar store and got 3 little baskets.  I put colored pencils in 1 basket, crayons in another, and glue in another, simply because those things are used very frequently, and I didn’t want to have to go digging through a bin to find them every day.  This brings my grand total to about $63 for the whole transformation (that includes the 12 can organizers I got).  All the other baskets and containers I already had on hand.

So, here are the pictures!  The white basket on top of the dresser holds our computer paper.  The yellow bins on the shelves hold dessert stuff (pudding, jello, cake mixes) and seasoning packets (fajita, etc.).  The white tub previously held our bread, but now it holds Ramen noodles.  The yellow bin sitting on the easel contains the alphabet magnets that came with the easel and also chalk for the chalkboard side.  Not only is it way more organized, but I also have basically the entire bottom shelf completely empty now!  There are only 3 things stored there – a smaller container of cat food for easier access, soy sauce, and apple juice. 

It took me about 2.5 hours to finish, but it makes me so happy!!  I feel like I can breathe when I walk in there! 

Our new van!

Earlier this month, I shared my resolutions for 2011.  One of those was to purchase a new van, and we completed that over this weekend!  Our old van was a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan that we purchased in 2006.  It’s treated us really well these past 4.5 years, but it recently started having some major issues that would cost several thousand dollars more than the van is even worth to fix.  We decided that wasn’t a smart investment and decided to buy a new (to us) van.  Trust me, there were plenty of other places I would rather have spent this money (like landscaping our front yard!).  But it really wasn’t a question of IF the van would die, only a matter of WHEN. 

We went looking at vans here in town first.  We heard from some friends that vehicles are cheaper in Phoenix, so we decided to look around here and figure out what we even wanted first before heading out to Phoenix.  We found a van we loved at the Chrysler dealership here.  The guy was super nice and even said he’d drop the price way down for us.  We agreed on a price, and when Derk and I went in to sign the paperwork and pay for the van, the guy changed his price and tried selling it to us for $2,000 MORE than what we’d agreed on only an hour previously.  It was seriously frustrating.  Needless to say, we left that dealership without a van.

Derk has business trips lined up this month, plus he’s super swamped at work, so we decided we’d have to cram the car buying trip into this weekend.  I was worried that the old van would die while he was out of town, and that would just be super uncool.  We wanted to leave Friday evening, but Derk ended up having to do a private evaluation for another district on Saturday morning.  So we left Saturday afternoon and arrived in Phoenix around dinner time on Saturday.  Before we pulled out of our driveway, Derk patted our van and said, “Please, just last one more day for us!”  The kids thought that was funny, and Kyrie announced that she just KNEW Heavenly Father would make sure the van made it to Phoenix.   

Saturday night we just hung out in the hotel room, and Derk took the kiddos to the pool (I wasn’t feel very well).  Not many of us slept well that night.  We had 2 full beds in the hotel room, and it wasn’t quite enough space.   I was on one bed with the girls, and Derk was on the other with Asher.  For some reason, I woke up at midnight and saw Kyrie was still awake and playing her Nintendo DS!  She said she just couldn’t sleep.  I finally got her to turn it off, and then she was up again at 4am.  I got up shortly after that and decided to take a bath and read a magazine for a bit because I was just too uncomfortable to sleep.  Luckily Kyrie laid pretty quietly during that time and ended up dozing off for a bit. 

We all finally got up for the day at 6:30.  We wanted to make sure we got breakfast and then had a game plan for which dealerships we wanted to hit.  We ended up finding a few vans at dealerships I hadn’t seen online, so we were glad to have a few other options to consider.  It was seriously tough car shopping with the kids.  They did well considering how awfully bored they were, but we still had a hard time with them.  Luckily for us AND them, we had it narrowed down to 2 vans by 1:30 in the afternoon.  Both vans were the exact same (the prices were even within $20 of each other), so it was a hard decision.  The deciding factors for us were:  #1 - the color, and #2 – one had 4K less miles, and #3 - a year of roadside assistance was included with one of them, and most importantly #4 - this particular dealership lowered their price another $250 to convince us to buy from them.  We had the paperwork signed and were driving off the lot by 2:30pm.  All in all, after food/hotel/gas, we saved $800 buying in Phoenix!

I knew my mom especially would want to see pictures!  So this post is for you, Mom!  I even took a fun video for you.   

We ended up getting a 2005 Chrysler Town and Country Touring.  It has so many super cool features!  I feel insanely spoiled now, which is fine by me!    It has leather seats, which we weren’t too sure about at first, but I really like them.  It has stow-and-go, bucket seats (2 separate seats in the middle row instead of a bench seat), rear air conditioning, a compass/thermometer display (so it tells us the temperature and which direction we’re driving), a 6-CD disc changer, adjustable pedals, built-in garage door opener, keyless entry, the doors all have sensors (so if someone is standing in the way of the door, it won’t close on them), it “dips” down in the trunk area to give more room for storage, and it’s way more spacious than our old van. 

