My cousin, Eric, is coming over tonight to lay new tile in my laundry room.  I’m so excited!  I use the term laundry room loosely, as ours is just a 3 x 10 foot closet.    When we move If we move, I will look for a laundry room that has folding and sorting space.  For now I am grateful that it is on the main floor.  Anyway, my laundry room has always been a mess.

I didn’t think it mattered that the top of the cupboared was all junky or that the shelves were shoved full of stuff I never used. 

After we started our house remodel and have been living in chaos for 6 weeks and counting, I realized that environment affects me.  I’m cranky; I can’t think, the children are running around crazy; and It’s getting harder to be productive.  I’ve decided while I can, to take every little nook and cranny of my home and make it better.

I’m not an interior designer (in case you were confused, bwahahaha) and I know what I do won’t be perfect.  I’m okay with that.

The first thing I did was take everything out of the cupboards and wash them down.  Then I thought about what I really used.  I set those items aside and got rid of the rest.  Some I was able to find new homes for where they would be loved and cherished.  Some were worth trashing and other things hit the garage sale pile. 

While I was decluttering I also removed a shelf from each cabinet.  With 3 shelves, they were too short to be of much use.  The strong boards are going to be perfect for towel storage in another room.

Then I took a vinyl table cloth that I loved and cut it up as shelf liner.  I used elmer’s spray adhesive to adhere the vinyl and wrapped it all the way around the shelf.  This allows me to flip the shelf over and hides all of the original brown.  I love the pale yellow with white polka dots.  It’s so cheerful!  And I love that I can wipe it down when I need to.  My first plan was to use wallpaper, but that was waaaay to expensive.  My next idea was to use fabric with decopauge and sealer to make it washable.  That was going to be a LOT of work.  My genious mother thought of the table cloth.  Mine was on my table (convenient) but a new one is just $5.

The cabinet doors were too dark and heavy feeling.  I thought about washing the cabinets in a pale aqua blue, but I wasn’t sure I would love it and I’m  tired of painting!  So I took the doors off and used glue dots to stick a lovely daisy lace trim around the door frame.  The lace hid the router holes from the old hinges.  Update:  The glue dots didn’t hold.  I ended up using spray glue for the lace too.

There are cabinets on each end of the room.  One over the washer and one over the dryer.  The washer side will stay open. And I’ve sewn a cute little yellow and tiny dot curtain for the other side from the fabric I had orginally cut for shelf liner.  I’m going to find a tension rod today so I can show it to you.  (I’m not loving the curtain look in here.  Maybe it’s not full enough, or not long enough, or just too bright a fabric.  How would you fix it if it were you?)

I invested $25 in a huge new basket ($4–price slashed because the cover was damaged, but I can sew!) for our BBQ tools that will sit on top of the dryer cabinet; $5 each for 3 gallon size glass penny candy jars for baking soda, borax, and oxygen bleach, and $5 for a lime green tea jar for liquid laundry soap. 

I also used the leftover beadboard wall-paper from the girls’ room to wall-paper the entire room and the backs of the cabinets.  It makes me so happy whenI look in there from the other room.  I plan to leave off the doors to the laundry closet and sew a curtain instead that matches the blinds I hope to make for the kitchen.

Here’s an after photo, more pictures to come:

Menu planning keeps me out of trouble.  It guides my shopping, makes sure I use up what's on hand, and thinks for me when I'm too stressed to think. And saves a bunch of money by keeping us out of restaurants and minimizes grocery store runs.   Here's a basic step by step guide to menu planning.

1.  Print off a blank calendar for the month you are working on.  You can download June 2010 through May 2011 Calendars here and just print the one you need:  Download June 10 May 11 Menu Sheets

2.  Go peek in your fridge, freezer, and pantry shelves.  What do you already have to prepare meals from.  Plan the first few meals from only pantry ingredients so if you can't go to the store right away you can still follow your plan.

2.  Gather your grocery sales flyers and see what's on sale.  Use what you know about regular prices and sale prices to discern a good deal.  Just because it's in the ad, doesn't make it a bargain!  The best deals are usually on the front and back cover.  On notebook paper, write down the name of the store and the item that you are interested in.  You can menu plan with these items, or plan to purchase and store them for later use.

