Stuff Room

I talked yesterday about finally hanging the bulletin board and today I'm excited to share with you the mudroom evolution!  

It's certainly one of those rooms that will evolve with time, but I am excited to have a space to hide/organize all the junk that accumulates like snowpants, car seats,  school papers. and miscellaneous "stuff".  I should just call it the Stuff Room.

This room has already served many purposes.  It held all my hardware and light fixtures for about 6 months.  When the weather got colder, I used this room to paint my doors in.  And now it's the place we toss stuff at the end of the day just so we don't have to look at it. I still keep my paint and brushes in here just because I am too lazy to walk ALL THE WAY TO THE BASEMENT (which is about 9 steps away from the mudroom) when I want to paint.  

April 2013

June 2013

August 2013

Watching the tree in the backyard get chopped down

December 2013

January 2014

A drawer just for cards. Wow. 

I spray painted the old phone plate.  Why not?

This is the light fixture from Restore with some spray paint.  I think I kept Rustoleum in business this year.  

Genevieve likes having her own horse calendar to keep track of popcorn & movie nights and other important events. 

I still have quite a bit of sanding, priming and painting to do, but admittedly this isn't high on my list. I am just happy to have the bulletin board and hooks up so that we can have a little more order around here.  

Complicated.

The kiddos have been out of school the past two days due to extreme cold temps.  It's difficult to think of things to do when it's so cold outside.  So, what did I do for entertainment in the cold?  I put my babe into a pink knit peapod and took adorable photos of her immobilization.

I did manage to hang our bulletin board in the mudroom.  It sounds like such a small thing, but like the female brain, things are all interconnected (ahem, complicated).  Hanging a bulletin board was done in 7 NOT-AT-ALL-TIME-CONSUMING steps (note sarcasm):

1. To hang the bulletin board, I first needed to find and purchase a non-puncturing apparatus to mount it to the wall so that a nail wouldn't pierce the china cabinet on the other side of the wall.  I found some velcro strips at Target used for picture hanging.  I attached them to the bulletin board.  Check.  

2.  Next, I needed to paint the part of the wall that the board would hang on.  But hey, while I have the paint can out, I should touch up around the trim that we recently put up to mount our hooks onto.  I should also should touch up the paint in the kitchen around the china cabinet where some of the stain got on the wall.  And why not touch up some other spots around the house where the paint has been nicked up?  Rinse and clean paintbrush.  Check.  

3.  Wow, this mudroom is such a disorganized mess.  I can't hang the bulletin board in all this chaos.  I rearranged the shelves and drawers and made new labels for boxes that I scored on clearance at Target.  I made files for the girls' pile of schoolwork that's been accruing in the mudroom since the beginning of the year. But where's my box of files?  Go dig in the basement through boxes until I find files.  While I am in the basement, I switch the laundry and bring a basket of clean clothes up and fold them.  Put files in filing cabinet.  Put newly folded clothes away.  Check.

4.  The rug in the mudroom looks awful.  I need to clean it to get the soot and dirt off of it from the day the guys hauled the boiler out of the basement.  While I have the carpet cleaner out, I should also clean my living room rug and entry rug as well.  During this process, I ran out of carpet cleaner and had to go digging in the basement for a different bottle.  While I'm in the basement I switch the laundry and haul up the clean clothes basket.  Carpets clean, clothes folded and put away…check.

5.  Order more carpet cleaner. Check.  

6.  Now there's a big clog in the carpet cleaner from the wool rug. I empty the dirty water container for the carpet cleaner and rinse out the wool.  But there's still some stuck in the machine.  I grab a screwdriver and take a couple parts off the machine and clean out the wool.  While those parts are off, I give them a quick rinse in hot water to get the storage dust off of them.  Reassemble carpet cleaner.  Check.

7.  Hang the bulletin board.  Check.  

See, so easy!