Recap on Our Fall so Far

Autumn is flying by. I can't believe it's almost Halloween. I haven't been posting enough about everything we're doing. We've been busy. Really busy! So here's a post where I try to catch up on everything that's been going on recently. 

I've been painting furniture.

Mike installed a light on the deck with a switch and added a switch controlled outlet for the deck/greenhouse. 

Mike and I put away the pool for the season in early October. We are keeping the pea gravel base on the apron to use next year.

I powerwashed all the flaking paint off the playhouse. I won't repaint it until spring, but at least the paint won't flake onto the kids anymore. It looks terrible, but oh well.  I also powerwashed the house and porch steps. 

Mike reseeded the lawn and it filled in and looks SO much better. 

I re-sealed the driveway (much needed). It needed 2 coats because I waited too long. 

We've started Oliver's bedroom updates (he's getting a slightly more grownup, big kid, pre-tween room). I'll share photos of this soon. 

We decorated for Halloween. More pics coming tomorrow when it's not pouring rain for the 50th day in a row. 

We put a desk and computer in the playroom. Oliver doesn't really "play" as much anymore and both of them have a hybrid school program which requires the ability to zoom. The desk gives them a place to work away from the dining room table but is close by. We're planning ahead for winter on this one. 

I started organizing the basement (on rainy days). This is a lofty goal that I haven't reached in 5 years. Will this year be the year? I hope so... I think this COVID winter is going to test our sanity. Having an additional space to "be" this year will be helpful.

[No photo because I'm too embarrassed to show how bad it is...]

I'm slowly cleaning up the garden. The tomatoes, beans, spinach and cosmos have been pulled up. Actually, the archway collapsed in a wind storm (not surprised, it was ridiculously inexpensive and not made to last) and that sparked the cleanup there.

Everything I want to save has been put into the greenhouse in anticipation of our first frost/freeze (which didn't happen yet, but it's happening Friday night). 

I'm harvesting dahlias and zinnias as much as possible for bouquets... I'll probably be digging up the bulbs this weekend.

I bought mislabeled mums for the porch. I like to wait for them to bloom so I pick plants that have tight buds, relying solely on the labels. All of these were mislabeled... I thought I bought pink and purple! 

They're still pretty though. Especially the cream one with yellow centers and pink tips. 

I've nicknamed October "Hiketober" this year... we have gone hiking a lot this month while the weather is at optimal fall hike. Matt is strong enough this year, that even on little legs, he can keep up on a 3-4 easy to moderate mile trek. It's been lovely. We're doing at least 3 walks a week and we're loving it. I'm hoping we can continue this into November - I want to get outside as much as possible while the weather is nice and not buggy. Plus the kids need to get their energy out and without the pool, it leaves us with biking and hiking these days. 

On my to do list right now:

• Plant cleanup as the plants start to die back for fall. 
• Dig up dahlias post-frost and store them for winter.
• Garage cleanup so we can put things away for winter (though we'll be keeping our patio furniture and fire pit out as long as possible this year so we can extend our socialization season). 
• Clean and organize basement so we can use the extra space this winter 

Also... before the frost... my morning glory! There are two twisted up together, a pink-purple and a blue that photographs a touch purple but is really a deep bright blue in person. They are gorgeous and I'm so happy that they bloomed after all! 

Living Room Bookshelves: Phase 1

As part of our playroom reorganization project, we have new living room bookshelves!

Let me back up for a minute though. In the living room Mike and I always talked about doing real built-in bookshelves on the back wall facing the playroom, just like we did in the nursery, but realistically we have never had the time. We thought we HAD to do custom built-ins because our old house is full or wonky sloping walls and funky angles. All stock bookcases are too wide to fit between the door frame and the walls, so we thought that it would never work.

Then with the playroom redo we wanted to put a bookshelf in the playroom. I realized I didn’t want to buy a new bookshelf for this heavy-use space when we could use one we already had. I briefly considered bringing up the third brown bookshelf from the basement (they were actually a set of 3), but it’s really useful in our basement and loaded with books and supplies. It slowly dawned on us that we should just replace the living room bookshelves with new white ones. Yes they would be too wide for the doorframe, but so were the current brown ones. And then one brown bookshelf could go into the playroom and the other one could go downstairs to provide even more storage space (they are the perfect height for the low ceilings down there). And once IKEA’s new summer catalog came out with reduced prices on their already well-priced Billy bookcase system, that just cinched it for us.

