Irradicating the World of Faux Paneling One Closet at a Time

I am a turtle.  I do everything at turtle pace.  Usually when I do a project it takes...well...a while.  I have kids, I have a husband, I have a life, I have friends, I have a business (squealing), I have a giganto yard that needs mowed, I have stuff that needs done.  You get the idea.  Projects move slowly.  But then...once in a while the stars align, you go on a fun trip with Kim (to IKEA and get some cool stuff), see lots of inspiration, the hubster goes on travel....your window of opportunity is open....JUMP!   You may remember the beginning......mmm-hmm...it was bad. 

I started the closet redo by emptying it.   Not as fun as a barrel of monkeys but hey, not too bad.  And yes, that Nike box IS holding up the clothes bar.  Don't judge.  That was an improvement, as it had fallen out of the wall and the clothes were slaloming downward toward the back of the closet.

Removed all the bars and wire shelf doohickies.  Sometimes the old timers actually got it right....let's not reinvent the wheel here folks.  In old houses closets tend to be small....there is only so much that SHOULD go in the closet.

Irradicating the world of faux paneling one room at a time.  Seriously....it had to take SO much more effort to put all that icky paneling OVER the walls than to just strip the wallpaper and paint.  (The guy before us must have spent a FORTUNE in paneling)  I have added even more square footage to my house.....the paneling had expanded and was bowed out at least 2 inches.   This is a small closet...I need every millimeter! 

Goodbye paneling and all your bits.  Jen's home improvement hint #1:  Clean up as you go.  It just makes things nice. 

It's not child labor if it's your kid.  That's the law.  He enjoyed it...look at that smile.  I have caught onto something here....two adults would not have fit in the closet together anyway....kids.  The key is to enlist kids into your home improvement army.  You're welcome. 

Used my magic potion on the walls.  Worked like a charm. 

Stripping wallpaper is a messy business.   But it's so nice to paint over that gorgeous old smooth plaster...nothing like it. 

Ta da! 

Ta da ta da! 

I put back the hook strips...or whatever they're called.  There are a bajillion of these precious strips with the clever wire hooks on them laying in our basement and garage attic....long ago abandoned for the latest new fangled organizer doohickies.  I decided to do two strips on each side so I could have two hanging bars.  One for me, one for the hubster. 

Oh and my dad rocks.   Have I mentioned that previously?   We have these automatic light thingies in our closets thanks to him.  For years I had the kids convinced I was magic...

a mear wave of the hand turns on the light. ;-)

Filled up.  Look at that!  I can actually SEE my clothes.  They're not all strangled under clumps of my husband's polos and weird triathlete singlet thingies.

And as if I was transported to a time when I was ACTUALLY crafty....I whipped up this little baby this afternoon during naptime.  I was pretty proud of myself.   

Thank you old house basement that apparently at one time had screen windows. Um...ick.  Every creepy crawly thing would find it's way right in...not my scene.  You should just be my jewelry organizer...that sounds like WAY more fun, no? 

Yay!

As I finished up this post I remembered something......I think my VERY FIRST DIY project was the closet in my bedroom at home, as a kid.   My folks must have wondered about me when a 10 year old was asking to remodel her closet.  I spackled, painted, the whole show.  Then my dad installed organizer thingies....it was awesome and I was so proud of myself.   It starts somewhere folks. ;-)

Do your closets need a sprucer?  It's actually kinda fun....go for it! :-)

Closet Redo....From the Beginning

My husband is on travel.....and we ALLL know what that means.  Time for unapproved home improvement. ;-)   This is our bedroom closet....on a good day.  Usually there is also an ironing table, sweatshirts bombing from up above, shoes all over the floor...it's bad folks. It's really bad. 

Well.....it's not so bad anymore. (imagine me singing that line...hehehe)   Progress to be shown very soon!  Unapproved projects make my husband insane....he's not really the "vision" type...you know, it's like walking in on surgery and saying "oh my lord, what have you done to that poor person!!!"  He's the same with home improvement.  I always say "trust me".  He always rolls his eyes.  I usually always finish and he says HOLY CRAPOLA, THAT LOOKS AWESOME.  We just need to spare him the gory part. ;-)

One Workbench, Two Workbench

The kitchen took its toll on the basement.  All the cutting of beadboards took place in my workshop....on the floor.  Yes, I'm a professional. ;-)  Then the mess took over my workbench....and the rest of the basement followed suit, as you remember.  Okay okay, the rest of the basement was already chaos and the kitchen helped it over the edge of the cliff.

The VanOort Tornado went through and this is the bench NOW!  Wha??  I could actually DO a project.....ON A BENCH.  Goodbye floor, it was nice knowin' ya.  And the tools....so THAT'S where they were hiding?

On another wall of the workshop was my old drafting table.....covered  in junk as well.  That was the motif I was going for in my basement decor...."covered in junk" chic.

 And NOW!  Hooray....another clear workspace.  TWO WHOLE tabletops cleared....that's a miracle in our house.  As soon as I have any energy I'll be back at the projects....winter is zapping me. 

