Zone 2 - The Living Room (post 3)

*** I apologize in advance for the obscene amount of pictures in this post. Since this is already my 4th post regarding one room in my house (you can find the other 3, here, here, and here, if you bored out of your head), I decided to make it very long instead of adding yet another post. The jury is out on if I made the right call. ***

So, I'm allergic to not changing.
We have lived in the SAME house for THREE STRAIGHT YEARS!  And, while this has been a really amazing experience...I have realized I've become accustomed to change.
I'm unnerved by things staying the same for such a long time.
Which means I needed to re-arrange furniture.

Naturally.

 This is what my Living Room looked like when I was starting February:

Not bad. Not great.

This is a long room with a gazillion windows. 

And has been the hardest room I've ever had to decorate and configure furniture. 

I love the windows! 

I love the fireplace! 

But holyheckamama it is super difficult to lay out.

The white kid-size table was a FANTASTIC Craig's list find - and didn't normally sit in that spot. 2 chairs (that were as comfortable as they were ugly), occupied that particular zone. But the chairs were out of the house for a little bit while Molly from The Industrial Cottage worked her custom-slip-cover magic.

Then one night after we put the kids to bed, My Love said something in response to one off-hand remark I'd made a couple days earlier. He said,

"Honey, you want to re-arrange the living room furniture?" 

File that under "Top 10 sexiest phrases ever."

Within an hour and a half, every single piece of furniture had been moved. 
Yes, he loves me. 

Biggest life-altering furniture move?
Taking the piano off the wall...and backing it up to the couch. LOVE it there!

But it wasn't complete.....not by a long shot. 

Poor man.

One week later, he came home to an obscene amount of picture frames (and other stuff) laid on the floor in a specific pattern...and a wife with a I-have-a-project-going-and-won't-be-able-to-sleep-until-it-is-done-face.

I told you he loves me!

A LOT.

Now, every time I walk in the living room I smile - because that wall says he loves me.

Really, he had a LONG day and came home and hung all those pictures, even though he wanted to just sit on the couch and do nothing.

Without a ladder.

Yep.

He just stood on the back of the couch and leaned back on me.

I'm a helper. :)

The bare spot under the long shelf is supposed to have a picture under it (see it hiding on the couch??)....but the command strip didn't work. I'm impatient, and wanted to post pictures anyway. Please use your imagination.

Also imagine there are actual pictures that mean something to OUR family in all of those frames...because the pictures they came with are hanging on my wall. Eventually, 8 of the small frames will have a picture of the front door from every house we've lived. 

Here is the final tour....

The view from the back of the room -

Chair #1with a custom slipcover in bleachable white denim. :) It makes me very, very, happy. We turned the bookcase on it's side and now it is an easily accessed kid zone. It holds some toys and children's books. (See earlier post detailing how we contain the beast known as kid stuff.) 

Courtesy of Craig's list, the neighborhood can now watch tv from the alley behind our house.

You're welcome, neighborhood.

View from the middle of the room (above) and the front of the room (below).

Please note beautiful chair #2. Also known as the-most-comfortable-chair-you-will-ever-sit-in. Which is what has saved its life all these years. Your butt is just super happy in that chair. Now my eyes are happy to look at it, too!

(Imagine the TV cabinet and giant TV on the right of the above picture.)

(And my floating shelves with the owls on them above the white chair in the back of the room)

There you have it! Our living room - Zone 2 - as of this second.

There is no guarantee that I will not change something in the future....but it will definitely NOT be the picture wall. 

Or the furniture layout.

But a nice round, wood, coffee table?

(something like this one I saw at Haynes)

Maybe an accent table?

(Like this super funky one from Target)

And a beautiful lamp?

(not that we would EVER buy this - but I love the look of it!)

Oh Pottery Barn, why do you have such lovely things?

I could see stuff like that migrating in. 

Window something or other should probably happen too....but my brain is hurting from all this decorating already. 

Now my poor second floor is naked. 

But hey, my kitchen is organized, my living room is beautiful, and I finally figured out a system that keeps the toy mess at bay!

I'm calling it a win. 

Thanks for reading!

~Whitney Copyright 2013

Zone 2 - The Living Room (part 2)

So, over the next week I'll be saying stuff about my living room. Not that I know a whole lot...but maybe it will help you figure out how to organize/not organize your space!  

First - I have 4 kids. 3 of them are professional mess makers. Which can present quite the dilemma if I'd like my house to ever be orderly! 

This not only drives me crazy...the poor, neat, child - String Bean - is driven to twitching many days!

Here's a (pretty typical) cycle: Toys get played with...then left out...then tripped on by a parent...then the child goes to bed and hasn't cleaned up...then the parent has to clean up. The child gets away with being lazy and messy, and the parent is upset and exhausted from doing more than they should.

That is how I felt all the time over the past few months.

Not good.

So, toys have been disappearing. 

I have gone through ALL of their toys and gotten rid of everything that is broken, missing pieces, or they don't absolutely LOVE. I placed a cap on how many baby dolls/stuffed animals can be in the house - and all 3 girls have to agree which ones make the cut. (They have to come to an agreement in a specified amount of time....say, 1 day....or I get to choose which ones go away. That has proven to be extremely motivating.)

Is our house spotless? 

Nope.

 (This is what happens when you go to the bathroom alone.)

(In fact, yesterday, it was an utter and complete disaster. I meant to take a picture to show you how all of the living room floor was covered with toys...but I forgot. Please use your imagination.)