We bought 2 white bookshelves with height extenders and four half doors, one for each side. The doors ended up being a bit of a splurge (compared to the cost of the bookshelves) but I think it’s totally worth it. It makes the whole thing look so nice with the doors on them - it doesn’t look or feel like IKEA anymore. And the ability to hide away the clutter of blankets, games, electronics, etc. is THE BEST. We added faux-Anthropologie style knobs from Target in gray and antique bronze to dress the doors up further. We added four inexpensive LED lights and I am completely and totally in love.

We toyed with the idea of painting the back of the bookcase the same gray as the walls (Benjamin Moore Rockport Gray), but in the end after living with the dark brown here for 7 years, I wanted light, bright white-on-white-on-white. It makes such a huge difference! The room feels so much lighter and brighter now. I hadn’t realize how dark those bookshelves made this end of the room.

I’m not sure if we’ll keep the slipper chair here or not, but I like having a place to sit in this location. It’s adjacent to the playroom, the boys playtime spills out into this part of the living room a lot and it’s also in a direct visual line with the dining room. We sit here a lot and so do guests. I do think the floor lamp is going to be relocated, but I’m giving myself time to think it over. Right now both fit between the bookshelf and the radiator cover and I can still open the doors all the way, but it feels a little crowded.

Also... I titled this post “Phase 1” because this is only the first half of the project. Phase 2 will be the cross bookshelf piece over the playroom doors to finish the look and provide additional storage, using the narrow billy bookcase, heavy-duty brackets, some crown molding at the top and a little customization. We’ve purchased all of the pieces, but we expect this to be a little labor intensive (compared to just putting together basic IKEA shelving), so we’re holding off until after we get our time-sensitive seasonal projects finished outside.

I’m really excited about this - it already looks so good and I know it’s going to look even better when it’s all done.

The New & Improved Playroom

A few weeks ago I shared the plans we received from the professional toy organizer who has helped save my sanity. We went to IKEA and bought the necessary shelving and bins from our shopping list. While I hate spending money on things we don’t really "need" when our budget is tight these days, this really became something that we needed. For my sanity. For the kids to be able to play. And the best part is that this room can grow with them now through different phases.

A cozy place to read? Check. A place for books and puzzles? Check. Art supplies? Check. Hooks for superhero capes? Check. Enough of the right kind of bins that the kids can actually find their toys? Check. Storage for toys for two boys at totally different ages? Check. A room that’s easy to clean up? CHECK!

It ended up working out that the room looked great with cube shelves 8 across and 3 high, even though it blocked a little bit of the windows, it doesn’t feel too tall. And it’s totally worth the extra storage space, especially for the oversized toys. The saying that kids will only play with toys that they can see is so true - the boys play with SO many more of their toys now that they can easily see them out or in the shallow bins.

We moved one of the living room bookshelves in here to hold books, puzzles and games. It also keeps the choking hazard toys like legos out of reach. Even with the new chair there the kids still pull everything out easily.

I also managed to squeeze in a small metal shelf from the basement for more toys and smaller bins under the windows. We’ve been keeping a lot of Matthew’s smaller favorites in there, easily within his reach. In the corner we have the sword collection all together. I had been searching for a good way to store them and it turns out we already had the perfect container in the room - one of the red stools we’d been using as a table. It’s the perfect size, height and the bars hold everything in while still allowing the kids to look inside and see what they want. Putting things away is a cinch and the stool fits perfectly in that spot.

