The Great Room Makeover.

Gabriel needs a bedroom. Playroom is a disaster. Sunroom needs painted. Jessica needs need furniture. Bathroom needs new fixtures. So where do I start? Jessica's closet of course. Oh well, I'm not going to beat myself up about it. Actually I'm going to call it a win. Why? Because I actually DID IT! (That's extremely uncommon for me. Big on talk, small on action.)

It took me a few weeks and a lot of deliberation but I finally made a decision and bought Closetmaid's 12-Cube 'Cubeicals' and some fabric bins from Room Essentials (both from Target, both shipped free to the house. Everything big needs to be shipped these days. There's no way I'm getting anything large and the two kids in my car. I get hives even thinking about trying to get it through the store with two littles in tow.)

They arrived on Friday which was perfect. That morning Gabriel had spent 2 hours playing in the lobby waiting for Jessica during her tumbling and gymnastic classes. The second hour of which he had Eli to run the halls with. In other words, he was tired! He fell asleep in the car on the way home and then actually transferred to the bed once we got home (that's pretty rare!)

After I got Gabriel settled, Jessica and I started the process of carrying pieces up the stairs. The box was a bit too heavy for me to carry up on my own. (Well... Jessica did more supervising than actual carrying. That's a skill her Papa taught her. Supervising is very important.)

She was much more helpful with the sorting process. (She gets this skill from her Daddy and Grandpa Smith who both insist on a complete inventory and sorting of all pieces before construction can begin.)


Oh yeah, I was there too. Jessica took about a billion pictures in 2 seconds. (This is just a small fraction of the photos...)

         


Less than an hour all in we had a perfectly respectable new closet setup. This is actually only one half of her closet but nothing is wrong with the other side. It's just two rows of hanging clothes. 

Finally some of the clutter can come off her floor. One thing it's important to learn as a parent with small kids (which is slightly counter-intuitive) is if you put the toys away they are more likely to play with them. Yeah I know, it took me a while to grasp that concept and I'm just now working on a way to actually implement it.

So two of the baskets don't fit and Gabriel sabotaged my staging by stealing the Hello Kitty plane from the top cube (see, put it away and suddenly it's the best toy ever) but I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. The bottom baskets have socks, undies, tights, pjs.

Pretty soon we'll be able to get rid of the horrible dresser that is totally out of place in a little girl's room. (Admittedly, I won't be calling it horrible once I move it to my closet. hahaha) It's bolted to the wall but I've found her dragging chairs into her room and climbing to reach things on the top more times than I'd care to. It only makes sense that she should be able to reach her clothes on her own. 

What can I say? This set of furniture came with the house. It was easy. So now we're on the hunt for some low drawers that don't cost a fortune. What I'd really love is if I suddenly became super talented and could renovate an old one into something beautiful, but baby steps here people.