Fresh Coat of Paint

Surprise! We've Moved!!

2013-06-16T22:40:00.001-07:00

Not from our house, but from our blog. We have a new address! And a new name! Over the past month we made the decision to combine our two blogs Fresh Coat Of Paint and Crinion Clan into one. We're giddy excited to welcome you to...

The new blog will still be the familiar journal of transforming this old house into our home. We'll just be sharing a little bit more about our life as a family of five there too. We were nervous to make the switch but are so excited about the change! We hope all of you will move over to House For Five right along with us!

Our Welcome post has all the juicy details on why we did it and what's in store at the new blog. So, come on over and join the house warming!

Daily Outfit Sign Update

2013-06-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't know..it's FRIDAY!!! I felt like Tuesday should have been Friday...anyone else have one of those weeks? Before we get to the weekend relaxing, I'm dropping in with quick update we made to Mia's room.

Awhile ago we created a little area for her to set out her clothes each night so she would be ready for the next day. The original "Today, I'll Wear" daily outfit sign was cute...

But I wanted to freshen it up a bit and work a little more light blue to her room. A few minutes playing in Photoshop and we were rocking a whole new look.

And if you would like one for your own little bambina, or someone else, feel free to grab one of the three below by clicking on the download link below the image. They're all 5x7.

(mint download)

(navy and grey download)

(pink and charcoal download)

We'll be back on Monday with some exciting news for the blog! Until then, have a great weekend!

Labeled Under-The-Bed Storage Bins

2013-06-12T22:09:00.001-07:00

Way back here I warned you to brace yourselves and shared these pics of my little girl's room:

I tried to identify the problem areas and solutions in our breakdown of the chaos, and spilled the deets on our plan for some room design updates here. This mood board sums it up...

We are trucking along at a turtle's pace but are making progress one project at a time! The bookcase and the dresser traded places and the swap made such a difference in the room's function and space! The bookcase is a much better fit in the closet and having the dresser in the room is giving us another surface to play with accessories and cute storage.

I'll have more of those details soon, but today I'm embarrassingly giddy over some simple storage we added in a very underused spot.

When we first did an overhaul of Mia's room, we added a long shallow tub under her bed to store out-of-season clothes or clothes in the next size up. We love this system so much that we have one for each person in our house. But we only access those bins about twice a year when we swap out clothes for the warm/cold seasons. There was still a lot of usable space left under Mia's bed and we knew it was the perfect spot to store some of those little toys that get lost all over her room.

I loved the bins that The Centsational Girl used in her daughter's bedroom, and found these online through One Step Ahead. I love that they have a zippered lid to keep dust out and small pieces in.

We printed up some quick labels and were one step closer to organized bliss.

In our last room attempt I thought keeping all of these doll pieces in plastic tubs on the top shelf of her closet was the answer. She would have to ask me to get them down and need to put them all back before having me put them up and away. It was nice in theory but they usually ended up on the floor taking up space and it didn't foster much independence when it came to keeping her room clean since she needed my help to complete the job. And when they were away on the shelf, she didn't play with them as often since she couldn't get to them.

Now she's able to easily access her toys, easily put them away, and hopefully not lose as many of those teeny-tiny parts that tend to come along with all these girly goodies.

I know that girl's toys are not the only tiny-accessory offenders. How do you keep all those little toys organized and together? What ways have you used the space under the bed for storage? Any other tips for taking advantage of unused space in a room?

A Weekend Of Yardwork and Goodbye To An Old Green Friend

2013-06-10T09:57:00.001-07:00

It's Monday y'all and we're still waking up to the new week over here. How about you?

A jungle of a lawn and a monstrous army of rose bushes, greeted us when we came back from CA, so our Saturday was spent mowing, trimming, pulling and bagging. And cleaning out the garage, which was a bigger mess than our yard. At least we had sweet friends (who love to cook) offer to bring dinner and grill at our place. We're totally spoiled by their friendship and their food!

We also said goodbye to the jolly green giant in the living room.

This couch was my first "big girl" purchase when I got back from my first deployment and moved into my first apartment in San Diego. (How many times can one use the word 'first' in a sentence? Too many is the answer).

Anyhow. This couch was super comfy and has held up great over the 11 years we owned it. The chaise was one of my favorite spots in the house....BUT lately it's been a challenge to create a room around the dark muted color. I'm itching for a fresh palette for this house and something that will work well with the other spaces we've already tackled. The chaise also limited the furniture layout and we would love more seating for hanging out with friends.

When James and I decided that our big project for the summer would be the floors in our master bedroom, we realized we would need to move our bed into the living room while we work on the floors. And that was all I needed to list that puppy on craigslist!

Since all of our family is out of state, sometimes we're lucky enough to get a gang of visitors at one time. So, we could also use more options for overnight guests. We're hoping to find a sofa bed for our replacement couch that James and I can bunk on while extra guests have our bedroom.

But before the couch search commences, we have some floors to tackle. SO. EXCITED. If you only knew the grossness our carpets, you would understand.

