Aren’t you excited?  You get to see yet a few more rooms in our home…It’s a two-fer week:

We should really title this linen cloest/bathroom cabinets.  Sadly, we gave up a linen closet.  But we gained this:

It’s a closet situated between the kids’ bedrooms. When we did our walk through we were told that the closet was meant to be a seasonal room to store seasonal decorations.  Bryant claimed it as his bedroom when we first looked at the house.  Regardless, I was thrilled to see that extra storage.  Currently, the closet is storing clothes that have not been sorted (I use a bin system to store the kids’ clothes and these clothes have not been worn since I started the system).  The closet also holds the kids’ hampers, a billy bookcase that serves as our medicine cabinet and all the coats.

I mean all the coats.  I’ve threatened to buy the store clothing size dividers for a few years now.  I finally broke down and did it.  I purchased some blank clothes dividers on ebay and markered the sizes.  A quick look tells me what sizes I’m missing and makes consignment shopping for coats and jackets much easier.

I also took the time to organize the kids’ bathroom which has our guest towels, their towels, and all things bathroom/linen related minus the sheets.

These are before pictures.  A bit about the decor.  First of all, when using yellow, make sure you get the yellow with the primer in it.  I still need to do a few more coats.  And this has four coats.  On a beige wall.  I just gave up.

I wanted a fun theme that was gender neutral for the bathroom.  I also didn’t want something too cutsie because I don’t plan on changing it out as they grow.  Plus, there’s like seven kids that use this bathroom.  And they all vary in ages.  So, owls it was.  All the owl shower curtains we looked at were either too girly or too freaky…as in large and staring straight at you.  Not something you would want to see when you got up in the middle of the night.

Zoe and I finally found some fabric that we both thought met our criteria.  I purchased it, grabbed a brown shower curtain from Target and sewed it on.

I didn’t think a full shower curtain of these cute things would be really fun.  So, putting it on the top and bottom really made it more interesting.  And then, one afternoon I was perusing Hobby Lobby and stumbled upon owl vinyl wall decals.  And they matched!  I couldn’t resist the half off.

This wall is opposite the vanities.  These picture ledges were not my first choice but my first choice was not really sturdy.  So we went with these.  I purchased the cups from the Dollar Spot at Target (they currently have some there now too).  Each child has a cup.  Currently, I stenciled their first initial in their color on the cups.  I’m going to have to do something different however as the paint just won’t hold through a washing.  We have enough towel hooks for about 12 kids.   You do the math on how many we need to have to have it full.

We moved.  I unpacked and threw everything under the sinks.  Very unorganized, no?

This is my girls’ drawer and cabinet ya’ll.  It was a bit organized when we moved in.

Here’s the afters:

Girls’ side.

Boys’ side.  Ahhh.

While we had to give up one full bath and replaced it with just a half bath (meaning the boys and girls now share a bathroom), we justified it by the dual vanities and the fact that the shower/toilet room has a door.  Thereby, a person can brush his or her teeth while another person is using the bathroom and no one has to wait in line to brush their teeth while someone is using the bathroom.

I’m behind.  But, as usual, there’s a great reason.  Last Monday, we headed out at the “crack of dawn” to get chicken.  I decided that since we were out, we’d shop around at some used bookstores to get the rest of the books the kids needed for their reading lists.  We stopped at one store, made our purchases and then headed to the next.  Got to the next store, I dropped the diaper bag around the children and started browsing the books and checking my list and such. When we got ready to leave, I reached in to the diaper bag and came up with nothing but diapers.  My wallet was gone.  We walked the store a couple of times and then headed to the van.  I searched the van a few times.  Called Mark and alerted him so he could start canceling/closing our accounts.  Then headed to the previous store.  I asked around and no one had seen it.  I checked around the parking lot but it was nowhere to be found.  Worst case, someone picked it out of the diaper bag when I sat it down with the kids.  Best case, it fell out of the diaper bag when we were loading and unloading between stores, someone saw it, and picked it up.  Either way, it’s a safe bet that it was stolen.  Mark was able to work quickly and get things closed out before any of our cards could be used.  He also won super man status by contacting the sheriff’s department as I was having my little “come apart” by then.  We’re slowly getting bank situations changed and I’m slowly getting my wallet contents re-loaded.