One thing that didn’t work out the way we expected was the shoe bin on the wall for at supplies. It turns out that between the light switch, thick door molding and radiator cover, the shoe bins didn’t fit on the wall within a reasonable height. However, the space on the floor ended up being just right for one of the old Trofast toy units (the ones we were replacing). So we converted it to hold just art supplies with 4 small green bins for crayons/markers/paint and 1 medium white bin for paper and coloring books. It’s worked quite well actually. The other 3 Trofast pieces have new lives elsewhere in the house - one in the dining room by the back door (with 3 medium-sized white bins to hold sunscreen, dog towels, bug spray, gardening stuff, etc.) and then one in each of the boy’s closets upstairs to hold outgrown clothes (each with two large blue bins). It’s worked out quite well! And the shoe organizers are working out elsewhere in the house to organize papers, school work and supplies.

This room has become a much more livable space. It feels larger, brighter. I love how it’s so easy to clean up and declutter. The boys have more room to play. We love curling up together and reading in the chair (and the chair is really comfortable!). We’re all so much happier - especially me because I no longer have to look at masses of toy clutter when I look in the direction of the playroom! The boys can clean things up themselves too with this design. (Well Oliver can… Matthew isn’t quite there yet.)

The Toy Tamer & The Playroom Plan

We have a problem that I've been hesitant to share because it's grown so overwhelming... Our playroom is drowning in toys. It looks nothing like that photo above from our house tour anymore. I know this is a common problem for parents, especially ones like us in a small house with kids. I don't think we have an unreasonable number of toys in our home (we do edit, rotate, donate) - it's just that they playroom is small, the bedrooms are small, we don't have a closet on the first floor. We don't have one of those finished basements where the boys can go and be wild. In a larger space the collection would probably even look small, but in a tiny room it feels overwhelming. In a small house we have to be smarter and more efficient with storage to make things work. It's not easy.

Back in May, I finally called in a professional who specializes in toy organization. I met her at a designer's showcase and was really impressed. She calls herself the toy tamer and made some amazing recommendations for the playroom, Matthew’s nursery and Oliver’s room. All using existing furniture and a shopping list for IKEA. The woman is a genius.  One thing I really liked about her was that she didn’t recommend further purging the boy’s toy collection to fit our space, her goal was to maximize our storage and use the space in the most efficient way so that the kids would have room to play and I wouldn't lose my mind with the clutter.

The toy tamer’s plan (which she provided and I redrew with a few modifications) is to use our space as efficiently with lots of good storage and leaving room to play. Here’s the diagram:

The first recommendation was to replace the IKEA Trofast toy storage system we have in here. When we first bought it, the concept sounded so great in theory when we were converting this room from a sun room to a playroom (tubs that slide out! In different sizes! It’s so versatile and can be rearranged!), but in reality the system is awful. We bought the catalog sales pitch hook, line and sinker without doing our research - we were exhausted new parents in a rush to just GET.IT.DONE. The system was livable when we had just one kid, even if half the toys didn’t fit in the bins and the lids never stayed on and they wouldn’t slide if any toys stuck out even ¼” from the top (seriously it’s so frustrating). With two kids and two sets of toys though? Impossible. Now toys are just piled up everywhere all the time with nowhere to go. The toy tamer came in, pointed to the Trofast shelves and said, “don’t you hate those things? I love IKEA but that toy storage system is the absolute worst.” It made me feel a lot better - at least it wasn’t just us!

The Trofast system will be replaced with Kallax cube shelves, like the one we use in Oliver’s bedroom. The room is wide enough to fit two units across. We’ll fill the cubes with bins and boxes of different sizes and shapes for small toys and put larger toys directly inside the cubes. Down the road we might get a few door and/or drawer inserts as their toys and needs change (one thing I like about this system is how flexible it is). In addition to the cube-sized bins, we will also pick up a few other larger basket/bins/buckets to corral larger toys, stuffed animals, etc. For art supplies we are going to repurpose two wall-hanging shoe bins on the wall (they are the perfect size for this - I saw it at the toy tamer’s exhibit at a designer’s showcase and was so impressed!).

