Organizing our new home

As most of you know I LOVE to organize. It brings me JOY...seriously, it makes me giddy! Our new home was just the project. We moved from a 4400 sq foot house in Alabama to a 2600 sq foot house in Florida. A lot had to give. There are no basements, which is a huge difference from Ohio and Alabama. But location, location, location...we are minutes from the Gulf, the weather is gorgeous year round and there is so much to do. 

Our house is a pretty open floor plan. We have living, dining and eat in kitchen all in one open area. We decided to make our dining room into an office, since we have the eat in kitchen space and outdoor space for eating. And we needed a place for the computer and homework. I rearranged and rearranged and pondered and stared until I came up with this configuration. And I have to say after living with it for a couple of weeks now, this was absolutely the right decision for us. Much more practical than another dining space.

Our entry and office area flows into the loving area. We have no basement, no playroom, no rec room or any other rooms for the kids to be in besides their bedrooms. BUT I hate toys all over the main living space. 

We were at Rooms to Go Outlet and spotted this gem of a piece for this space. A coffee table with storage, extra seats, and the top can be turned piece by piece to make a tray. So we have it filled with toys in one half and games in the other. It makes for easy clean up and storage. And its the perfect place to all sit around and play a game. We can use the stools for sitting or relaxing and putting up or feet. It really is a perfect piece!

The girls are sharing a room again. We had to get rid of a lot of toys and those we didn't we divided up between the kids rooms. The drawers under the bed are filled with their toys and legos. Again, easy clean up and storage. They only brought with them to Florida what fit in the drawers.

The girls love their dress up, so I hung them up with command hooks. easy access and easy to hang back up. Their accessories are in the trunk below.

Another place of opportunity was the girls closet. Two girls, lot so clothes, accessories and dance and gymnastic wear. I got a second hanging bar for under $10 from Amazon (love me some Amazon Prime!) and that makes for easy extra hanging space. The stackable drawers are an easy solution for the dance and sports wear. 

And last but not least..the arts and crafts. We have so much!! I got some bins from the dollar store and reused some drawers that I already had and sorted everything out. I found the blank label template online (http://www.sonyadehartdesign.com/free-printable-chevron-labels-from-sonya-dehart-design.html). I printed them out and then hand wrote the labels tailored to what I had in each bin and I taped them on the inside.

  

I made the craft table/ desk for the girls out of an old kitchen table from college that had been painted red. I sanded and repainted with the pink and white and then polyurethaned it for easy wipe off and clean up. I bought the little bins for crayons, markers and pencils from the Dollar Spot at Target.

Carson has the the most toys since he is the youngest. His trucks are all lined up, the castle on the floor, two bins for dress up... lots of floor space for his big stuff.

I made his closet into toy storage. He doesn't need the hanging space. The bins are from Target and I used a dry erase marker to label them.He can easily grab what he wants to play with and though it back into a bin for clean-up. What I have to let go is that their rooms are going to be messy. Since there is no other place to play, I have to take deep breaths and ignore it and they just have to clean it all up every couple of days and start fresh, so they have room to play.

We only have one small storage area in the house. A BIG difference from previous homes. Everything from extra kitchen supplies, paper towels, vacuum, clothes, suitcases, etc has to fit in the one under the stair space!  

I had wrapping paper and bags in 4 bins!!! So granted, that needed some cleaning out for sure. I ordered an over the door pantry holder from Amazon. It just snaps together...so easy! And made this into my wrapping paper storage on the inside of the door to the storage closet. I dod fin that I needed to use some extra command hooks to give it some extra support and stay in place. Not a big deal really. It worlds fabulous so far and doesn't move an inch.

I still definitely have some work to do, especially the garage. But its coming together. And sometimes you have to live with it for a while to see how you are going to best utilize space. Back to school is coming SOON...ACK!!! So the next project is figuring out our backpacks and lunch boxes and important paper spots. I'll keep you posted on how I organize all of that shortly.