In my last post I said I should include my hubby on what works for him in this space, and what he would like to see...I made mention of it to him, but of course in the hubby fashion he was vague. Knowing him, and knowing our habits as a family, I think I can break it down to the following:
1) My hubby always thinks I hide items on him, or make new homes for items without telling him. Not True. My hubby has a habit of putting items back in a location from which he did not take them. Good grief. This doesn't just happen in the dining room. Solution? Labels, labels, and more labels! I love labels. I actually labeled my daughter's dresser drawers to make it easier for him to find clothes...that helped tremendously. So I will label and educate my hubby on where I would like things to go.
2) Putting items back in their location after we are done with them. Guilty. Yes me, guilty! Many times I create "piles" of items that go in the same general direction, like a bag to take things upstairs, as I find running up and down a zillion times a day to be a bit annoying. Solution? A basket on the stairs leading to the upper level to collect items, and take them up when I go up, put items in designated spot before I come back down. Yeah right! I will try...I like the idea of a specific basket on the stairs to prevent clutter in our dining room. Same goes for downstairs, often we have dirty kitchen rags, or recycling, or other items that need to go outside or down in the basement...same philosophy applies. I bought two wall mounted waste baskets from the ever so loved IKEA, and plan to use one for rags, and one for recycling and they will just stay in the side hallway until one of us heads out. Done.
3) The biggest issues for us in the room are lazy habits putting coats on chair backs instead of hanging them up, and our built in counter top becomes a dumping ground. Solution?: Hooks in the side entry to hang up coats, purses, as well as any shopping bags (until we have time to put items away).
OK, now that I know what I need to do, working on the above is part of the process...and then I digress to other things in the room...like wall color. I loved the lime green a while ago, and basically just wanted our new dreary bought home to look bright and cheerful. Now the color annoys me and I want something more neutral, and more calm. My brother was very generous to give the hubby and I a boatload of paint he had left over, and some was never used.
So before I make too many changes I wanted to paint the walls. Problem: when I painted the walls before I didn't realize the previous owner painted over wall paper until I was half way through, and then I just repeated his mistake. So scraping away I go.
My son has a dresser/hutch combo that we used in his room first as a changing table, and now a dresser...but his needs have changed, and I want something more of his height, but I don't want to get rid of the dresser/hutch...what to do oh what to do? TA DA! I can repurpose it in the dining room as a china cabinet, to store some linens and other items. Yay me! It is pretty heavy and I don't want to paint after the piece is moved into the room, so this is just one more rationalization of scraping the walls to paint NOW!
I'm becoming long winded, I know...but a lot has happened so bear with me. I made some fixes to broken chairs so they could function, all that was required was some wood glue. I took everything out of our microwave cart and sorted and started a purge pile, including the cart itself. Then I tackled the built in which was already somewhat organized, but I knew many of the items in there I could part with. Victims: A multi-colored set of wine glasses, some Crate & Barrel mirrored coasters, vases, an old plastic dish, a trivet, more coasters, some napkins...and the others I couldn't decide on went into the sort box. So this is my progress:
No comments:
Post a Comment