Organization

Wow. It's been a long time since I have blogged! Things have been busy to say the least. We got home a week ago from our Christmas extravaganza! And I'm happy to report the weather did allow us to get together with everyone! Yay! We had a fantastic Christmas and we feel so blessed to have such wonderful family & friends!

Our refrigerator took a dump, so we spent a couple nights last week shopping for the best deal and looking for a new TV as well. We sold our HUGE projection big screen tv and decided to upgrade to a LCD tv! After a couple nights of shopping, we ordered the TV online and bought the fridge at Menards. You would think the retailers would have been ready to wheel & deal with us since we were making 2 large purchases, but the online TV deals were hard to beat and Menards had the best deal on a fridge (plus we had a coupon!).

Our fridge was scheduled to be delivered on Saturday morning. Cory decided to plug our old fridge back in on Friday just to see if it was still broke. (In my head I was thinking, DUH, it doesn't just fix it self!!!) Sure enough, the damn thing worked and started making ice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me!?!??! Although it was working, I am sure with a little time, it would be back in it's old ways of not holding a safe temperature and would eventually die again. We decided to go through with the new fridge purchase.... reluctantly. (They aren't cheap!!!) We kept our old fridge and moved it to the basement. We figure if it's going to work, we can use it to house beer & pop downstairs.... stuff that won't rot if the temp does go up and down. The Menards delivery guy almost killed my husband as they were taking the fridge downstairs! He let go of the dolly and the fridge fell on Cory 5 steps!!!! He's ok though!!! :)

With the new year, we have vowed to get MORE ORGANIZED around the house! (Along with the "usual" losing weight resolution!) Our basement is a disaster area. It seriously looks like we were victims of a tornado. That will be a future project! The higher visibility problem is the enormous amount of toys our kids have and the lack of room we have to put them! My kids both have 10x10 rooms, so not a whole lot of room to work with toy storage up there. And since our basement is a war zone, can't really send them down there to play. Cory suggested we make our front living room a toy room. Get rid of the couch we have in there and just make it all toys. I HATE that idea. I really do not want the first thing people see when they walk into my house to be a heap of toys and clutter. BUT... we have to do something. I said I would think about it. I then asked Cory what he though about selling our office furniture or moving the office furniture down to the basement (hey - why not add to the mess we already have there!) and making the office our toy room??? We have very nice office furniture, but we NEVER sit in there. We use our laptop most frequently and just don't use the office. The office is on the main floor and a perfect place for the kids toys. (Plus, the office has doors that we could shut when people come over!!) He agreed! We decided to clear a section of the basement and set the office up down there. (Translation.... basically move everything from one corner to another and set up the office!!)

It was a HUGE project to get the office taken apart and everything moved to the basement, then put back together. Especially with my sore wrist. (For those that didn't see me over the holidays... I fell on the dang ice and sprained my wrist! ha! I'm getting old!!!!) We spent all of Saturday emptying the room and getting ready to fill it back up. We moved the big items and the new Christmas toys into the toy room Saturday night. The kids were getting so excited.

Sunday I headed to Home Depot to buy some wire shelves. We hung up 2 rows of shelves on one wall and 1 smaller shelf on another wall. (I have to add here that my husband has become MUCH more handy over the years! We hung up these same wire shelves when we lived in our first house and almost got a divorce over the deal!! This time, he installed the shelves like a pro!!:) Then we started sorting through the toys, organizing them and moving them into the play room.

Here is a BEFORE picture!! :) This is not quite how they were stored before. I had already moved a set of bins and had dumped a bunch of stuff on the floor, but this isn't far off from how it looked a lot of the time!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

And here are a few pictures of the finished room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHH! I hear the angels singing that Darcy was talking about in her blog!! :)

Ignore the Obama picture!! haha! That was a gag gift and was hanging in our office. It's going to be taken down and replaced with some art from the kids! The kiddos are even lucky enough to have a TiVo in their toy room and we have a bunch of kids shows recorded! The shelf up on the wall contains all the games and art & crafts.

The picture above the book shelves is one that Cory drew when he was a kid! His Mom had it framed for him. It actually looks really cool!!! :)

These two shelves still have some things that need to be put in totes. I didn't have all the sizes I needed and will have to go back to get more.... but you get the idea! That huge box up there is dress up clothes! Both of the kids LOVE to dress up!!!

The table in the corner is one of the kids favorite things... they sit there to color or play for HOURS!

Lastly, I thought I would show you a couple pictures of the kids ENJOYING the new toy room!


So what do you think?? It was a LOT of work, but is well worth it! This is the first time our family room hasn't had toys stored in it since we moved into this house 4 1/2 years ago!!! Crazy!!! We also re-arranged our family room to accommodate the new TV that will arrive soon! I'll post pictures of that later! :)