Boy Bathroom Organization

I don't know about you but bathrooms are the one place where it seems organization can be a daunting task. There is either not enough space or everything is in a drawer/cabinet and isn't seen and therefore forgotten about. I think everything should have a place. If it has a place, it can always be found when needed.

The vanity seems to be the place that can become the most disorganized either on top of it or the drawers become a mess. So, in an effort to better organize the vanity and to make the important items seen, this was my solution. There have been so many times at night after brushing their teeth the boys would say  "Mommy, I forgot to floss!" or "Mommy, I didn't do my mouthwash!" All because the flossers were in the drawer and the mouthwash was in the linen closet on the shelf. Now, it is seen so it is no longer forgotten about!

My search for the tray and small bowl began a while back. I originally thought that a melamine tray and cup would be best. That way if the boys accidentally knocked it off the vanity it would not shatter when it hit the tile floor. Goodness, we all know how that goes, tile aways wins! Well, I could not find the sizes I wanted in melamine and I didn't have the patience to continue looking so I went with glass. Yep, so we will see how it goes.

It is the perfect size for all the products, so cute too! I found the tray and small bowl at World Market both together were about $5. The submarine toothbrush holder is from Target, we have had it well over a year now.

The flossers are awesome and much better than traditional floss, much easier for little hands. The bowl is the perfect size for the flossers.

I picked up this hand soap at Target last week and OH MY GOSH does it smell good. It was on the end of an aisle and as I was headed to the register, I saw it and grabbed it and put in my cart. I knew if would look perfect in the boys bathroom since I still had the snowman soap dispenser and it was time for a new one with a more spring/summer look plus the colors matched the room perfectly! The great smell was a bonus! Am I the only one who sometimes buys items solely on the packaging? However, I have used products many times by this company and knew it would be a great product!

So, since I went with the glass tray, I had to come up with a way to keep it in place on the vanity. As you can see from the photo below I used those non-slip liners for drawers/shelves. You can cut them to the size you prefer. I have our pantry shelves lined with these under the can/glass goods. I cut a piece to size for under the tray and under the small bowl.

 

 

So far so good, it does make if feel more secure. No sliding at all.

 



And unless you get down and really eyeball it, you would never know it was there.

They are also easy to clean, just wash and let dry and put them back. So another reason the non-slip liners are a good pick for this!

Quick and easy set up, easy clean up, and easily accessible it how I like it!

Now there shouldn't be anymore excuses for not flossing!

Coat Closet Transformation

I cannot tell you just how excited I am to FINALLY be able to show this to you! This has been one transformation that I am so glad we did and it has made a huge impact! It is now the perfect spot for coats and backpacks!

Let me start at the beginning.

You see we have 3 doors all in one area, we knew when we built that this would potentially be an issue at some point.....The door that is opened is the coat closet. See, this is NO FUN in the mornings when it is time to get your coats out and put them on while in a hurry to get the kids to school on time. Plus the kids would hang their backpacks on the door knobs so each time you walked by you would get hit in the leg by the backpacks, again NO FUN. The door directly in front leads to the garage. See..it just doesn't work!

So I took the door off. Then propped it against the pantry door for 2 days. I took the door off to see if I could live with it being off and just to get a feel of how it would be without a door before I went in and completely got ahead of myself and transformed the closet only to realize that removing the door was a mistake. Am I the only one that over thinks my diy projects? Well, then the Mr. got in on the action. He wanted in on the fun too you see. Little did he know that I already had a plan as to what I wanted the new closet to look like. Well, he started looking online and found a few photos he liked and together we came up with a better functioning closet.

The closet looked like this:

See coats, bags, beach towels, extra towels, boxes where I stored other bags and another box for mittens/hats/gloves and a shoe shinning kit. There is a lot in here but all that space underneath was being wasted! Well, it was where the dog and cat food could be found.

 

I started off doing a little measuring just to make sure I got it all correctly spaced out.

 

Thank goodness the Mr. got involved! Together, we decided we wanted the board and batten/cottage look with a shelf on top and a bench underneath.  We purchased all of our supplies at Lowes. Came home and got busy!

 

First, the shelf on the top:

 

 

If you notice we changed out the shelf completely. The builder used MDF board for the shelf and it just didn't fit the look we were going for, so we took it out and replaced it with real wood. Then we added a piece of wood in front just below the shelf to hide the hanging rail. We knew we were not going to be hanging anything on it, since we were unable to remove it, we hid it.

 

Next we worked on the bench, we used the same measurements as our shelf to complete the bench. Just make sure your bench is sturdy, has support and that it is nailed to the studs.

 

Then we began on the middle area. We made sure all of our boards would be evenly spaced before we nailed them to the wall. 

 

 

Once it was all completed, we painted the closet white. The closet was big when you got in there but the green walls made it feel so dark and I knew the white would make it feel more open.

 

 

See, so much brighter!! We added hooks to finish the look.

 

 

 

This is the perfect spot for coats and backpacks!

 

Now, I had to add pretty baskets too! And pillows! You can read about my pillows here.

 

 

The baskets are for gloves, hats, etc; pet items and extra towels.

 

 

We even added a small hook on each side.

 

 

 

The small hooks are great for hats and dog leashes.