Hope you all had a great weekend! Anyone else taking on a big project this summer? Anyone have a piece of furniture that's just throwing off your design mojo?

Our Daily Summer Routine

2013-06-06T15:19:00.001-07:00

When it comes to structuring (or not structuring) our time, we all fall on different ends of the spectrum. Some of us are utter free birds, where the mere thought of having to be somewhere at a specific time is cause for beads of sweat. Others of us get a small high when someone makes mention of the word 'schedule', 'timeline', or 'flow chart'.

We've tried approaching our day in both ways - flying by the seat of our pants and sticking to a strict schedule. And like most things, we've found that balance and landing somewhere in the middle works best for us. My children thrive on routine and ultimately I'm at my best when I'm in a good groove too. But we like a bit of spontaneous fun thrown in the mix as well.

As much as summer brings to mind grilled meals on the patio, endless fun playing in the water, and carefree days in the sun, it can also have me begging for my own padded room if I'm trying to entertain three young kids and avoid playing referee with them home all day. A loose summer routine that can flex with our calendar activities is key to us truly having fun, taking care of our home, and keeping us from wanting to kill each other.

So, here's what I came up with for our 2013 summer routine on days we're home. I tried to structure it in a way that we can easily work in things like play dates, classes/camps, and whatever else pops up on our calendar.

This may seem super detailed to some of you, but we don't stick to this to the minute. It just gives us a way to break up the day, get outside, avoid unnecessary screen time/boredom bugs, and make sure the house doesn't get out of control.

We got into the bad habit of letting the kids watch a show in our room as soon as they woke up so we could catch a few extra zzz's. I'm not knocking this - it was great for awhile, but then the kids started waking up earlier and earlier just to watch Special Agent Oso. A 5:30am wake up call to the tune of "Can we watch a show?" - no bueno.

Since returning from CA the kids have been waking up at 7am and we're going to try to keep it that way! Hopefully this routine will allow me to wake up before them, so I'm ready to snuggle them up with a few books when they get out of bed, instead of fumbling around for the remote control.

It is summer, so we try to make meal time a little more fun than it is during the school year. Eating breakfast outside in our pj's, letting the kids help cut the fruit, a picnic on the lawn in our bathing suits...it all makes the day a little more enjoyable. For them and for me.

We have not done the best job of having our kids share the load in taking care of our house. It puts all the work on us (which doesn't bode well for my patience meter) and it has fostered some pretty bad habits. Namely leaving a trail of dolls, trucks, puzzle pieces, and whatever else they happened to be playing with, wherever they go. Our kids are a little older now, and after reading Jen's post about her family's cleaning plan I'm even more motivated to get our whole clan involved in taking care of our home.

It's going to be a main focus of our summer and we're hoping to do that by really focusing on cleaning up throughout the day, especially before moving from one thing to the next. More specifically, we'll have the kids help with clean up after meals, working in a 30-min "Family chore time" each day (that will correspond with a clean up schedule I'll share next week), and in scheduling a 15-min clean up time at the end of each day. It's amazing how much you can do in 15 min when everyone works together. And who doesn't love the feeling of having the house picked up BEFORE the kids are in bed? Well, I image I would love that feeling but can't really tell you since I'm not very familiar with it. I can tell you what sucks though - closing the kids' bedroom doors for the night and turning around to greet a disaster of a house. Yup, the stuff of anxiety and depression right there.

We also want to continue with the progress that the kids made in school last year by carving out some time for handwriting, numbers, etc. I have a mini learning center in the works and am excited to share that with you soon!

I shared our summer wish-list last week and we decided that Wednesday's will be the day for some of those special summer adventures. Having fun together and taking better care of our home and relationships are the goals for our summer. And we tried to create a summer schedule that would help us do just that!

How's your summer shaping up? Do you have a summer schedule? What things do you work in? Whatever your summer looks like, I hope you're enjoying every minute!

Window Treatments To Help With The Heat

2013-06-04T14:09:00.003-07:00

Happy June Everyone! May was a blur and I'm not even sure it really happened. We just got back from a week with family in CA and I'm still attempting to tame the suitcase explosion that occurred as soon as we walked through our front door.

If there was any doubt that summer had arrived before we left, the smoldering oven that is now our car is proof that the dessert summer heat is here. And a sign that we need to seriously clean out the garage so that we can start parking the van in there again.

It's also that time of year where an intricately coordinated cool-the-house-down operation commences each day. The hubs is all about giving the a/c a break whenever we can, so based on where the sun is a certain times of the day, we'll have specific windows open and ceiling fans on in various parts of the house.

But the last part of the day is by far the worst. The sun shines right into the kids' rooms, right as we need to cool the room down for bed time. Today it dawned on me just how much of a difference the blinds we installed last year have made it keeping their rooms bearable. They were such a great investment and I posted about them way back in the beginning of this little blog's life. So, while I unpack from our trip I thought I would share that post for those that may have missed it.

