Basement toy organization, check!

Hey hey! Good Friday to you! :) Today kicks off spring break for the hubby and the kiddo – I am so looking forward to a relaxing week with both of them home! (We’re boring and never go anywhere for break.)

I’m excited to share a little bit of organization with you today! Can I just say it again? Organization makes me happy. Very, very happy. Borderline delirious.

I showed you our new built in cubbies in the basement last month and I’ve been crushing on them ever since:

Can you blame me? That’s seventeen feet of built ins waiting to take on a pile of toys. Seriously – bliss.

Because Target called and asked if I wanted to show off some of their Threshold line and I was all, YEEEEEEAH, I headed out to my local Tar-jay to see if they had what would work for the built ins.

I loved the look of these bins – I thought the gray ones would look awesome down there:

But they were just a little too small for what I needed. And the lid would make it harder for the kiddo to get to his toys.

I loved these too – they had the shape I wanted and I liked the idea of the liner:

But they weren’t the right size – I really wanted to use each cubby to the max and these were too small.

I was getting closer with these:

But the big one was a little too big and the small one was kind of tapered – smaller at the bottom and larger at the top. In my head I had imagined something perfectly square.

So when I found these abaca milk crates it was meant to be:

I felt a little like Goldilocks when I realized these were just right.

They were the perfect size, I loved the color and the shape was just what I wanted. SCORE.

I ended up going to a couple different Target’s to get them over the course of few weeks. So sorry if you wanted some locals, I was the one buying them all up. ;) On my second trip to get a couple more they were on sale, so I took my receipt back and got credited the difference for all of them – keep that in mind if you buy something and see it’s on sale the next week!

Next came the HUGE toy purge – the boy and I went through ever.y.thing. and ended up with a manageable pile to sort into the containers. But because you can’t see through the bins, I still needed a way to make clean up easy so things stayed organized.

I wanted labels – so I picked up some wood plaques and some cool scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby:

And used spray adhesive to glue the paper to the wood:

Then cut them out with an x-acto knife like I showed you here.

I used picmonkey.com to write out the words and then glued them on top. At first I was going to make it cute with pictures of the items inside (cars, etc.), but I realized the Bub is reading and we need to encourage that, so words were what I ended up with:

I drilled holes into each one and tied them through with some twine.

I LOVE how they turned out! Kind of funky and cool, but still cute enough for toys. :) The green and blue works great with the colors down there:

I didn’t fill every cubby with them (there are 22 cubbies!!), but my need for symmetry won out – I used five on one side and four on the other:

The subwoofer fills in the fifth spot on this side, so it looks balanced.

The cubbies at the ends are open for random toys:

You know, for things like ginormous stuffed penguins. ;)

I found a few other items while at Target, of course. This basket was on clearance in the kitchen aisle and it holds the many random Legos that end up all over that countertop.

All. over. (Twitch.):

Sometimes Momma just needs to be able to throw stuff in a basket and not worry exactly where it goes, you know?

These big floor pillows were on clearance for $12 each – so soft and big and perfect for laying around on the floor:

And of course…I couldn’t resist another placemat pillow. It’s a sickness people, I know. I can’t quit them:

This one is just two placemats sew together with another pillow stuffed inside. It literally took me ten minutes. Thankfully you can’t see the horrible sewing job, it’s hidden by the fabric. ;)

I LOVE the baskets and LOVE the labels and I LUUURVE how the basement is coming together:

There’s still much to do on this wall – the lamps will get painted, just not sure what color yet. Still need to hang floating shelves, art…and maybe a few other fun things. The top will be cleared off a little when the shelves go in.

But I cannot tell you how happy I am to finally have a dedicated and organized spot for all of the toys. It’s been six years coming. :)

It’s not picture perfect but it’s functional and fun and we love it:

My little photo bomber had to get in on the action too:

Sorry. :)

By the way, the cubbies are not wide enough for games, but I have those in a dresser down there. (Most of them are up in the family room anyway.) Some of them fit in the built ins but most are too long.

There you go, our wall of blissful, wonderful, fantastic organization. It’s so easy to clean up down here now too, he knows exactly where things go. And we’ve already discussed that this is IT – if we can’t find a spot for something new, something else has to go.

Can I just tell you how awesome my kiddo is at purging? He is SO great at telling me things can go – so good at it that I find myself saying, “Are you sure??” Yet again, it’s me that has the sentimental attachment to most of it, but I’m always getting better at letting things go that we don’t use or love anymore. (Although when he told me the remaining Thomas the Trains could go I did keep some in his memory bin.) ;)

Have a lovely Easter weekend! May it be bright and sunny and warm! And I’ll see you back here Monday for the April before and after link up!