And that, my friends, is how we kicked off our week last week.

On to the rooms…

Even though I didn’t post, we did straighten up our bedroom.  It’s still not completely done but it’s clean enough for me to show you.  Not much needed to be organized.  We have a dresser in our room and that is really cleaned out.  I purchased a bookshelf to go in there when we realized our books were taking over the playroom. 

And sorry, I didn’t get bath pics or closet pictures yet.  I realized after the Master bedroom there is a separate week for the closet.  Not knowing this, I did go ahead and organize it.  But, again, I’ll share that later.

 I’ve heard several people comment on how large our master suite is.  I agree.  It’s a big room.  But ya’ll, some of those master suites we saw…man alive, you could have made two comfortable size rooms from that one master.  This one was one of the smallest and that fits us to a ‘t.’  Also, please keep in mind that our bed is a full size bed.  I would love to “upgrade” in the future.  Our kids are growing and when they sneak in bed with us in the middle of the night, we know that they are there.  It’d be nice if they could be a bit sneakier and we all would fit.  Well, most all of us.

Oh, and to the right, that’s a sitting area that is functioning as our (Zoe and mine) sewing area.  I love it!  And will share that when we get to it.

 This is our office/nursing corner.  Sorry about leaving the ottoman out of place.  About the time Bryant was born, I decided I didn’t want to use the ottoman.  Now it gets pushed here and there around the room and I forgot to move it back.  Mark is in charge of filing papers.

The “stuff” on the floor to the right is a pallet, for when late night cuddlers sneak in and try to take over the bed.  Or, if the bed is full, they get sent to the pallet.  I’d love to make a little sleeping nook instead of the pallet.  But that’s way later.  I don’t want to add window treatments until the bed is upgraded and the new bedding is picked out.  I still have a few things to put away as does Mark.

When we were looking at houses, one of our big turn offs were giant masters.  We new we wanted one a tad bigger than what we had but we also knew we didn’t need a master the size of a football stadium.  We’re no frills people and a retreat is nice but since we were purchasing a larger home, we knew there would be plenty of space for retreat.  This master was a happy medium between supersized and miniscule.  I had told Mark at the beginning of our house hunting that I would like a sitting area to use as a nursery or a craft room or something.  So, I am thrilled that we have that too.

Yay! It’s Monday.  Know what that means:

Yep.  Welcome to another installment of my home!  Guess what.  Our laundry room is upstairs.  Well, it’s not a laundry room.  It’s more like a laundry closet.  Either way, it’s upstairs.  Now, if you had asked me if this was priority when we were house hunting, I would have said far from it.  But, having a laundry room on the same floor and right near the bedrooms, bathrooms, and the like.  Well, it’s pretty wonderful!  Not that our previous house had the laundry far away.  But, to have it on the same floor is a nice perk.

Here’s what it looked like before we attacked with our organizational ninja skillz.

One lonely shelf.  To the bottom right, you can see the kids laundry bags.  Each kid has a bag that they haul their clean clothes in to their room and put up.  Got them from ABC distributing and had the kids names embroidered.  I didn’t see if they sold them but they are similar to the Utility Totes that Thirty-One makes only a lot cheaper (and cheaply made too…one day I’ll replace with sturdier ones and they’ll traipse off to college with those things).  They were piled in the floor and our upstairs cleaning supplies were here.

On the floor.  Well, most of the time they sat on the dryer and would have to be moved to the floor.  Along with our cleaning supplies, I had a tub for stained clothes and one for hang dry clothes.  They sat on the floor or on the dryer.

Here’s the after:

We added the shelf below the existing and a shelf to the right.  Mark’s already whacked his head on the right handed shelf but if we went higher it would’ve been too high for us to reach from the floor.  We’re blessed that Mark and I are fairly tall so we can get away with some height to our shelves.  I purchased the pink fabric boxes at Ross on a date night.  $7 for two.  Yep.  That rocked.  They hold my “hang dry” clothes in one and stained clothes (with the stain remover spray and such) in the one on the dryer.  I still need to make labels.  Every time I sit down to do that I get distracted by someone in the home. 