I was not compensated in any way to write this post, just love to share the goodies that have worked for us. After the kids' naps we open these just a couple inches to let enough light in to see and then turn on the ceiling fan (if it wasn't already on during their nap/quiet time). We keep the lights off to avoid unnecessary heat and by the time the kids are ready for bed the room is pretty comfortable. By that point we can crack the window if it's cool enough outside. Here's the details...

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Since moving in, we've been using blackout curtains in both rooms. I wasn't disappointed with them in function...they lived up to their name and blocked out a good deal of light.

The real problem was this:

Note the skiwampus curtain rod? Mia's curtains are right by her bed and since the kids constantly climb up there, the curtains are pulled, sat on and tugged, on a regular basis. Hence, wonky curtain rod.

We didn't have the same problems with the curtains in the boys room, but the crack of light that seeped out the sides in the morning, landed right on Sully's pillow. They also did not slide very easily and it was a two-hand job to get them open.

The solution? Levolor blinds from Lowes.

I appreciated that they come in multiple color choices. We picked the "snow" color for Mia's room, to complement her pink walls and white furniture. And for the boys, we went with the "toffee". They offer a light filtering or light darkening option...with kiddos that still take naps and like to wake up with the sun, light darkening was an absolute must for us!

The other feature that makes them super convenient, is they all come in a standard size and can be cut down to fit the exact size of your window. Right there in the store. For free.

And let me say, these things are amazing. They were super easy to install - just screw in the 3 brackets and snap in the blinds. They are also kid friendly and kid safe. No cord hazards...they are easily moved up and down by the simple push of a button.

Obviously they still need window treatments (and I apologize for the poor lighting) but here's the boys' room Before:

And After:

I'm super happy with the warm medium brown color in the boys room

Mia's room Before:

And After:

They completely block out the light, are super easy to use and they cleaned up the windows really nicely. Not to mention that they help immensely with temperature control (help keep the cold out in the winter and the heat out in the summer). I'm a totally happy camper! Now onto valances or something to pretty them up :)

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So let's hear from those of you sweating it out in the heat too....how do you keep the house cool without breaking the a/c unit's back or having a jaw dropping electric bill each month? Any window solutions that have worked wonders for you? Do tell!

Our Summer Schedule

2013-05-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'm typing this post from the deck of my parent's mountain cabin. This place has always been a summer retreat and it's exactly the kind of thing I'm longing for this summer - lots of time outdoors, fresh air, away from the daily to-do's, making great memories with our family and friends.

Before we left for CA, the kids and I had a little summer planning pow-pow. We sat down with a blank piece of paper and wrote down all the things we wanted to do this summer.

Here are their ideas...

-take a dance class

-slip n slide

-spray park

-zoo/aquarium

-swim lessons

-hike along the river

-play dates

-make our own ice cream

-water balloons

-grow a watermelon

Aside from growing a watermelon, I think we can make all that happen. And I added a few of my own to the list (on top of a few house projects)...

-start an herb garden

-be regulars at the Farmer's Market

-make some art for our blank walls

We already registered the kids for swim lessons last month, and before we left for our trip, I signed them each up for a dance class. Mia's in a 5-6 yr old Fairy Tale Ballet class; Sully's going to bust a move in Comic Hero Hip Hop for 3-4 year old boys (holy moly, I may die!); Mack Daddy Jack will be in a 2 year old Dance is Fun class, likely with a bunch of other little ladies.

As soon as we get back to ABQ the kids will be in swim lessons 5 days a week for two weeks. If you have little ones that are afraid of getting in the water, I think these 4-5 day/week classes are best, as opposed to one class per week. Otherwise, you have a whole week in between the pool (if you aren't able to get them in the pool on your own), and are almost starting from square one each class when it comes to becoming comfortable in the water.

After those two weeks, we'll slip into a more regular weekly routine for the summer. We decided to choose one day a week for our field trip/special activity day. So, every Wednesday we'll pick an activity from our summer list and have some extra fun! Then they'll have dance on Friday mornings for most of the summer, leaving Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays for a regular daily routine, and the weekends open for the Farmers Market, picnics with friends and whatever other lazy or not-so-lazy things we want to tackle.

I'll be sharing our regular daily routine for the summer next! What do your summers look like? Do you have a schedule or fly by the seat of your pants? For those of you that work through the summer, how do you schedule in time for fun?

Slowing Down For Summer

2013-05-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the silence here on the blog this week. Thanks to each and every one of you that offered your prayers and kind words on behalf of our dear friend's 6-year old son Grant (I was also Grant's nanny when he was a baby).

He passed away peacefully and without pain last Friday and fortunately, I was able to make the wake and funeral Mass on the east coast earlier this week (thanks to an amazing husband who was willing to man the fort alone through last day of school programs and end of the year teacher's gifts). It was devastating and beautiful all at the same time...and also rocked us to the core. It left us reevaluating how we've allowed our priorities to shuffle out of place.