Great white!

Well, first of all, thank you for all the lovely birthday wishes! And everyone who guessed 26 was RIGHT!! I am 26! Plus 10.

Everyone who guessed 32 and younger has a check coming in the mail. ;)

As many of you know, our new hardwood floors are being installed this week. I’m a jumble of so excited I could pee and totally dreading this – I’m so confused.

They start Tuesday and at least for right now, I’m definitely leaning toward the excited part. Actually, I’m GIDDY at the thought of lovely hardwoods throughout our main floor. By Thursday, when we’re covered in an inch of dust, I may be signing a different tune. ;)

Check out all this hardwood waiting patiently!:

I’ve been trying to get a few projects done before they get started, especially since I won’t be able to get much accomplished this week. One project I’m ITCHING to get finished up is the office.

I started painting the board and batten six weeks ago – just days before the water issues and the kitchen island was placed in the office for a week and the whole house basically imploded.

At least that’s what it looks like. ;)

So I haven’t gotten back to the painting. Because it’s just not been a priority and OH YEAH, I despise painting board and batten. For reals…it is one of the most dreaded activities EVER.

I’m exaggerating. A wee bit. But not much.

I was out with my friend Beckie the other night and she reminded me that she used her paint sprayer to spray her (awesome!) board and batten project. I kept pushawing it though – whining about taping off walls and protecting floors and wah wah wah…

And then I realized I didn’t need to worry about the floors. Cause they were comin’ out! I could spray right over them and it wouldn’t matter one bit! WHOO!

And then Beckie told me about this awesomesauce plastic stuff for the walls:

The bottom part is painter’s tape. You just tape it along the surface, and then the plastic opens up and sticks to the wall all by itself.

It was not cheap -- $8 for the roll. But it was the best eight buckaroos I’ve spent in a long time.

It worked like a charm!:

Then it was time to bust out the sprayer. My Dad got me one for my birthday, at least a year ago – if not two. I just used it for the first time two months ago.

I kept putting it off cause I was sceered. Not sure why, cause it is SO easy to use, and it works GREAT! Mine is the Wagner Paint Sprayer:

You can see it on Amazon here. The reviews are mixed, but I LOVE IT. There’s a few tricks I’ve learned as I’ve used it, and I’m doing a post about it shortly. So far I’m very happy with it!

Even though I use primed mdf, I still start with a primer when painting it. I used that in the sprayer, and I couldn’t believe the difference after just that coat!:

When I did a wall by hand a few weeks ago, I did one coat of primer and two of white. It still looked like it needed another coat. It was driving me MAD.

But when I used the sprayer, I did one coat of primer, and one coat of white – that’s IT.

(I use semi-gloss or high gloss white on all of my moldings.)

It was so, so, SO much easier and quicker than brushing it on! THANK YOU BECKIE!! ;)

I am so in love with the crisp white against the walls!:

It’s exactly how I envisioned it 18 months ago all that time ago when I started this room redo!

I’m such a sucker for contrast – I could eat it up with a spoon. I can’t get enough of it:

It feels so good to finally have this done. And now I never have an excuse again to paint the board and batten. Which means you’ll probably see it in every. single. room. :)

I realized after the fact that taping off the floor wouldn’t have been a big deal – next time I’ll just get another roll of that plastic and use it along the floors. I did the whole room and used it on the windows and doorway and still have a ton left.

Now you know why I’m giddy – how fantastic are the floors going to look up against all this white??:

Even MORE contrast! Be still my heart.

Here’s an idea of the difference the white paint makes:

  

It took all this time, and it was so easy to get done. I should listen to my bloggy friends more often. ;)

And this room WILL be done this month. I don’t care what it takes – it will be done. It’s soooo close already…just a few or 15 things I still need to do. ;)

Now, I’m off to bed because I need to be up at the bum-crack of dawn to start moving stuff to the basement. The contractor we’re using covers all of the moving of the furniture, but there are a few delicate items I want to get out of the way myself. :)

I will give you some updates on the progress soon! I hope to post on why we picked this installation method and how we decided on all the other details – stain, width, etc. – this week. It was a lot to figure out so hopefully it will help some of you too!

Wish me luck! ;)

P.S. I always get asked about that drum light, and you can see the how-to for that here!