 On a sidenote....how awesome is the workbench?  Do you know what the table top is?  A BOWLING ALLEY LANE. Completely wackadoo, right?  Found it at the bless-ed ReStore....total bargain.  I left it behind once...then my dad insisted I go back to look at it again....thank goodness for dads.

 Wanna see more of "Project Basement".....check it out!  We're just about done!

Project Basement Marches On

BEFORE

Our tour of my seriously disturbed basement continues.....I'm not even joking about this photo folks. It was really this bad. In this room's defense, this is where my husband had begun making Mount Trashmore while waiting for the big dumpster to be delivered. But this isn't far from how it looked to begin with. (Just take out the stuff in the foreground and you get the gist of its horriblness.) This is the last room in our basement if you take the northern route. It's the room that floods the most, is the darkest and has two oil tanks left from that bygone era of heating fuel. Basically, it's the creepiest (even more than the red room).

AFTER

And NOW! Look at all the clear floor space. And a shelf for all my canning jars and "decorative" items. How do you all organize the things you decorate with throughout the year that aren't exactly seasonal? You know....the candlesticks/frames/etc?

(Pardon my excessive posting this afternoon....I have a sick kiddo, I'm stuck on the couch with a laptop for entertainment and I'm trying to figure out the road to snazzy blogdom.)

Christmas Organizing

Today we said goodbye to Santa for another year. I love to decorate for Christmas....but I also love to take it all down and get back to normal. We worked on taking it all down today. Christmas is safely put away in the CLEAN basement. :-) I thought I'd share a few of my Christmas organization ideas...in case you haven't put Christmas away yet. ;-)

This is one of my FAVORITES. When the boys receive or make ornaments we label them right away....so we'll always remember who/what/when/where. I stole this idea from a girlfriend who has 5 kids....she would never remember whose was whose unless they were labeled.

Sock monkey...so cute...now we'll always remember he came home with us from Door County, WI in 2009. Oh...and Marshall does have ornaments too....I just seemed to photograph TWO for his brother!

I use these little cuties...metal rim tags and a fine felt pen. If the ornament has a flat side sometimes I write directly on it with a sharpie...just depends.



This idea I'm sure my husband would rather I not share. He thinks I have strand light OCD. When we were first married I would put each strand of lights back into their little plastic doohickies....you know the thingies they come in originally that snap each light into place. Yep, I was that girl. Then I tried wrapping each strand around a piece of cardboard....me not likey.
So, this is what I do now. I divide each strand in half, starting from each end and bundle them with rubberbands.




No more boxes or plastic thingies or wrapping around cardboard....such a space saver...and they aren't tangled for next year!! Just make sure you ALWAYS wash your hands really well after handling Christmas lights....I hear they have high lead levels? Eek.

Slip the whole show back into its labeled bin and there's a little piece of organized Christmas. :-)

And for my final trick.....hanging garland. What do you do with your garlands? Smush them into rubbermaids? Hang them? I've tried both....I'm all about hanging them now. Just grab a hanger, a big ole nail in the floor joist and we're in business.

Happy Organizing everyone!! :-)

The Pain Cave

To be honest I can't really believe I am sharing our basement transformation with the world. Now I wouldn't say HOARDING is the word to describe our basement...well....perhaps....no no, nothing like hoarding. ;-)

Close.

All of you with little ones out there can relate....you know there is a box that needs to be taken to the basement so you set it by the stairs to take down. When the small window of opportunity arises you make a mad dash for the basement....the 3 year old's 'mommy beacon' is deployed and he instantly starts shouting "MOMMMY, MOMMY, MAMA, MOM, MOMMY". Time is short...toss the box on the floor and run back up the stairs. You see where I'm going with this? Now multiply that by 7 years and two three year olds. I'm not sure of the exact math on that....but it equals BASEMENT DISASTER.

This was the "red room." Don't ask. We don't know why it's red. It creeps me out though. This is where I kept my canning jars, Christmas dec's, and about a billion other things. Two walls are lined with heavy duty shelving (we tried our hand at organization a couple years ago). I'll show those shelves when Christmas is put away.

To begin, I should mention there are four large rooms in our basement, plus a double sized room....so really six large rooms in the basement. This would be great if I had an organization plan from the beginning. Alas I did not....so it was SIX ROOMS OF PURE CHAOS.

And we whipped them all into shape.

Today we'll take a look at the new "pain cave". As I mentioned before, my husband would be of the insane Ironman triathlete variety. Frankly, it just makes me tired to look at him sometimes. Anyhoo....these triathlete types enjoy the pain of training, and therefore like to make up wonderful names like "pain cave" for the place they do said training in. Levi wanted a cave of his very own......so here we go. The photos above show the room packed to the gills.

With this super snazzy paint job. Kinda like Valentine neopolitan ice cream...if ice cream involved peeling paint and creepy red walls.

Paint to the rescue. It took. A.LOT. Concrete block walls painted red and black (yes one of the walls was black.) Satanic? I'll let you decide. Now they're WHITE! Fresh and clean and bright. My dad had so kindly installed a fluorescent light for us some years ago which really helped the ambiance...picture the red/black with one hanging fixture. Can you say "horror movie" with me?

