Three short years ago, we moved into our current home - it was quite the arduous process, but in the end it was all worth it and we are completely in love with it. This is what it looked like before we moved in:
The poor thing had been empty for an entire year, needless to say we had a lot of work ahead of us :o) This is what the lovely lady looks like today (like, literally today - I just ran outside and took a picture!):
We ripped out the bushes because they were a) too close to the house and b) they were causing our basement to get wet; we also got new windows and a new, darker roof, plus painted our door red. Up this summer: new siding and landscaping (I'm sure our neighborhood would appreciate that over the weeded barrenness that we have now).
We've also done a bunch of things inside so I thought I'd have a little Home Re-invasion this week on the blog. If you remember, I gave you a taste of Before and After of our house
here,
here and
here. Today we'll start with the reorganization that's been going on these past few weeks in our bedroom and basement in preparation for the garage sale we had last week! Then we'll move on throughout the rest of the house, ending with the unveiling of baci's studio :o)
Up until about a month ago, my clothes were in both our bedroom and the guest bedroom - the clothes I wore most frequently resided in our bedroom, my dresses and jackets lived in the other room. This didn't make getting ready when we had guests that convenient. . . and it typically required a lot of me running around in my underwear trying to figure out what I wanted to wear. This needed to end, and if we ever want to turn that guest bedroom into a nursery we really should have space to put a baby's things.
The main problem was lack of space - our house was built in the '50's and amazingly it does have a lot of closets, unfortunately, those closets aren't very useful because they are long and narrow. Ilario even has his very own closet (in the hallway - God bless him!) and I still didn't have the room for all of my clothes (which I love dearly, but I swear I really am good at purging so I don't have
that many). I also realized that our dressers were tiny, like meant for a child tiny. So when Jami and I were in
Pittsburgh, I bought a beautiful new adult-size dresser and armoire. Bam, just like that I was able to combine my two closets and everything resides in my room now (Ilario is still banned to the hallway, but I promise his closet is nice - he can walk in it)!!
Moving everything into one room has been amazing - I sorted through everything and was finally able to organize my clothes by color. Nerdy, I know, but do it - it's truly life-changing!! When shopping I now know what I have and in what color, so I don't purchase things already in my closet :o) This is what my closet looks like now - a dream would be to have all the same hangers, but that would be a lot of hangers to replace! Someday. . .
Confession: I did move all my winter clothes (like sweater dresses and wool pants/jackets) back into the guest bedroom closet, but I promise once the basement is up and running I'll store them down there.
Using a tip from my sister-in-law I bought a pretty two-sided shoe organizer and I now store my belts and scarves it in - seriously, another life-changing moment :o)
All of our sweaters and pajamas (yes, even Ilario's) now live on the shelves in the armoire. I haven't been able to utilize this to it's maximum ability because it's been too hot, but I know it's going to be awesome come winter-time.
And in the hanging portion of the armoire, I now have all of my sleeveless tops and jackets (organized by color again!) at the top and my pants and skirts on the bottom. So lovely :o)
I even bought drawer organizers for the new dresser - no more sorting trying to figure out what socks are black. A serious win in my book!
Taking my bedroom organization overhaul one step further, I used a pretty silver tray I found in my uncle's stash of goods on its way to the flea market to hold my hair tools. I placed a small wash cloth under it to protect the dresser from the heat.
I also bought a fun silver tray from TJ Maxx to hold all of my makeup - once again life-changing! I now know what I have and it's easy to get to - before I was storing it all in a grungy makeup bag.
I have all my necklaces strung up in the closet so I never have to waste time untangling them and all my other jewelry stays nice and neat in pretty boxes on top of the dresser.
Next up: the basement! It's currently horrendous. We went through EVERYTHING (like a whole crap-ton of stuff ranging from baci goodness to holiday décor) before the garage sale and now it all needs placed into labeled clear tubs. Now that will be heavenly once it's done :o)