 

This project turned out great! It is so much easier to get the kids coats and backpacks and head straight out the door, no more fussing, pushing, closing the door on someone hassle!

 

As you can see from the close ups, we left the areas where the original door hung unfilled. I just painted over it but when we do another project soon we will fill those areas in and give that a more finished look.

 

How about a before and after? Yes, sure!

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Linking up to The Lilypad Cottage,  Liz Marie



 

















Landscaping Dilemma-Part 1

This is something that I have been meaning to blog about for a while now.  This space in our yard is almost overwhelming.

At the back of our driveway there is a huge hill that leads to the back yard. So far we have put down more mulch than you can imagine to make it look somewhat presentable. The slope makes it difficult to mow with a riding mower so that is the reason behind using mulch. When we purchased the mulch, all the times we purchased....the guy says "it will last you years!!!" Guess what? Nope. Never. happens. How about 6 months? Yep that is more like it.

This photo was taken in 2011. By July, grass had taken over the hill. While I can pull the weeds and grass out everyday, it just isn't enough. Needless to say I went a while without weeding and this is what we ended up with.

We knew we needed to get this mess cleaned up because the following weekend we were hosting a community gathering in our back yard and to be honest, this was embarrassing, there was no way we were having people over with this eyesore!

 

See the Mr. at the top up there, that is where the driveway begins. I was at the bottom looking up, so you can tell it is a really steep hill. The pipe you see there, we  the Mr. buried that during the process to divert the water from the downspout under the hill to the bottom of the hill to prevent erosion. Actually there is one on each side, the left and the right for the same reason.

 

This time we removed all the grass, cleared all the old mulch away and then placed a weed barrier down. Then came a huge dump truck and dumped the mulch at the top of the hill and spread it out ourselves.  Talk about a huge undertaking. This was a dirty job.

 

But in the end it looked great and most importantly we could now have our neighbors over. Here is the after, sorry about the photo is was taken just before dark. After all the hard work I almost forgot to photo the after. (This project took an entire weekend).

 

 

See much better!

 

Fast forward to this year, the weed removal has become a monthly task and even then it looks so horrible that something had to be done. Plus the mulch had broken down to the point where it looked discolored and thin. Also, because of the slope of the hill when a downpour of rain comes, it washes alot of it down the hill into the grass.

 

This is also the way the boys access the back yard so when it is wet, the mulch gets tracked all in the driveway and makes a huge mess. The weed barrier helped some but it got to the point where the weeds were growing to the weed barrier which did not help the situation. Oh and don't even get me started on the ant hill that almost ate us alive or the massive earthworms that scared me to  death! I am not kidding, they were so big I thought it was a baby snake the first time I pulled one up while pulling up the weeds!

 

For many reasons we needed to rethink the layout of this hill and come up with a better solution.

 

Our solution?

 

As I stated earlier, we pulled up the weed barrier and headed to Lowes to see what we could come up with.

 

Here it is!

 

#1: Driveway

#2: The top of the hill will now be a small area surrounded by a rubber lining barrier that will keep the pine needles in the bed and the grass out, we added 3 Hawthorne bushes and a small Butterfly bush and filled in with pine needles.

#3:The slope of the hill will now be seeded and will hopefully grow grass. Since the slope is steep the grass will need to be cut down by a weed eater or push mower instead of our riding mower but either way  I feel sure that this will be a better way to maintain this monster of a hill.

 

The look from the road is improved just by this small adjustment. Once the bushes fill out and get a little bigger is will be perfect!

In a week or so we will work the dirt and seed the area for grass and cover with straw. This time I look forward to seeing the grass grow on the hill!

 

Today....

Well, grass growing on the hill is out. The Mr. thought that would not work and to be honest, it really wouldn't. I mean look at that slope...would you want to mow it?

 

I didn't think so.

 

So the Mr. took off and bought plants, weed barrier and more pine needles to finish off this area. He worked past dark then finished it up the following afternoon. And believe me it looks so much better! And another plus...the boys cannot run down the hill because if you try to step in the pine needles with the slick weed barrier underneath you fall instantly on your butt! Trust me on that one!

 

Here is the after and final photo. Hopefully this is the end of this madness! (not even close...)

 

 

 

 Here is another view from the bottom of the hill.

 



And here is another angle..from the side. The rocks were there when we had the mulch down. So we just left them this time. There is a drain at the top of the driveway to allow the water to run under the hill and the rocks were placed in case the drain overflowed, the rocks would still hold the mulch in place and the water could go between the rocks to divert it instead of a waterfall situation.

 

 

Ok, so in the spring we called our landscaper to come and help us fix this eyesore (the cliff). To us it is no big deal. I mean as we enter our home we never see this side of the driveway but coming from the other direction, all you see is a cinder block wall. By the way, there is a curb along the edge of the driveway that prevents you from driving off the driveway and rolling your car into the neighbors yard.  However, we have had people fall off of it before..and bikes....and scooters...and crock pots....

 



 

Anyway, I'll spare you the details...

 

Here you can see just how much of a drop off we are dealing with.

Well, because of all the rain the spring and summer gave us we are now looking at this project being completed next week......lets just hope it doesn't rain!

 

While this is something that isn't a big deal to us, I feel sure the neighbors will appreciate it and I hope the people that buy our home will too!

 

Stay tuned for Part 2!