Here are some pictures!

And here’s my goofy video:

Untitled from Hillary Stephens on Vimeo.

 

We love it! 

A wall finally decorated!

With the addition of the Christmas tree, I had to move some stuff around. I finally decided to put photos in this collage frame I've had sitting in my bedroom for way too long (i.e. at least 4 months...), and while I was at it, I also hung some frames that have been sitting in the garage. I've been meaning to do something with this poor, boring wall ever since we moved in 18 months ago, so I'm tickled to have finally gotten around to it! Now this spot is warm, inviting, and it is filled with all sorts of wonderful memories! I was only planning on moving the table here until the tree comes down, but I love how it looks and will be keeping it here from now on!

Lesson learned

Have you ever wondered, "What would happen if I gave my kids free reign of the house, completely neglecting everything because I was in a mad rush to complete an assignment I so stupidly procrastinated?" Well, luckily for you I can put an end to your curiosity! Observe!

And that's just the kitchen, family room, and dining room. Trust me, the rest of the house was even worse. *shudder*

I had a paper due for my philosophy class today, and I procrastinated big time. By that I mean that I didn't even look at the handout to see what was required until last night! It was then that I realized the paper was supposed to be 6 pages in length and that I had less than 24 hours to get it done. Oops! I did as much as I could last night, staying up until 2am working. The hardest/longest part was sorting through all the info and deciding what I wanted to write about and which sources to use. Once I got all that figured out, the actual writing part went pretty fast. But even so, at 2am I was still only less than halfway finished with the paper. I knew I had to call it a night and get some rest.

I had errands to run this morning and wasn't able to get home to work on my paper until after I'd picked Asher up from school. So the mess was a result of having to leave 2 kids pretty much to their own devices (with a few exceptions, of course) while I frantically typed my paper. I'm happy to report that I did finish with about 8 hours to spare and was able to spend the evening relaxing with the fam (after I spent about 3 hours cleaning, that is!).

So yeah, lesson learned! I guess that means I'd better get started on the English essay I have due a week from now, eh?

Our new craft center

When I showed my pantry re-do, my sister-in-law Rebecca gave me an idea to put a craft area in my pantry since there's so much space. While that idea really intrigued me, I knew my kids would NEVER leave my craft stuff alone if I had it all out, so I decided against it. But you did inspire me, Rebecca! :-)

We've had a dresser that Derk's parents gave us several years ago sitting out in our garage. We've been using it to store completely random things that should be put somewhere else anyway, so I decided to move it into the pantry and give it a new life. With Derk being out of town this weekend for business, I took advantage of the extra spare time and got the project done. It was really quick and easy. The longest part was letting the chalkboard paint dry (it takes 24 hours before you can write on it). I can take full credit for this idea, which doesn't happen very often! ;-)

Before:

After:

I might rearrange the drawers as we see how this arrangement works, but it's working out great so far! All these things used to be taking up 2 cupboards in my kitchen, and now I have all that space empty and calling for me! :-)

Our kitchen makeover!

Our kitchen has undergone quite a dramatic change since we first moved in! I thought it would be really fun to look back on how it has changed from then until now!

Here it is when we first moved in. There's linoleum in the kitchen and carpet in the dining room.

The first project was to redo those floors. I also decided to paint the walls a yellow color at first.

I quickly realized I didn't like the yellow and changed it. Our floor plan is really open, so it made more sense (and looked way better) to have the kitchen be the same color as the family room. Then I finally was able to convince Derk to let me paint the cabinets! And here's the final transformation! There will be a curtain on the window in the next few days, but other than that, I'm not touching this room for a long time!

Let there be light!

One of the drawbacks to our house is that we don't get much natural light. There's the window in the kitchen that faces west, and then Asher's bedroom window faces east. Those 2 rooms get great light. The rest of the rooms face either north or south, so they are a lot darker than I'd like. Our family room is one of the worst because it only has the light from the ceiling fan. I've been dying to buy lamps for that room ever since we moved in (May 2009!), but it wasn't until a few days ago that I finally found exactly what I wanted at a price that didn't make me cry. I found the lamps at Walmart, of all places, and it came in a box that had 4 lamps for a great price. I used 2 of them in the family room and the other 2 in our bedroom.

I really can't believe the difference that simply adding 2 lamps makes in our family room! It's so much more warm and has a much homier (is that a word?) feel to it. I also found a cute little table on Craigslist for $15, which was the perfect spot for one of the lamps in the family room. And it gave me an excuse to go shopping for a couple more accessories! ;-) I found the little basket and the metal decoration picture/thingy (technical term there) at a local store here for about $11 total!