I've spoke openly about how much time and commitment the blog takes (and I'm not even a big blog!). I've had dreams about growing it and expanding but I know that will require even more. To be quite frank, my family pays the price. Our time together gets cut short and I'm not fully present when I'm with them because I'm either trying to double task or my mind is constantly on the next post/project, site enhancements, blah, blah.

In a totally random email, a local woman contacted me for some color help in painting the exterior of her home. It's been a wonderful experience and working with local clients is something I would love to do. It certainly got me even more excited about some of the things I had planned for the blog this summer.

Then Grant's accident happened and time stood still. It's amazing how one event can move other people in so many different ways. Grant's tragic death was a wake up call for the time with my children that I've been giving away. They will not always be this young, they will not always be home with me, and they will not always be here. But they are right now and we want to make the most of this time together.

The school year is such a busy time and even before Grant's accident I had been yearning for the slower pace of summer. The kids and I sat down and put together our list of fun summer activities we wanted to do. I'll share that in a post next week, but one thing is certain - we plan to make a lot of great memories this summer and simply enjoy being together.

That means things will slow down around here. My family is my priority and while I love to share them and our projects, I'm not willing to accept the cost of diving into seriously growing the blog this summer. I still have plenty of projects on the agenda but those will take the back burner to trips to the zoo and afternoons on the slip n slide. I'll definitely be sharing our house progress as I go along, but not at a pace of 5 days a week.

At first the can't-do-anything-half-way-over-achiever in me said, "No! You need to post regular and often or else all your readers will leave forever!". But that voice is from a place of fear...fear of letting go. And I really need to. After all, it's just a blog right? :) On the other hand, I'm too much of an OCD list maker/organizer to just post willy-nilly, so I'm sure I'll fall into a regular, scaled back posting routine for the summer. If you all are interested, I may share some posts on the changes we are making to our schedules and the way we spend time together too.

Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers over this past week. I shared more of Grant's story on our family blog today if you are interested. I hope you all get to enjoy a long weekend with those you love and we are thankful for all those who have paid the ultimate price for our country's freedoms and for those that continue to serve our nation.

A Request

2013-05-17T10:16:00.001-07:00

I'm going to hold off on my post for today and ask instead for your prayers. The 6 year old little boy on that stretcher is Grant. I was his nanny when he was a baby and his parents are Sully and Jack's Godparents.

Grant and some other children were playing in a field on a farm while the family was on vacation. A nearby horse got spooked and kicked Grant in the throat. They've assessed that his trachea was broken and he is in critical condition. He was without oxygen for a significant amount of time and although they were able to revive a heartbeat, brain function is unknown. If you would keep this sweet boy, his other 5 siblings and his dear parents in your thoughts and prayers we would greatly appreciate it. Their faith is strong, hope secure, but hearts very fragile.

I'll be sharing any updates on our family's Facebook page.

A Clean And Organized Refrigerator

2013-05-16T12:56:00.000-07:00

We can be honest here, right? I should have known that putting my grand spring cleaning plans out to the cyber world would welcome in every sort of cleaning distraction. From random needs that popped up to a complete lack of desire - I just haven't had it in my to clean at the pace I scheduled for the past two days. I'm making it sound like some sort of self-jinx, but hello, it's just reality. And those unexpected needs that came up were absolutely more important than my cleaning plan.

Since there was no way I was going to be able to tackle the entire kitchen yesterday according to my spring cleaning schedule, I settled for a task that I thought I could knock out in under an hour. The big box in the kitchen with the questionable smells won my attention. I had already done a little work gathering supplies for this project, so in about 45 min I was able to clean and....

We have a fridge that opens with double doors and has a freezer drawer on the bottom. I really do love the set up, but it certainly wasn't being used to it's full fridgy potential. Things frequently got lost in the back and we won't discuss all the fun things that can grow when that happens; different types of food items were all jumbled together (except the fruit and veggie drawers); and it was absolutely due for a good cleaning.

STEP 1: PURGE

Just like any other room or space we're attempting to organize, I started by pulling everything out of the fridge. Anything past it's due date or sporting fur got thrown out. We've recently switched to the Perfect Health Diet model for eating, so we also needed to rid our fridge of those off-limit food items.

STEP 2: CLEAN

Take advantage of the ease of cleaning an empty fridge! Wipe down all the shelves or pull them out and give them a good wash in the sink. Don't forget the drawers/bins and walls too.

STEP 3: SORT

The next step is to organize your food. Take inventory of what you have and normally purchase, then group them by like items...diary, fruits, vegetables, meat/protein, condiments, drinks, snacks, lunch items, leftovers, etc. Group them in whatever way works best for your family. Here's how we ended up grouping ours:

1: Cooking (oils/sauces/broths)
2: Dairy (creamer, sour cream, large yogurt)
3: Protein (meat and eggs)
4: Specialty items (coconut flour, white rice flour, etc)
5: Leftovers
6: Overflow fruits and veggies
7: Fruit
8: Vegetables
9: Cheese
10: Lunch items (lunch meat, spinach, etc.)

