At the entry of our home is a room.  It’s called a Flex Room.  Basically because it’s flexible.  It can be whatever you wish.  Several homes we looked at had them but this room had a  huge one!  It’s designed to be a dining room/sitting room.  We opted for a giant dining room/school room/office room.  And I love it.

Now before we get to my wonderful organizing I have to confess.  I totally took “before” shots.  And then in my haste to download from the camera, did not download them.  And promptly deleted all on the camera.  I’m mad.  While this room was the first to unpack, my mom and I basically pulled things out and threw them on the shelf.  It was a total mess.  I needed to do some organizing.

So, I did.  Learning play shelves are the bottom of the left book case.  Reading books for the year are above that and then office papaer supplies and markers (yes, top shelf, very important) and cutting, laminating machines at the very top.

The center cubes I love.  I found them at Target first but then found them on Amazon (not paid to say that) for a bit cheaper.  They are not super wood sturdy but they are definitely sturdy enough for our use.  I keep the kids individual books, office supplies, and scrap paper on these 12 cubes.

Each kid has a crate with their school books, assignment books, pens, crayons, colored pencils and scissors and glue.  Now, several children, who shall remain nameless, continue to leave their pens, pencils and what not out.  I’ve started a collection and when their supplies are gone, they will be paying me to have them back.

The other tall bookshelf has curriculum arranged by subject.

 Yep, Malachi’s crate is the loner one on the bottom of the tall bookshelf.

Okay, 31 People!  Why have you not told me about this amazing little file doohickey.  I love it!  It’s a great little file holder that I thought I would try out after attending a 31 party.  Seeing as how I don’t get to tote bags around much (unless they are full of diapers).  This is wonderful.  It holds all my PAL games and supplies and holds the cds that came with the curriculum.  Takes up half the space too.  I want 31 of these (I’m so punny).  Thirty-one did not pay me to say this either, but they are more than welcome to send me more!  I am in love I tell ya.

This is our corner “office.”  We are keeping the filing cabinet upstairs and since Mark does a great job of keeping it organized, I didn’t feel the need to attack that area.  This however had to be cleaned up a bit.  I keep our lesson plans out on the left hand side so the kids can check back and forth and know what the should be doing.  That quote and complementing picture are from my mom.  She retired from teaching high school English (among other things) last year.  She taught for over 40 years and I remember this poster being up with this quote from Mark Twain, “Never let school interfere with your education.”  I just knew that was totally appropriate for our “classroom.”  I snatched it up pretty quick when mom was handing out her school stuff to my sister and me.  The poster had a tear so I just grabbed two frames and chopped it in half.

 We have table time teaching at breakfast and lunch so I grabbed one of the three shelf ClosetMaid (not paid either) shelves and sat it beside the desk.  This keeps all my table time books/notebooks in it with a few phone numbers, addresses included.  The red crate is my individual teaching and what I can grab if we “home” school somewhere else.

And, finally, to prove that I’m not completely organized and need a ton of help, I present to you, my office supply drawer:

I need help, ya’ll.  What in the world can I use to organize this?  It’s 12X12 and about 6 inches deep.  It holds staples, pushpins, ring clasps, hole punch, velcro, post its, tape, those little reinforcement things for paper.  I’ve been looking for small containers to put everything in but have come up empty handed.  So, any and all suggestions would be great.

Okay, we painted this room before we moved in too.  It’s Guacamole (Olympic paint, didn’t get paid by them either but I should take out stock for how much we use them) and I think it suits an entry room well.  Mark says it makes him want tacos.  All the time.

Want to see some more offices in all shapes and sizes?

Next week you totally get to see my amazing laundry room closet.  I think I have been looking forward to this one the most. 

Finally some house pictures!  We’re starting with the kitchen because that is where I started this:

When we started this whole moving thing, a dear friend from church sent me a link from A Bowl Full of Lemons about moving and how to organize.  It was awesome.  And it totally worked.  As long as I remembered to label the boxes with the right stuff!  But, I loved and still love my moving binder.

Anyway,  I started this 14 week challenge two weeks late.  I figured I would catch the other two rooms/areas at the end.  Actually, we started on Week 2, the garage, but had to stop because the yard tools needed a home.  That home is sitting in our back yard waiting to be built by Super-Husband.

Oh, you guys want to see my house, huh?  Well, here are some more pictures of the kitchen. Here’s what we love about it: 
1.  It’s open to the great room.  It’s so nice to be able to see the kids, talk to others who are lounging around, and in general just be a part of the action. 
2.  The bar area-While it was too high for our bar stools from the old house, it is a perfect height and length to have a buffet line.  Already tested that out with our “thank you for helping us move in the monsoon*” party.
3.  The sink faucet has the sprayer attached to the main nozzle.  So awesome and easily accessible.  It’s the little things people.
4.  There’s a pantry and the cabinets are way deep!  Storage.  It’s all about the storage.
5.  The color.  That’s all mine.  The whole house was done in flat paint.  Please tell me you all know what a house with flat paint and seven children, two dogs, and a rabbit looks like.  Anyway, we decided to paint a few of the rooms.  I’m still trying to decide on colors for some of the other rooms.  The pain color is Royal Palm from the Olympic line.  Sometimes it looks really green and others it looks more blue.  But what is best about it is that it took only one coat.  I fought with the kids’ bathroom color and after four coats and complete coverage was no where in sight, gave up.  So, by the time I got to the kitchen, I was done.  I was giddy though when it only took one coat. 

That dog’s not dead.  We took Sunny on a walk the day we took these pictures and wore her slap out.  Actually, the kids took turns taking her on a run.

And yes, my stove does not match the rest of the appliances.  That is our stove from the old house.  There was no way I could part with my super large oven, five heating elements, and convection no less.  We were willing to compromise some and asked the builder if he could swap out for a convection oven but he said no.  So, we swapped instead.  I’m so glad we did.  That oven so deserved a new kitchen and use by our large family. 

We decided to put one of our computers in here.  It gives the kids a get away from the regular school bustle, if needed.

On to the pantry.  Ya’ll I have never had a pantry since our second apartment.  I was so excited to get it too!  I didn’t realize how nice it would be.  So, without further adeiu…

This is the “before” shot.  I already had some baskets up and a shelf stadium for my cans.  But, this organizing challenge made me push to finish the rest of the pantry.

Here’s the after:

 Mark hung hooks up for the kids aprons and for mine.

I studied all the week of the challenge and learned a lot from the Organizational Challenge Facebook page.  With knowledge in hand, we headed to a dollar store. All the baskets you see before you were purchased there!  I believe I spent about $16.  Add in another $7 stadium shelf (of course I used my 20% off coupon) and the room was near done.  I used my handy dandy labeler to make labels for the solid containers.  Someone had suggested using 2x4s for the shelves.  We happened to have four or so laying around the house so I tried it out.  They worked great on these wire shelves.  They gave stability and more height to the canned goods.  We’re going to add another two shelves above our top shelf to keep emergency supplies but that was not top priority this week.

I basically just groupeed like things together and threw them in baskets or beside each other.  A friends said that baskets can some times take up more space than actually putting them on the shelves.  I found that to be totally true.  But for bags and a few things here and there they work great!  And they look cute too!