Like I mentioned, I put 2 of the lamps in our bedroom. I don't have any pictures of that yet because our room is still a work in progress. But I did take one of the lamps we used previously and gave it a little makeover to use in Bri's room! The other one will receive the same treatment and will go in Kyrie's room, but I didn't have the right color spray paint for hers at the time (I already had the pink for Bri's room from another project). It's not quite done yet. These lamps we've had for at least 4 years now, so the shades are looking a little sorry. I have plans to recover the shade, but I haven't had a chance to go look for fabric yet. Here's the progress so far, though!

Before:

After!:

Kitchen teaser

I know it's taking a LONG time for me to post the kitchen reveal pictures, but I'm still not quite finished. Here's a little teaser, though! ;-) My goal is to show the big reveal next week!

Laundry room love

After organizing the pantry, I felt like I needed to do something about our laundry room. When we moved in, I had Derk build me a shelf above the washer and dryer, and it's always been a thorn in my side. It just constantly looked cluttered, and it was a place where people (cough*DERK*cough) would randomly shove things they were too busy (*cough*lazy*cough) to put away. ;-) I was doing a little deep cleaning/rearranging on a few rooms in the house (stay tuned!), and I found some baskets I didn't need any more. Then I realized they would be perfect additions to the laundry room. The baskets hold all the random clutter -- iron, starch spray, dryer sheets, extra cleaning products, etc. Some of the cleaning products were a teeny bit too tall for the basket, but I don't really care. It's all still hidden very nicely and looks so much more clean. I can finally breathe a sigh of non-cluttered-relief when I walk in there! :-)

Next project for this space will be PAINT!
And as usual, when painting is involved, don't mention this to Derk! ;-)

Pantry overhaul

Like I said in my last blog post, I came across a blog that totally inspired me. The blog is titled Prepared, Not Scared, and it was this post in particular that got the wheels in my head turnin'. There are still a few random containers I want to purchase, but for the most part, it's done! And I LOVE it! Behold!!

And 2 hours, a label maker, and some new baskets/containers later...

The first step was to kick those cats OUT! We've had their food/water and litter in there because we didn't have another place for it. But after living for the past year being greeted by the smell of the litter box every time we go into the pantry, we decided the cats could just DEAL with their litter box being moved to the garage. After that, the next item of business was to empty the entire pantry. Whew, that was quite a process! Then we gave all the shelves a thorough wipe down before loading everything back in.

I found some of the containers at Goodwill. The ones with the yellow lids I've had for a while and found at Sam's Club. They hold all my flours and sugars. The stackable containers hold onions, garlic, fruit, snacks, and bagels. My favorite storage solution is something I came up with all on my own. I have tons of seasoning packets (taco/fajita seasoning, gravy mixes, etc), and I was looking for something to store them in. I had an idea in my head but couldn't find anything that was exactly right. As I was cleaning the kitchen a few days later, I saw it! The perfect solution! An ice cube bin:

It holds and hides them all perfectly! It was exactly the shape/size I was looking for! I didn't think to look in that section of the store! Giddy, I say. Giddy!

Now you know what a total dork I am! But if I have to be a dork, at least I'm a dork with a totally organized pantry! ;-)

I'm in love (again).

Friends and family, may I present to my new best friend. How I love her already! We just met today, and I don't know how I've lived for 27.5 years without her. She's lovely and wonderful, and she makes my life easier and happier. Her name is Dymo!

I recently stumbled across a blog out there in the blogsosphere that greatly inspired me. It's all about food storage, and the way this woman organized her pantry made me giddy to follow in her footsteps. GIDDY, I say!!! I had to wait a couple of weeks before purchasing anything, and it was torture, pure torture! My head was swimming with ideas.

Today I was finally able to make most of my purchases. I couldn't WAIT to purchase this baby, and I knew it would be love at first sight. Someone like me buying a label maker? Watch out, world!

Just to give you a taste of what I'm doing, here's a little teaser...

Gah! Can you stand it?! I can't!!! I don't care how dorky this makes me, either. Labels and mason jars (among other awesome organizational tips!) in my pantry is making me ridiculously excited! I've only just begun this little project, so stay tuned for the big reveal sometime soon!

An ottoman redo

I LOVE our ottoman. The cushions come off, and there are 2 huge storage areas underneath. The problem was that the upholstery was torn in numerous places (thank you, kids and cats!), and it looked horrendous. I was seriously embarrassed for people to come over and see it. Derk told me to just trash it and buy a new one. But I love that thing! I store our movies in one side and our blankets in the other side. I'd have nowhere to put those things if I didn't have that storage, so I really wanted to keep it.

