Day 22 - Clutter Free Dining Room

Day 22 here on the 31 Days to a Clutter Free Home series involves the Dining Room. I don't even have a real dining room right at the moment. And I'm not really a formal dining room type of person anyways. So it is a bit challenging for me to talk about de-cluttering dining rooms. But here are my thoughts...I think you'll enjoy this little rabbit trail I go down :)

My #1 piece of advice is to make your space work for you. If you have a formal dining room and never use it consider WHY. Do you have white upholstered chairs and never eat in there because you don't want the kids to get the chairs dirty? Consider selling or re-upholstering those chairs and swap out for more family friendly options so you can use your room. Or maybe you just don't see the point in ever eating in there when you have a perfectly good breakfast nook...

I know lots of people who have formal dining rooms and seriously NEVER use them. I just can't see wasting that much square feet in my home. If you're one of those people, consider repurposing your dining room to better fit your family's needs.

• Perhaps your dining room would serve your family better as a music room complete with a baby grand piano and built in cabinets to store sheet music.

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• Or maybe you need a larger area for homeschooling, or a place to work on crafts as a family.

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• Or perhaps you really need an entire room dedicated to a home office but you don't have any spare bedrooms you could use for the task. I just love this post on Emily A. Clark's blog where she announces her plan about repurposing her dining room into a home office. The last time she gave us a peek into her office there were floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves in the works. I can't wait to see this space when she gets done! Isn't that desk in the bottom right corner of the photo beautiful?

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• Or how about repurposing your dining room into a designated playroom? My sister-in-law, Michelle, did just that in her former home. I thought it was a genius idea! It gave her girlies a place to play with their toys right next to the living room but did not allow the toys to take over the living room. They had never really used the dining room for eating anyways. It really worked better for their family.

If you like one of these ideas and you're contemplating repurposing your dining room...perhaps you're puzzled on what to do with your formal dining room furniture. Perhaps you don't want to get rid of it because it's a family heirloom and even though a formal dining room doesn't work for this season of your life, it may again in 10 years. For now, you could consider repurposing the furniture as well as the room. Your dining table could make a really great desk or craft table (just cover it with something to protect it). And you could move the china cabinet into the bathroom or hallway for an instant linen closet.

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Or, better yet, move it into the master bedroom for instant shoe storage!

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I just LOVE this idea. It hints of a luxurious dressing room like the one below but could be added into just about any master bedroom, no matter the size. 

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Still, if you are the type of person who loves having a formal dining area and you'd never think of repurposing it, I recommend you take a good look at your china cabinet/ buffet.

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Are there dishes in there that you have no sentimental attachment to and never use? How about you donate them to someone who could really get some good out of them?

Once you've gotten rid of all the extra dishes, you can really showcase what's leftover. I just love the look of a well-styled, de-cluttered china cabinet. Sure beats an over-crammed one. Not only does it look better but you can actually open the door without the fear of breaking everything as the piles and piles of porcelain and glass topple out on you. Furthermore, dusting and washing the china is a lot simpler task.  

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Or perhaps you have approximately 18,953 cloth napkins stashed in your buffet and you have never once used them? Get rid of them in a garage sale!  And maybe get something you really do want with the money you make. Or you're holding onto 500 stained tablecloths...throw them away or use them as rags or something! And maybe you have some Christmas napkin rings that you inherited and think are the most tacky things in the whole world. Time to ship them off to Goodwill...someone else might want them and for now they're taking up valuable space in your home.

So...what are your thoughts after today? Anyone inspired to completely rearrange furniture this weekend? Are you going to get up from the computer right now and start moving the toys into the formal dining room and list your dining room furniture on Craigslist? Maybe you can use the profits to buy Christmas presents for the family and squeak thru the holidays DEBT FREE! 

Our Baby's Nursery

We had our little man, Levi, last July. Just like any first time mama, I put tons and tons of thought into creating a cozy little space for our newborn. I wanted it to be absolutely perfect for him. We did not know until he was born that he was a boy, so we went with a neutral green and brown color scheme. We painted the walls a neutral color - Shoreline Haze by Valspar and laid down new beige carpeting.

We were blessed to receive a gently used crib and glider from our friends, the Smiths. It just so happened that the glider and ottoman were upholstered in a light green fabric that matched the curtain panels I had for the space perfectly.

My parents got us the crib bedding from Babies R Us, Kids Line Bunny Meadows. I also have other crib sheets that I swap out as needed that are plain green, yellow or polka dotted.

 

I looked into changing tables and dressers and decided that I just wanted to purchase a dresser and put a changing mat on top of it that way the dresser could be used when the he grew up in a big boy room and it would also eliminate the amount of furniture in the space. I scoured Craigslist for a few months and finally found a great 6 drawer dresser for only $20! Sure beats an $800 Pottery Barn one...haha! So I brought it home and refinished it out in our carport in the heat of the summer when I was 8 months pregnant. Click over here for the detailed story on how I turned this dresser:

Into this:

We keep cloth diapers and disposable diapers in the top two drawers of the dresser and Levi's clothes in the bottom 4 drawers. We repurposed a stainless steel trash can for a diaper pail. We have a waterproof drawstring cloth diaper bag on one side of the can and a regular trash bag on the other side for disposables. Smell is not an issue since the trash can seals up well.

I also "shopped our house" and decided to use our Pier One bookshelf (that was a wedding gift from years before) for toy storage. And I gathered up plastic drawer containers that we already had for extra bedding, diapers, wipes, toiletries and other miscellany. I have found that the drawers really help organize the small baby belongings well. I orginally had a lot of this stuff stacked in boxes but then I would have to take out an entire piles of boxes to get to something on the bottom and that was very inconvenient.