Let me say that our object this organizational go round is not for cutsie decor.  Our goal is to get this house organized.  We’ll use any means necessary and when I can afford to and we have time, I’ll throw in some cutsie decor.  The baskets on the top shelf hold clothespins and spare cleaning cloths.

To the top left, we have our homemade laundry detergent supplies.  Recently, I had coupons for a few of the supplies so I grabbed them up.  I use the store bought detergent for diapers because the borax in homemade detergent will eat away the diapers.

Here’s my cutsie for the laundry room.  I love Amazon Prime. Got this cute vinyl decal in two days!  I’ll use this side to hang up clothes that need to air dry as needed.

This is outside my laundry room.  My mom was able to save a few of my grandmother’s paintings when she died.  She studied art in Washington DC when she worked at the Pentagon (isn’t that cool).  My mom told me that she took classes with her mom at a local college and they worked on this painting together.  Mom said she painted the water pump and laundry and my grandmother filled in the rest.  I giggled though when I pulled it out to frame it.  The water pump is as big as the house.  Mom said it’s all about perspective.  I told her I bet that’s why Nana had never put it out to display.  She was a bit of a perfectionist.

Since the laundry room is miniscule.  I thought I’d share another area of our house.  The landing at the top of the stairs.  I know.  Not too exciting, but I did put this there:

Our changing area.  It’s the perfect spot.  I have to confess that after carrying a toddler or 6 month old up the steps, Mark and I usually collapse on the landing and just change the diaper there.  But, should we be blessed with a new baby in the future, he or she will get changed on the table.  For awhile.

This leads to my most favorite painting my mom was able to find.

You may not be able to see it very well, but it’s the one on the left hand side.  The canvas board that was used is stained and tattered and the picture is not quite done but I just think it’s beautiful.  Nana rarely painted people.  But she chose this of a mother cradling her child.  I don’t know who it is, but I’ll pretend it’s my mom and either my sister or me.  It’s not quite finished.  Mom doesn’t have hair and not much else is drawn, but the picture, even unfinished is beautiful.  A friend said it’s symbolic of motherhood, you’re never completely finished being a mom and your little one will always be your baby.  I remember seeing this picture as I snooped through all her unfinished paintings and being told to promptly leave them alone.  So, to have this picture is a treasure to me.

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!

While we were on vacation (I promise I’m going to post on that soon), Mark’s sister-in-law B went into labor.  A week and half late.  Yeah, we were a bit impatient but probably not as much as they were way over there.

Anyway, we are thrilled to announce nephew number seven (six for them…their eighth child), little T.   He’s their biggest yet coming in at 8 lbs 11 oz.  I think he heard from Malachi last time we were there and he didn’t want to be outdone by Chi’s mighty weight!

Papa and Grandmere’s shirts are to represent their 15 grands.  We gave them those as a thank you for putting up with our kids much longer than we had hoped when Malachi was born.

We are thrilled to have another nephew.  We waited almost nine months to find out if he’d be another nephew or niece!  Such a fun surprise (okay not really…Mark’s side of the family does a great job of making boys!)!

We can’t wait to meet him in person.

I loved the fabric we (that would be Zoe and I) picked out for their spring dresses.  So, on the Friday before Resurrection Sunday, I finished up Zoe’s dress and decided to check and see if I could make something for me to go along with it.  I had just enough fabric to piece together a skirt…with the added white tablecloth (no joke…I’d actually been saving it to use for an underskirt for another tablecloth I have…yes, I’m serious).

I would have totally documented this undertaking if I hadn’t been so unsure of if it would work.  This led me to decide to ask for a dress form for Christmas.  It’s easy to try things on the girls as I make them but for me, well, I can’t really tell what it looks like.  I’m not sure I’d enjoy trying to pin something on me as I twisted and turned as well.

Hopefully, in a couple of weeks when I’ve lost a few inches, I’ll try it on and you can get the full view of it!  I love the patchwork of it and I totally love the colors!