Here's a visual version of my shopping list:

The only big decision we have to make is how tall we want the Kallax shelves to be along this wall. We don’t want to do the 4x4 system because it’s too tall and will block too much of the windows. The 2x4 will fit nicely under the windows, but might not be enough storage for the long term. The toy tamer recommended we buy two 1x4 units as well (they can attach with brackets you can buy at IKEA). We can use these to build our own 3x4 shelf and block part of the windows (which we keep closed most of the time anyway to avoid the view directly into the neighbor’s driveway) or we can put one of them in front of the radiator (since they are open backed) and then use the other in Oliver’s bedroom to give his bedroom more toy storage. Either way, we will have 8 additional cubes of storage in the house.

Here’s the alternate floorplan:

The second big recommendation from the toy tamer (which I'm sure you noticed from the pictures) was to replace the big couch with a cozy armchair for reading. The couch takes up a lot of room and we really only use a chair’s worth of space on it - the bulk of the couch is used as a landing strip for blankets, pillows and stuffed animals. In theory the sleeper sofa worked as a place for overnight guests, but in reality the room is too small and crowded/cluttered for guests to actually stay. By replacing the couch with a chair we suddenly have a lot more room to work with.

I’m not sure what we are going to do for a rug yet in here. The toy tamer recommended carpet tiles because they are easy to clean and if that fails, replace. I’ve also seen some really fun inexpensive options at IKEA and on Amazon. No matter what we decide though, we are holding off until Georgia is no longer with us because we cannot put anything new down on the floors with her constant incontinence issues. So for now we will live with what we’ve got.

My change to the floorplan was to eliminate a dedicated dress up area (with a big basket, hooks and a mirror) and instead put a bookcase on that wall. I know it will fit nicely in that spot because it currently lives on the other side of that same wall in the living room. We need more book storage for the kids downstairs and a high-up storage spot to keep choking hazard toys like legos out of Matthew’s reach. It would also be a great place for storing games, puzzles, etc. I want to move the dress up hooks under the windows between the chair and the cube shelves and then put the rest of the stuff in a big cube shelf bin next to it.

So far, the only part of this plan we’ve implemented is removing the couch. It’s actually back in the living room, just like when we first moved in. The living room couch we bought was very pretty but it was not kid-friendly. At all. Unwashable and prone to stains. A frame that couldn’t handle boisterous boys - the cushion wrapping separated from the frame in front so that we couldn’t take sitting on it for very long. Plus it didn’t provide enough seating for a family of 4. So we gave it away to Matthew’s summer nanny who we adore and happened to be moving into her first apartment (and needed a couch!). The old couch might not be the ideal size or shape for this room, but it’s A LOT more comfortable and the beige slipcover is removable/washable when sticky jelly fingers attack. Long term I still really want to get a small sectional in here, but that’s a post for another day (especially since IKEA has finally created the sectional of my dreams - modular pieces to build a size/shape that fits our weird room, reasonably priced, and kid-friendly removable washable covers!).

Anyways, we have a great plan in place. But just so you know how bad things have gotten, here's the ugly truth about the playroom... this is what it looks like RIGHT NOW. Without the couch.

Without a good storage system in place, this room is still a disaster. All we've been able to do is make room for the tent in here. I have rearranged everything several times in hopes of finding a more livable solution until we go to IKEA, but it's an impossible task. We are hoping to implement the rest of the playroom changes and give it a full overhaul in early September - the Kallax system will be 15% the last week in August so it’s the perfect time to pick them up. Also Oliver will be in school full time after Labor Day which will *hopefully* give me a better chance at doing some real organization in here!

Organizing Little Toys

Oliver is at the age now where he is starting to have a few small toy collections that he loves. If one of the toys is missing - he knows it - so we've been trying different ways to keep everything together. The small green tubs in the playroom, while small, were still too big. Most of our baskets were too big. Oliver's frog felt Easter basket worked for a time, but all the heavy use wore out the handle.

Now we're trying canvas CD baskets from Target. They look nice on shelves, they have handles so Oliver can easily carry them around, and they are the perfect size for keeping smaller toy collections together. Another plus is that they are inexpensive compared to other storage options!

They are just the right size for little toy cars and planes...

Finding the right storage for different toys is hard! While I love our IKEA system in the playroom, it's too small for big toys and too big for keeping tiny toys organized. I'm hoping these will be a good interim solution for his collections.