Our Playroom in the Sunroom

Our house has a pretty spacious sunroom off of our kitchen.  It's described as a 3-season room, but to be comfortable in it, it's more of a 2-season room.  Spring and Fall.  There isn't any heating or air conditioning out there and it has windows all around it with absolutely no insulation.  Needless to say, in the summer it is unbearably hot and humid and in the winter it is unbearably cold.

When we started moving our things into the house, the toys just ended up out there.  Our bedrooms are all fairly small and there isn't much space for the kids to keep a lot of toys in their rooms.  Our basement wasn't the best option for a playroom, simply because it's not exactly finished to my liking (though my husband had no problem turning it into his man cave) and it's just a lot easier to keep an eye on the kids while they are on the main floor and not have to worry about them being up and down the stairs all of the time.  So, despite the temperature issues in the sunroom, we decided to make it our playroom.  We attempt to make it better in the summer with a few fans and in the winter with a space heater.

This is what it looked like when we first saw the house.

It really would make a lovely sunroom for adults to relax in, but then where would our millions of toys go?!

Here it is in all of its playroom glory on this snowy December day!  

I did a copycat storage bench for the one corner of the room using two Expedit sheving units from IKEA.  The original idea is from Jen at I Heart Organizing.  You can find her detailed instructions on how to do it here.  It's my favorite area in our playroom.  And it's the only place for adults to actually sit in here anyway.

I purchased some of the toy labels from a well known organizer in blogland.  Her name is Alejandra and you can purchase the labels from her store here.  I also found some other labels at Confessions of a Slacker Mom.  You can download them for free here.  I printed them all out and ran them through my Purple Cows laminator (purchased this for $19.99 when it was half off at A.C. Moore).  I affixed them to the containers and bins using Scotch Multi-Purpose Fasteners.

The bins along the wall are from Target's Itso collection.  I got them over a year and a half ago.  I am not sure if they are being discontinued, but I see that their selection has recently dwindled down to an end cap.  They snap together with little plastic pins.  They work fine for what we need, but sometimes come undone due to the kids pulling the fuller bins in and out.  Eventually I want to replace them with 2 of the 8-shelf Expedit units.  

I have an ongoing list of things that I still want to do with this space.  Some will happen in time and some will most likely never happen.  

1. New carpeting/flooring
2. Some type of window treatments
3. Replace Itso bins with Expedits
4. Paint the TV stand
5. Replace lighting fixtures
6. Paint the ceiling/walls (aka the space in-between the windows)
7. A permanent solution to the heating and cooling
8. Replace the tall bookshelf with more Expedit benches
9. Replace the princess folding table and chairs with something sturdier and gender neutral
10. Do a better job of organizing the bins in the ceiling cubby area.  Or whatever you want to call it.

Just to clarify, our playroom RARELY looks like this!  :)

Now off to enjoy this cozy snow day with my family!  Happy playing everyone!

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Quick Fix Friday - The Junk Drawer & Batteries

It's been a busy few weeks for me and I am sure for all of you as well.  I haven't really been doing much organizing and obviously not posting.  I even (gasp!) missed Quick Fix Friday last week.  Today I have a short post featuring two quick fixes using products from some of my favorite stores, Target and The Container Store.

The Junk Drawer

Our junk drawer has had several overhauls here and there, so this before isn't as horrific as it has been in the past.

To organize our drawer, I purchased a two-tiered container from Target.  I believe its actual name is Junk Drawer Organizer, but I am not positive.  I couldn't find it on their website.

It fits perfectly into our drawer.  Our junk drawer doesn't actually acquire much junk now that I see it all organized.  I didn't even end up using all of the compartments, but I am sure they will fill up soon enough.  The items that I find myself taking from here on a daily basis are the lighter, pen, bandaids and nail file.  I also kept some hand sanitizer, some party candles, the remote control for the fan in our playroom, some loose keys, tape measure, gum, playing cards, etc.

I feel like no matter how awful your junk drawer is, if you purchase an organizer like this one, it can be controlled.  Especially once you purge and get rid of the items that you didn't even know were in there simply because you never look for them, because you just don't need them!

Batteries

During a trip to The Container Store, I picked up a lidded compartment box, among many other fantastic items.  I didn't have a particular use for it in mind at the time, but once I got it home, I realized it would be the perfect solution for our battery situation.

Obviously if you have a lot more batteries than we do or you have more size Ds, then this container might not be the one for you.  It works perfectly for our needs though.  No more searching through a shoebox-sized bin for batteries.  Now we can quickly find them and see when a certain size needs to be replenished.  We keep this container on a shelf in our laundry room.  I love it!

Quick Fix Friday - Medicine (Kitchen) Cabinet

Welcome to my second Quick Fix Friday!  Today I will be showing you how I organized our medicine cabinet.  This is not your traditional medicine cabinet, but a kitchen cabinet in which we store our medicine!  In here we keep all of the child medications, adult medications, prescriptions, vitamins and supplements.  Here is the before and then a completely clean slate..

First thing was to sort them into categories and weed out anything that was almost empty or expired.  We had more than enough dosage caps (that's what they're called, right??), so I threw out some of those as well.  I decided to keep all of my husband's supplements on the top shelf, but just straightened them up a little.

The middle shelf received a lazy susan for all of our vitamins and I put the few prescription medications to the right of that.

I sorted the remainder of the medications into three categories:  Children's Medicine, Aches & Pains and Cough & Congestion.  I put them into containers and labeled them.

They fit perfectly on the bottom shelf.  One of the smaller containers has to be in the back, but no big deal.  

And now at least TWO of my kitchen cabinets are organized the way I want them to be!  You can see how I organized the cabinet under my kitchen sink here.

Quick Fix Friday - Under the Kitchen Sink

Welcome to my first Quick Fix Friday!  Hopefully I will be able to get a post up every Friday from here on out.  By "quick fix," I mean an organizing project that can be accomplished in a half an hour or less.  Today I want to show you how I organized under our kitchen sink.

Here is the horrendous before picture.

Seriously??  This had been this way for months.  I just had enough.  Everything came out so that I could start with a blank slate.  

I thought about what I actually go into this cabinet for on a daily basis and decided to keep ONLY those items.  Previously, I had been using this cabinet to store all of the dusting sprays, window cleaners, bathroom cleaners, floors cleaners, etc. *side note: with 4 small children in our home, this cabinet most definitely has a childproof lock on it - just in case you were wondering!* Those items are NOT used daily.  The only items allowed back in were items that are strictly used in this area.  Dish detergent (liquid and pods), countertop cleaner, scrub pads, magic erasers, sponges and dish cloths.  The only exception of non-daily items were all of my hand soaps.  All of the other cleaners went into a cleaning caddy and found a new home in our laundry room.  

All of the hand soaps are now contained in this white bin.  I do believe I have a slight obsession with Bath & Body Works hand soaps.  And candles.  And Wallflowers.  I probably need an intervention.  

I put all of the dishwashing essentials along the left hand side.  Extra liquid dish detergent ended up in a plastic container near the back.  I took the pods from their packaging and put them in this flip top lidded container.

The right hand side is for all of our magic erasers, sponges and dish cloths.  I put the dish cloths in a napkin holder that I picked up on clearance at Target.  It's perfect!

Ahhh, so much better!  It's beautiful!

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