So, I figured why not ask my mother-in-law to help me redo it while she was in town for Kyrie's baptism! She knows how to do pretty much everything under the sun (seriously, she even made her own tooth to save on dental costs!). So off we went to the fabric store. After a lot of searching, I finally found the perfect fabric. It ended up costing around $50 to cover the whole thing, but that's a heck of a lot cheaper than replacing it would have been. And now it has my own personal touch. I think it turned out awesome!

Before
(sorry about the awful glare from the lamp!)

After!

My mother-in-law helped me do the base, and I did the cushions completely on my own. The base fabric matches the lightest square in our rug, and the cushion fabric is an exact match of our couches, the red wall and the lightest square in the rug as well. It's still not quite done yet. Underneath the cushions, I stapled the fabric on, and I want to do something to cover up the staples. I'm not sure what yet, though. I'll have to walk around JoAnns to get some inspiration.

Here's a close-up of the cushion fabric. The stripes are raised and feel almost like a corduroy type of fabric.

Thanks for your help, Mom! You're awesome!!

Making our house our home -- Part 5

This little project has been on my To Do list for quite some time now. I went out with a friend today, and we ended up stopping at JoAnns. I actually remembered to look for the fabric for this project, and I found exactly what I wanted! I was so stoked! (The bathroom will be repainted, hopefully this week, so it'll look even better once that's done!)

Before
(notice the ugly shower head)

After
(no more ugly shower head!)

Christmas decorations

Next year, I plan to be a lot more festive. As the Christmas season has gone on, I have come up with a lot more ideas that I wish I'd done/thought of, so I'm recording them for next year. Here are the few things we did do this year.

Luckily the previous owner already had the screws in place for the Christmas lights, otherwise I am certain Derk would not have accommodated that item on the list. ;)

The kids decorated a wreath for the front door. My awesomely smart hubby thought to hang the wreath on the right side of the double door, which would prevent it from banging around every time we open the door. He is so smart! I never would have thought of that.

I put lights around the window in my kitchen. I love how they look! So cozy and inviting. I told Derk I wanted to leave them up all year, but he's not going for it.

And then there's the one Christmas craft that I made. It's a centerpiece that sits on the dining room table. I was inspired by a decorating blog I read, and I decided to make my own. It's simple, but I like it.

Making our house our home -- Part 4

I decided I didn't like the yellow in our kitchen and dining room. I liked the color by itself, but I didn't like the way it looked with the other 2 colors. So I decided it was getting changed to green, and it looks so much better! Derk was not on board with painting again, so I did most of it myself. He was awesome, though, and painted all the high parts for me. After I promised not to change the color again. ;)

Before

After

Making our house our home, Part 3

We've made a few more changes to the house since moving in. I don't have pictures of all of it quite yet (it involves more painting that's almost finished), but I do have a few of the living room. This was how it looked when we first got all moved in and painted.
I lived with it for about 5 months and decided last week that I really didn't like the way it looked. So I rearranged. I moved the couch to the wall where the loveseat was. Then I moved the loveseat under the window. However, when we moved the tree in, the loveseat had to go where the couch originally was. Once the tree is gone, it'll go back under the window. It really opens up the room.

I've been on the lookout for a lamp for my end table in this room ever since we moved in. Whenever I've seen a lamp I love, it's way too much money. But then I went out on Black Friday, and I got THE perfect lamp in THE perfect color! Seriously, I am SO stoked about the deal I got! I went to a local store here called Bealls Outlet, and they were having a 70% off sale, plus an additional 15% off. I got this lamp, a shirt for Kyrie and pajamas for Asher (shh, those are Christmas presents!), and I only spent $10 TOTAL! The lamp alone was originally $27! I can't even stand it. Love!!

I still have more plans for this room (new bookshelves, wall art, a plant if I can ever convince Derk to let me get one, etc), but it's getting there!

Stay tuned for more transformations. :)

Making our house our home -- Part 2

After getting the flooring done, we started painting. We've painted almost every single room in the last week. Some are still in progress, but we're mostly done. It's pretty fun seeing the transformations of the rooms. I've never been able to paint (my parents never owned a home), so it's taking some getting used to living with color. What a HUGE difference new flooring and some color make!!

Dining room before:


Dining room after:


Kitchen before:


Kitchen after:
(the cabinets will eventually be painted white)


Formal living room before:


Formal living room after:


Family room after:
(I don't have a before picture, but it was just a big empty room before -- there wasn't even a couch!)

We chose 3 colors that were on a coordinating color card thingy at the store. I love all the colors individually, and I love them in pairs. But now I'm second-guessing myself seeing them all together. Our kitchen, family room and dining room are all a really open floor plan, so I'm worried that it looks a bit like a circus in here. What do you think?! Here's a view from the family room so you can see all 3 colors together. Be honest!!

The bedrooms are still a work in progress, but I'll get pictures up as soon as they're closer to being done! :)