STEP 4: COOL TOOLS

A few helpful items can help you maintain your newly fab fridge. I absolutely love these turn-tables we grabbed for the top shelf (similar to here) Instead of having to move bottles all around to get to what we need, we can find it with a simple spin. Less frequently accessed items are stored behind them.

We have a small fridge in the family room where we keep water bottles, juice boxes and adult beverages, so we don't really have any use for this drink rack. It is however, the perfect spot for a dozen eggs! And we go through a lot of eggs :)

A clear plastic bin helps keep snack type veggies wrangled and within easy reach.

STEP 5: LABEL IT

Who doesn't love a good label?! OK, maybe my husband, and maybe I do get carried away on the occasional labeling streak, BUT I think the fridge is a prime candidate for a few helpful labels!

I used a couple of Martha Stewart labels I had on hand to label each shelf.

And I took one of these chalkboard labels to the clear veggie bin. I love that I can erase, if we decide to use it for something else.

I also took a couple of the chalkboard labels and cut them in half. They turned out to be the perfect size for the door compartments, without obstructing the view. Coffee grounds (which could use a better container), snacks and water are on the right side.

Butter, condiments (which used to be jumbled with our cooking bottles), and milk are on the left. I used a chalkboard pen to label each - they wipe off easily with a damp cloth but won't rub off if someone brushes up against it.

And that wrapped it up! I should note that we have a deep freezer in the garage where we store bulk meats and other foods. We separate the bulk meat into meal-size portions before freezing. The night before, I'll look at our menu and pull the meat out to thaw (placing it right under the eggs).

Overall, it was a fairly quick job and just a few small additions took our fridge from this.....

To this!

Has anyone else been putting off this particular chore? What are your favorite items and tips for keeping the fridge from becoming a chaotic mess? And yes, there used to be a clear lid to the bottom drawer but one of the boys got to it. I'm still not sure which one.

*Linking up with The 36th Avenue and A Bowl Full Of Lemons.

Reader Spot: A Shared Room For A Brother & Sister

2013-05-14T13:34:00.002-07:00

Today, you're in for a treat! Gilit from Shoes Off, Please. was sweet enough to send us her shared kids' room. And unlike most shared kids spaces, this one is fit for a princess and a prince.

I asked Gilit a few questions to get the down low on this utterly charming space....

What was the space like before you began?

The room is really big so it was like a giant blank white rectangle. It calls to mind some museums, but with less light...

What were some of the things that inspired the colors or other choices in the design?

I looove blue so we knew we were going to paint the walls some shade of blue. We also knew we didn't want a baby blue. After that, we were stumped. We went back and forth so much on the shade of blue, whether we wanted to do stripes or one shade on top and another on bottom... this literally took us over a year to decide! We finally chose this deeper blue because we liked that it's more sophisticated and Aiden could grow with it.

Other than that, it really evolved over time based on Aiden's growing needs (read: ever expanding collection of books and toys) We wanted to include personal touches, like his art, photos, meaningful gifts and then when Mia came along we added some pink and more white. I can't wait until we can include her art too!

What were any problem areas and how did you address them?

Hmm...thankfully, we didn't really have a problem area. Unless you count making a boy's room into a shared room... in that case we just added new crib bedding and some new art on the wall!

Also making the furniture layout work with the shape of the room was sort of a "problem" we just kept playing with it (and playing with it) until we found one we liked!

How did you get your resourceful/thrifty/think outside the box/DIY on?

Oh how I wanted to more of that! We did a lot of waiting for sales (like the huge Serena and Lily ones where we got the bedding) and searching online for deals (like the Overstock 8x10 rug for $100). We tried to think a little outside the box by looking at PB Teen where we found the bed and trundle (also on sale). Other than that, we stuck to Etsy, Ikea, and we were so lucky to have generous family that got us the crib, glider, and armoire. I made the cloud mobile over the changer, the A-I-D-E-N train, and the yarn-wrapped "M" but if we were doing it over I'm sure there'd be a lot more!

What makes the space special and unique?

I didn't find much inspiration online for rooms shared by a boy and girl, let alone with an infant and a toddler. Most of the ones I did find were white or very neutral, which can be really beautiful but it wasn't what we wanted for our kids. We love color and I have yet to meet a kid who doesn't love it also! I love that ours doesn't feel too masculine or feminine to me and I don't feel like we sacrificed personality either.

How did you make this space work to fit your family's needs?

We left room in the middle for big messes! That and finding storage in the closet, under the crib, and in the furniture really make it fun and functional for us.

Thank you Deme so much for having me!!!

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Thank you, Gilit!! Pretty fantastic, right?! I'm in love with the deep saturated blue they chose for the walls, and how well they were able to create a gender neutral space without losing any character. The pops of color throughout the room make it such a happy space and I can see it being a room that will grow right along with Aiden and his little sis. What was your favorite part?