Look at the happy triathlete in his own environment. Indoor bicycle trainer, treadmill, mat for doing endless situps....he's in heaven. And I can breath easier knowing the clutter is GONE!!!

Taking a Break from Regularly Scheduled Programming......

BEFORE

Hello! I am, indeed, still in existence on the planet! You wouldn't know that from my complete disregard for anything blog related for the past 73 years but I'm back! The kitchen project is on hold. As soon as I can find a contractor who ACTUALLY DOES what they say they'll do....I'll have a ceiling. That's right folks, no ceiling yet. In fact I think I might start my own contracting business. Would you hire me? My motto will be "I'll do what I say I'll do".....the clients will flock to me. ;-)

Anyhoo....enough of my crazy lady kitchen rant. We've had lots of downtime over the holidays...and the kiddos are still downtiming it at Mema and Papa's....so......it's back to work for the hubster and I. Work on what you might ask since the kitchen is in a perpetual state of limbo? THE BASEMENT. It.is.a.disaster. Or maybe I should say......WAS a disaster. Okay, honestly it's still disaster-esque...but that's just because the dumpster hasn't shown up yet to take away the mountain of trash we have collected.

Today a sneaky peak at my favorite transformation so far.......for years I have wanted a shelf to put ALL my paint on. Since my sign biz has taken a sharp upturn in the last year I NEED all this paint (did you hear that dear? i NEED it.) he he he. Anyway, this is where I wanted it....doesn't it look spiffy? I painted the wall behind and swept...my dear husband did the assembly.

AFTER

(ignore the total mess in the back and foregrounds....we're workin' on it.)

MORE BASEMENT LATER!!!! My husband would like the world to see his new "pain cave"....don't ask...he's a weirdo triathlete...they enjoy pain in the form of endless treadmill running and indoor bicycle training. Weird.

Treasures From Sandy

In the box of jars I found the treasures. Sandy had assured me, when I picked them up, that there were some neat jars at the bottom. Besides the approximately 40 pint jars, there were lots of neat things hiding in there!! Now really, who doesn't love a mason jar with a zinc lid?

There were seven zinc lids in the box....with lots of neat old mason jars. The one with the handle is really neat.....and blue mason.....oh how i love you blue mason.

Thanks Sandy!! Now I'm thinking these would look A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E. as storage jars in the Hoosier....what do you think?

Garage Sales and Egyptians

The past two days we have spent cleaning the boys' room....and sorting....and cleaning....and sorting....and cleaning. Who knew two tiny people could have SO MUCH JUNK?! This was all in preparation for "the big boy bed". Our two year old made the leap. So, we needed to make space, which included taking down the crib (sniffle, sniffle). We're "done" if you know what I mean....so the next time the crib will be up is for grandbabies (am I that old?)

In the process of sorting, cleaning, sorting, cleaning I had an epiphany. Well actually I didn't...the idea had been stewing around in my brain since reading my friend Katie's post about "stuff" and frankly, how we have too much of it. SOOOO....I'm having a garage sale. My first ever. Crazy, huh? I can't even count change....and I'm having a garage sale. ;-)

This is my little pile as of yesterday (not including the furniture)....it's grown since then.

Then, while we were sorting and cleaning and sorting...well you get the idea....my friend Dan delivered some aluminum sheet metal. Guess what that means? A SIGN!! I have my second ever paid commission!! A sign for a local daycare/learning center! I'll get to work on this on Saturday when I get into town to buy paint....I'll give you a sneak peak when it's finished.

SO.....when Dan came the boys went skittering off in every direction....ahh!! someone we don't know!!! you know how it is. When I came back into the house we returned to work upstairs with the boys inquiring as to "the man" outside. We talked about whose dad he was...that cleared it up for Marshall. Clancey wanted to know "what he does?". Well.....Dan has a very interesting job...he's an embalmer....and a race car driver. This sparked some very interesting questions...which led us to a favorite book...."The Ancient Egyptians", in which they describe in "kid friendly terms" what the Egyptians did to prepare people who had passed away.

I basically told the boys this is what Dan does, minus the sarcophagus. To this they wondered why the guy on the table died. I said "well he probably just got old and died." To which Clancey says "old like you?"

Uh, no. Thanks for asking.

I told the guys we just need to live a healthy life and hopefully we'll live a long time. To which Marshall responded......

I think I need to eat more fruit today.

Garden Markers

Am I the only crazy that saves EVERYTHING? I know there's someone out there with this logic too....besides you Dad..... "but it's so neat....there's got to be SOMETHING I could do with this, I should just save it." Some time ago began my compulsive environmentally conscious saving of concentrated oj metal lids....you know the metal thingies on the ends of the can? Well.....it finally dawned on me! Now aren't you glad I saved these my dear husband? I didn't spend a dime on this project. ;-)

GARDEN MARKERS!!!!

Basically follow these instructions, add a piece of wire as a poker, a pretty bead and there you have it! I'm off to make a jillion more to label all the things I lose track of in the garden. :-)

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