I printed labels for the drawers for easy identification. This really helps Daddy and anyone else watching Levi to find things. And it helps me remember where things belong as well.

I really like having all of Levi's toys on the bookshelf inside the closet. This way we can easily close the door on the toys and have a clutter-free looking bedroom. This is especially nice right now while our house is on the market.

If we ever have another baby I may re-upholster the glider and ottoman. It has now been through 2 baby boys, one of which I know for a face was a big spitter. I found this tutorial and I am sure I could do it (maybe with a little help from my sister-in-law...hope that's ok with you Margy...LOL) Re-upholstering the glider/ottoman would open up a whole new world of fabric options! Wow! Just check out these 2 custom designs here.

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As with everything else, Levi's nursery is a work in progress. As he grows and changes, his needs do as well and as a result, the room has been re-arranged and re-organized at least a handful of times over the past 14 months. For example, when he was first born, we went through 1 bib and burp cloth per hour. So we had an entire dresser drawer dedicated to these items. Nowadays, he doesn't really need those but his pants and shirts take up a lot more space, etc. So, my original plan was to somehow label the drawers so others could find things but now 1 year later I realize that would have been an exercise in futility since the drawer contents are always changing.

We still do not have any artwork up on the walls and now that we're attempting to sell our house, we figure we might as well not bother. Fewer nail holes for the future owners to patch, right? But my original idea was to hang a mirror over the dresser/changing table. I also have Levi's birth certificate framed and would like to hang that.

Also, the week Levi was born, my sister and I did a little DIY art while he was napping. My inspiration was this photo I found on Curbly.

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We took 2 - 12" x 12" x 1" pieces of styrofoam, cut them down to 10" squares with a bread knife and then covered them with scrapbook paper (cutting 1" squares out of the corners and wrapping the paper over the sides). We glued it to the styrofoam and used thumbtacks to hold the sides in place while it dried. It worked well.  It was my idea to create a gallery wall with possibly the mirror, the DIY art, and photos of my sweet little newborn baby, but...yeah...life happened...and the gallery wall, well, didn't.

Still, all regrets aside, at least I can rest easy knowing it does not look like this anymore...Behold: the before picture...complete with dark wood/ white painted trim - a two tone effect, dark green disgustingly dirty carpet, and Victoria's Secret box pink striped walls.

So, thanks for stopping by and checking out our nursery. Hope you enjoyed it. I am linking this up to the Roomspiration Blog Hop today on a la mode. Check out tons of other cute nurseries over there.

Budget Guest Bedroom Makeover

A few months back, this is what our guest room/ office looked like. Not so inviting, eh? So I decided to do a ton of purging and relocate the office to an armoire in the Great Room. And that left us with a completely empty guest bedroom.

Before we had our baby, we had possessed a full size bed but had since given that back to Dave's parents, it's rightful owners. So we pretty much had nowhere for guests to sleep. When we did have guests, we gave them our bed and slept on the floor on 4" thick foam sleeping mats meant for tent camping. So something had to be done. Because I spent way too many nights as a pregnant woman sleeping on the floor!! Ah!

However, I didn't really like the idea of having a whole bed set up in this room all the time because it's small anyways (about 9 x 12) and I like to be able to use it for other things if need be. So after reading this post from Young House Love, I thought, "why don't I get a sleep sofa?" It can be tucked away except when we have visitors.

But since we'd just spent a fortune on just about every other aspect of our house, I knew that I couldn't really spend a lot on this room. And a lot of sleeper sofas sell for $800-$1500. So I began scouring Craigslist.

Finally on one fateful day, I landed upon a sleeper loveseat. It did not include a mattress but I figured I could make it work. After all, it was cheap! We borrowed our friend's truck and had everything set up to go get it then Dave had to stay late at a deacon meeting and it all fell through. I was SO UPSET! 4 days later, we had another open evening so I called to see if it was still for sale and lo and behold, it was! So we borrowed the truck again and drove 45 mins to go pick this up on the other side of town. She was asking $75 but I asked if she'd take $60 and she did.

Once we got it home, I found replacement sleeper sofa mattresses for sale for about $150 online but we were able to tuck our camping sleeping mats inside and they work for now. Then we put another 2" thick foam mattress pad (that we already had) on top of that and it is VERY comfortable. Sure can't feel any bars under your back with 6" of cushion underneath.

So, this is our current guest bedroom. Since we had plenty of extra furniture for our Great Room, I decided to move these end tables into the guest room. Along with a tiffany lamp that Dave gave me years ago when we were dating.

The curtains were leftovers that my mom purchased and did not like but didn't return in time, so I picked them up from her house. I also knew I wanted to buy a few throw pillows but some of them can get expensive.

So one day I was shopping at Garden Ridge and discovered that most of their pillows are only $9.99. So for under $20 I brought home these 2 gorgeous pillows that help to tie together the wall color, green curtains and brown loveseat.

Therefore, the grand total spent on this transformation from disaster of an office to cozy guest bedroom was just $80. Sweet, huh?

This is all that is in this room for now but I like it that way. We use the closet to store DIY supplies and then it leaves the room open for us to do projects in there or for guests to lay out their suitcases when visiting. It's come a long way, hasn't it?

I'm going to link up to the Roomspiration Blog Hop over at DIY by Design today. Check it out for tons of Guest Bedroom ideas!