Be sure to hop over to Gilit's blog for all the details on this project and so much more! Like this Anthro inspired tablecloth she rocked out for a Pinterest challenge. Thanks, Gilit for sharing this incredible space with us!

*Would you like your space or project featured in a Reader Spot edition? Click here to find out how!

10 Tips For A Successful Spring Cleaning...So You Don't Quit Before You Start!

2013-05-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

Today we officially begin our spring cleaning! Is May too late for spring cleaning? In my mind Memorial Day is the unofficial start to summer. The kids are usually out of school by then, so my goal is to knock out a good spring before then!

There are all sorts of helpful tips and checklists out there for spring cleaning, so today I want to focus on setting yourself up for success. Most years I get pumped up to really scrub, clean and purge our home, but end up throwing in the preverbial cleaning rag mid-way through, or worse, never even starting.

My littlest guy's asthma has been a problem this year, so I'm more determined than ever to not only do this, but to work out a spring cleaning plan that I'll be excited about using again and again. So, here we go!

1. Schedule It In
Our calendar fills up so quickly, that if I don't write down our cleaning week and treat it as a standing date, then before I know it my week is full. So, use pen not pencil and block off your days for cleaning! And be diligent about not scheduling anything that isn't absolutely necessary.

I have a couple of things on our calendar during those weeks, but for the most part our days are dedicated to the cleaning task at hand!

2. Be Realistic
You may be totally gung ho to get started, but if you set a cleaning schedule that you can't keep up with you're more likely to get discouraged and stop short. This year I blocked off 2 weeks on our calendar for spring cleaning. That should allow us enough time to tackle the inside of the house, the garage and shed without hitting burn out.

3. Have A Plan
There are so many different ways to crack this nut. Some of us work, some have large families, some are single, and some stay at home. So, your best plan will be different from mine. Since I'm at home the majority of the time, I chose to tackle one room each day. But for you, it may be more effective to do all the linens one day, all the baseboards/dusting/etc another day, or maybe a combination of the two is your sweet spot. Here's a look at our breakdown....

Week 1:

Mon - Living Room

Tues - Dining Room

Wed - Kitchen/Laundry room

Thurs - Family Room

Fri - Mia's Room

Weekend - Garage

Week 2:

Mon - Boys' Room

Tues - Master Bedroom

Wed - Bathrooms

Thurs - Office

Fri - Steam clean rugs

Weekend - relax!

However you approach your spring cleaning, be sure to have an overarching plan of attack before you get started.

4. Many Hands Make For Light Work
Make it a family affair. I've been guilty of waiting until the kids nap or go to bed at night to do housework. I'm faster and more efficient when I don't have to worry about little hands that may or may not actually be helping. But those are generally the times of day that I'm tired and lacking both energy and motivation. Sure it may take longer, but get your little ones involved. Chances are they love to "help" and it will instill in them a sense of pride and ownership as you take care of your home together. Older kids can be given their own responsibilities - particularly in their own rooms. If kids aren't a factor, it's easier to stay motivated and productive when you team up with your partner. And single friends, don't be afraid to enlist some help! A lot can get done when everyone works hard together for 30 min!

5. Start With The Easiest Room First
It's sort of like the debt snowball concept....when tackling debt, you pay off your smallest debt first to quicly get a sense of accomplishment and gain momentum. Same applies with spring cleaning. It's a big job! So, start with an "easy" room or task. As much as it will feel great to tackle that room whose door you keep locked whenever company is around, it will take a lot of focus and effort. Give yourself a good start. We began with our living room...the one room I try to keep neat even when the rest of the house is in shambles. And I still discovered this when I moved the couch.

Who knew we were running a toy operation from underneath our couch. Even those "easy" rooms may have unknown clutter to deal with, so set yourself up for success by starting with a smaller task at the top of your list.

6. Designate A "Dump Spot"
Not everyone may need this, but since there are a lot of rooms that currently need a good purge in our home, the "dump room" is key. As you go through drawers, cupboards and baskets you'll find a lot of things you can throw away, a lot you can give away, but also a lot that needs to be put away but doesn't have a home yet. In order to avoid piles of stuff-I-don't-know-what-to-do-with accumulating around the house as you are trying to clean, designate a holding place to put all those items that you will need to deal with later.

For us, that room is the office. A lot of what I find are papers that need to be filed, magazines I want to keep for later reference and random craft or office supplies. As we clean, our left over to-do piles go in that room. And we schedule that room last on our clean-up schedule.

7. Purge, Clean, Put It Back Together
Just as having a cleaning schedule is important, having a plan for each room is important too. There are a number of checklists out there to keep you on track. Two of my favorites are this one from A Bowl Full Of Lemons and this one from Ask Anna. My overall goal for each room is to purge every closet/drawer/cupboard/basket/bin, pulling out anything to toss, donate, or sell. Then give the room a good deep cleaning (using those handy checklists above), and finally put everything back in place in an organized way.