3.  Write commitments in small letters at the bottom of the day square that will affect your ability to cook.  Plan a slow cooker meal or other simple dish for that night.

4.  Grab your favorite recipe books and cooking magazines for inspiration.  Fill in main dishes on your menu plan as you think of them.  Try to vary your recipes.  For example don't plan lasagna and spaghetti right next to each other.  Make like recipes at least a week apart.  Try not to plan a pasta dish for every day of the week.  Give yourself a variety.

5.  Make sure each meal has a protein, starch, and 2-3 vegetables or fruit.  The side dishes can be as simple as a tossed salad, warmed up bag of frozen peas, or a carton of cottage cheese.

6.  As you meal plan, if you think of an ingredient necessary to a planned dish that isn't on hand, write it on the back of your menu.

7.  When you're finished stick your menu to your fridge and check it every morning and evening so you can remember to take out items to thaw or to put a dish in the slow cooker in the morning.

Darren was up until 2 in the morning this morning making progress on the floor.  I kind of like the look of the black underlayment with the white stripes minus the sheetrock footprints.  I wonder how it would hold up with polyurethane?  I guess it doesn't matter since we already bought the hardwood.

Since neither of us have ever done anything like this, He used Youtube extensively for learning and also called an experienced friend many times.

He finally took a deep breath and started nailing.

I love it!  We decided we'd better tile the laundry closet instead of put wood in there.  I'm terrible about letting appliances leak everywhere.   Tomorrow I will paint this half of the room to match.  I can't wait to see it with all the green gone.

I made this rag quilt for my oldest son's toddler bed, and was sad to find a huge blue marker stain on it several years ago.  I tried hairspray on the stain, which only seemed to spread the blue around and not remove any large quantity of it. 

It has been in my stain removal bucket for years and I finally decided to throw it out.  My mom stopped me and suggested I try hand sanitizer.

Hand sanitizer is mostly alchohol, like hairspray, which is it's stain removing ingredient.  Unlike hairspray hand sanitizer is a gel and stays in the stained area to deeply penetrate and remove.  Since I had left the stain so long and probably washed and dried it, it didn't come out completely, but it is enough improved that it will work for an outdoor blanket.

The bonus:  while I was working on the quilt all the paint stains on my hands came off, grin.

I'm always surprised when someone thinks I have it all together.  I know how it happens.  I only post the stuff that turns out right.  I realized it, because I was struggling today and yesterday to think of something to post.  All of my recent projects have gone all wrong.  I usually don't think anyone is interested in reading about how messy my bedroom is right now, or that sometimes my kids don't eat breakfast until 9:45 in the morning.

I have aspirations to be better and I really try to be. Here are some photos of things that turned out wrong this week.  Hopefully it will help in some way.  We are all human and have things that go less than stellar, but I'm working to be the kind of person that is willing to pound out the ugly nails and try again.

I got a new 2" finish nail gun.  And found out it's not just a point and shoot tool, sigh.  It looks so easy on youtube. Now my mdf is a mess and full of holes, but it's nothing a little caulk, sandpaper, and paint can't fix–I hope.  On the bright side, I learned an easy way to pound out finish nails:  Grip the trip with plyers on the underside and pound on the plyers with a hammer.  When enough of the head has popped through, grab it with the plyers and pull.  I think I pulled 14 nails or so before calling DH for help to work the gun right. 

This is  a corner of my daughter's bedroom.   I tried laying a white paper floor right on the particle board subfloor like I had done with brown paper and wood stain successfully in the bathrooms.  Unfortunately the oils from the particle board seeped into the white paper and made an ugly mess.  So, I primed over everything with Kilz and then layed a second layer.  Double yuck!  The stains still came through and now the "texture" from the wrinkled paper is more enhanced looking like a really bad plaster job.  I have peeled off all the paper layers and now need to start again with a new idea.  Hopefully it will work and I can tell you about it in a few days.

I have pictures of my bedroom, but I'm not strong enough to post them yet.  You really don't want to see it anyway…believe me.