8. Keep A "Fix It" List
Often when we're cleaning and organizing a room, we'll come across random issues that can eat up precious time. Try not to get distracted. This is your time to clean, so stick to your vacuum and make a running list of things to address once your are done with your spring cleaning. If you end up finishing your room or cleaning item for that day and have time to fix that broken handle, go for it. But if it's going to eat into the next item on your list or throw off your schedule, save it for the end.

9. Get Pumped!
Ok, granted there are some of us that get all excited about the thought of a dirty floor and a mop. I, however, am not one of them. I love having a clean house, I just don't love the process of getting it there. Anything, you can do to make the process more fun is going help keep you going! Turn up your favorite tunes, burn a candle, or keep your favorite drink with you. I like to pour myself a tall iced coffee in a lidded cup and it comes right along with my cleaning caddy.

10. Be OK With Less Than Perfect
So, you don't get to quite all of the baseboards today, or that darn kitchen is more of a clutter bomb than you realized. Do what you can and celebrate what you've accomplished! Anything you do is an improvement to the state of your home before, so celebrate!

And on that note, I'm back to my own task for the day. Otherwise, my living room will stay just like it is (mid-clean) at this very moment.

*There are so many other tips and tricks out there for a good spring cleaning. Let's hear some of yours! How do you set yourself up for a successful spring cleaning? What are your best cleaning tips? Who else waited until May to get down and dirty with their cleaning?

Linking up at A Bowl Full of Lemons!

Happy Monday!

2013-05-13T07:44:00.001-07:00

Happy Monday! I hope all of you mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, aunties, etc. had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend!

This was truly the best shot of me and my bunch from the day...

Mia and I do American Heritage Girls (similar to Girl Scouts) and her troop was handing out carnations after church....hence the super-fancy-Target-employee-esque polo and khaki's for Mother's Day.

It was a great weekend - a mix of relaxing and productive. We finally fixed the curtain rod in the living room and moved the curtains over from the dining room. Which meant our dining room windows were left bare. I've been looking all over for fabric or curtains that struck my fancy but everything seemed to be a little more than I wanted to spend. Then I remembered this fabric I bought several months ago....

Don't mind the random paint chip under there. The fabric is from the Ty Pennington Impressions line and I love the print. I originally planned to use it in another room, but we went with a different color scheme. It's more than enough fabric for two curtain panels, so we're working with what we've got! Which means yet another tweak to our dining room plans. I think it's time to finally nail down a plan for that room and the living room update now that we have some permanent (ish) elements in place. Anyone else discover some useable items you already own over the weekend?

Glossy Pages

2013-05-09T14:59:00.001-07:00

If you follow along via Facebook or Instagram then you've probably already heard this news...but it's just too incredible to me not to share it here! Way back when Young House Love featured our breakfast nook, it was like a whirlwind hit. This poor little blog site was crashing from the sudden increase in traffic from readers clicking over for more details on the nook project. So many sweet and thoughtful comments were left and some of you even stuck around as regular readers....have I ever thanked you for this?!?! Truly, you all mean the world to me!

Apartment Therapy saw the feature over on John and Sherry's site and a couple of days later, they featured our nook on theirs. Talk about an incredible week and feeling some blog-world love! But it didn't stop there...

A few days later I was contacted by This Old House Magazine. They were interested in featuring the nook as part of their "Budget Redo" column. And I. about. died.

Never in a million years did I dream that sharing our DIY efforts to turn this old house into a home for our family would land us in the pages of a real life magazine. Well, technically it's only one page, but there she is in the June issue of This Old House Magazine!!

They featured it on their website last week and the June issue should hit news stands by the end of this week. One of James' coworkers subscribes to the mag and brought in his copy a little early for us. Seriously, Christmas in May I tell ya!

I'm just so overwhelmingly grateful that I get to do this....that I get to share a little bit of our life and home with you, be part of such a gracious and giving community, and experience opportunities that I never even dreamed to dream. This blog has become so much more than just an outlet for a stay-at-home mom who likes to get her paint on. And there are more exciting things happening for the blog this summer that I can't wait to share with you! Thank you for all of your sweet comments and for stopping by each day. You make this such a happy place for me, and I hope it's one for you too!

A Perfect Health Diet Meal Plan

2013-05-06T23:09:00.004-07:00

I've been sharing bits of our family's decision to commit to 30 days of better eating over on our family blog. OK, it's really my crazy train and James was willing to keep me company for the ride. We're following the Perfect Health Diet, which is a version of Paleo eating with a few more food allowances. It's basically no sugar, no grains, no legumes, and no vegetable oils. It was an interesting first week, but I'm finally meal planning to make things a little easier. You can catch our Perfect Health Diet friendly meal plan over at Crinion Clan today.

We ultimately want this to be a change for the better for our whole family, but we're transitioning the kids over a little more slowly. We've started making smoothies with no added sugar for breakfast (sneaking in some health boosters like chia seeds and flax seeds) and I'm loving this Ultimate Green Smoothie Formula from Nicole Antoinette. Easy steps to put together a nutrient-packed and delicous drink! She shares some of her favorite combinations in her post too.

Anyone else on a smoothie kick lately? What are some of your favorite combos?

DIY Tooth Fairy Pillow

2013-05-06T10:17:00.001-07:00

We've had a wiggly tooth in this house for several weeks. And last night, with help of a very patient dad and a very brave little girl, it finally came out! This was Mia's first lost tooth and you can be sure there was a whole lot of celebrating when that tooth finally popped out! "I lost my tooth" dances, lots of squeeling/jumping, and of course, talk of the Tooth Fairy. It's a good thing I had whipped up this little Tooth Fairy pillow back when we thought that tooth might come out a couple weeks ago.

It was a totally free little project using scraps of fabric and ribbon. Here's what I used.

- 1 scrap of fabric, cut into two equal squares (whatever size pillow you desire)
- 1 piece of felt
- 1 piece of ribbon

I did this at night and didn't take the best pics with my phone, but I'll try to walk you through the easy steps.

The first thing I did after cutting out my two square pieces of fabric, was to cut out the tooth. I did a practice sketch of a tooth on a piece of paper...then I showed it to my friend sitting next to me and asked her what it was. When she said, "tooth", and not "white cloud" I felt ok to move to the felt. I free handed a tooth on the white felt and cut it out.

Then, I stitched it right onto the center of one of the fabric squares, being sure to leave the top open/unstitched so that you can easily slide in a tooth or note to the tooth fairy.

Next, I cut a piece of ribbon to size and stitched it down on the inside of one of the squares. I left myself enough room to fold over the unfinished top edge when I closed it up...but it probably would have been easier to just fold over that top edge and stitch it down before adding the ribbon.

Next, step was to place the two right sides together and sew the pieces together along three edges, leaving the top open.

In this picture I also trimmed the excess edges after I had stitched the pieces together. I especially like to trim the extra fabric on the corners, so that when I flip it right-side-out the corners are nice and sharp.

I flipped it right-side-out and stuffed it almost full with some poly-fil. I filled up to about 1-inch shy of the top.

I couldn't get a picture of this last part because I need both my hand to hold it closed, but I folded the top edges in about 1/2 inch and then sewed them shut with my sewing machine (or you could do it by hand).

I forgot that Mia's bed didn't have an open post to hang the pillow on, so I cut the ribbon loop at the center so that we could tie it to her bed frame.

Someone was super excited and couldn't wait for the Tooth Fairy to come!

At the last minute she decided to write the Tooth Fairy a note asking if she could keep her tooth. The Tooth Fairy left her a note back along with a monetary prize.....after she ran to the ATM at 9:30pm because she had no cash on hand.

By the way, what are the going rates for teeth these days?? The two kids that have lost teeth in Mia's class both got $5.00 for their teeth! This Tooth Fairy is not quite that loaded. But we did leave her $5.00 for this first tooth (especially since it was a bit of a struggle to get it out), and think we'll be doing $1.00 coins for the rest of her teeth. Am I a cheap-skate Tooth Fairy?! Teach me your Tooth Fairy ways, oh wise ones!

Destructo Sully: Curtain Destroyer

2013-05-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

Captain Destructo struck again. Sully gets super excited sometimes. Like can't control his body excited. He has the highest of highs and lowest of lows. In general, the kids are not supposed to play in the curtains, because of these I'm-so-excited-I-don't-even-notice-I'm-pulling-the-curtains-down moments. Like this:

Pulled down the curtain and ripped the rod mount right out of the wall.

Last week, I wrote about how we are looking to give the living room an update, so really I need to thank Sully for getting us started. I've wanted longer curtains for awhile and since we'll need to mount the rod higher (about the hole we'll be patching), I went searching for fabrics!

I'm still narrowing down the new color scheme for this room and the dining room, but here are some things that caught my eye on Fabric.com.

This bold ikat in a peacock blue.

Fresh Coat of Paint

Surprise! We've Moved!!

Daily Outfit Sign Update

Labeled Under-The-Bed Storage Bins

A Weekend Of Yardwork and Goodbye To An Old Green Friend

Our Daily Summer Routine

Window Treatments To Help With The Heat

Our Summer Schedule

Slowing Down For Summer

A Request

A Clean And Organized Refrigerator

Reader Spot: A Shared Room For A Brother & Sister

10 Tips For A Successful Spring Cleaning...So You Don't Quit Before You Start!

Happy Monday!

Glossy Pages

A Perfect Health Diet Meal Plan

DIY Tooth Fairy Pillow

Destructo Sully: Curtain Destroyer

This Old House and A New Series

Reader Spot: A Playful Playroom

Repurpose: Toothbrush Holder Turned Pencil Holder

Switching Up The Paint

DIY Hooded Bath Towels For Kids

Catching Up

Mia's Mood Board: Inspired by Zig Zags

Floors, and Rugs, and Plans...Oh My!