What the downsizing means, is this - the kids are actually able to keep up with, AND put away the toys they DO have. Even Boy Bean. (Who is 2).  

My goal is not to have a spotless house - we DO live here! -

 my goal is to have a house where everyone is able to work together to keep it tidy.  

The children are overwhelmed if they have too many toys to choose from or put away. So when I say I've gotten rid of things, I mean this: 

I got rid of the play kitchen (that they didn't play with) and ALL the food and dishes that went with it;

I got rid of the dollhouse and all the furniture (they didn't play with it - and the furniture always ended up under my couch);  

75% of their stuffed animals disappeared;

there are no puzzles accessible without adult assistance; 

no crayons or coloring books can be played with without asking permission; 

and all toys containing small (easily lost) parts were sent elsewhere - unless they expressly asked for it to stay.

I'm really not a mean and horrible mom. 

The Beans still have plenty to play with! 

In fact, much of the time, they are using my living room blankets and every pillow we own to make forts, or they are hunting for Waldo, or reading, or playing with matchbox cars, or pretending to be fairies or princesses or explorers.

Trust me - these kids have plenty to occupy them!

Here is what our space looked like on Tuesday:

Then, on Tuesday night, My Love said the most marvelous sentence ever - 

"Honey, do you want to re-arrange the living room?"

He speaks my Love Language. 

(Which, if you are keeping track, now includes 1. Re-arranging furniture 2. Food 3. Sales)

So, after 2 hours of work - after the kids were in bed - the space looked like this:

(This is your sneak-preview...the entire room was re-arranged...but I'm not ready to show you yet!)

(The leather-ish chair is still in the same spot. I am in the hunt for a beautiful ottoman.)

The Large Car Basket - $1 from Dollar tree...I'm actually hunting for a deep, round basket to be freestanding out of the bookcase to hold the Large Cars and balls. :)

Every thing has a place - and the kids (mostly) remember where it is....one day, the canvas buckets will be pretty ones that haven't been sat in and stepped on. That day is not today.

Oh, and please don't be offended at the gender-specific bucket names, my Beans came up with them. The titles make sense to the kids - and they know exactly what goes in each bucket.

The blue chair has been with us for 3 years now...and the slipcover is washable!

This little tool box was a thrift store find for $1 when I was decorating Boy Bean's nursery. Now, he uses it for storing his matchbox cars and toting them around. 

The Medium Car Basket - $1 from Dollar Tree. It holds all cars/planes that are not matchbox size or Large battery operated items 

(This bookcase is near the front of the room)

We do have other toys, but they are in the Bean's rooms: a small container of mega blocks, another bookcase of children's books, numerous instruments, a basket of stuffed animals/dolls, and a large bucket of dress up clothes. We were also given all the gear for the My Little Pony Town, which is kept in clear plastic tubs under the staircase. They must ask permission to pull out the Ponies, and they (should) put all other toys away before the Ponies come out. That doesn't always happen - but we're getting there! 

This is the best system we've ever had for keeping things tidy - it works about 80% of the time. :)

What do YOU do to keep the Kid toys/grown-up gear, tidy?

~Whitney
 Copyright 2013

Zone 2 - The Living Room (Part 1)

In January, I told you about how organizing in this house was a'happenin'. I had divided the house into Zones to work on, and planned on slowly working through the entire house during the deployment.
The deployment that was cancelled.
But, instead of throwing my organizing plan (yes, I have a plan for organizing....mildly psychotic) out the window, I decided to take advantage of the Muscle in the house being home. :)
January - Zone 1 - was The Kitchen. It was 2 parts of organizing babble.
The good news?
All the changes I made actually WORK. Things have been consistently put away. The children are able to help with all the things I had hoped. I'm able to keep my areas cleaner - although the stove top is still the bane of my existence. (That and the shower. I hate cleaning those two things!)
The better news?
The success of the kitchen has motivated me to keep going through the house.

Side note - when I pick one zone, I still have to maintain the other zones of the house. So, sometimes even if my monthly zone is, say, the living room....I still may end up going through kid clothes. Life has to keep happening - and I can't always complete the zone I planned...so I do what I can and then start work on the other places.

My living room has been a source of struggle for me since the day we moved in. It is a HUGE room (don't ask the dimensions, I have no idea) with about 10 million windows. I LOVE it! All the sunshine is marvelous and feels so open. However, after living in 6 small and 1 medium house...it was quite a change.

Here are 2 pictures showing ALL our furniture that wasn't expressly bedroom/dining room related....

Quadrupling the size of your house DEFINITELY makes your furniture seem smaller! 

And having a pretty house, makes the furniture that doesn't look so great REALLY stand out.

Oh well.

We had places to put butts.

Not pretty places - but comfy ones!

(I'm not even showing you the COMPLETELY empty back 1/3 of the room!)

In fact, it has been such a struggle - I posted about needing help back in November. :)

I've made a bit of progress...the 3 pillows in the corner? Fantastic find and they totally go with my owls.

AND thanks to my genius friend, Molly, I will change them into removable pillow covers that I can wash!! (Why that never occurred to me, I'll never know.) I just need to find a zipper for the 3 non-washable pillows...the Owl, bright Green, and Crazy Bird. (See below) :)

My new favorite piece of furniture - this super-awesome-completely-makes-me-smile-every-time-I-look-at-it TV Stand. 

Other pillow I love - it called my name from Garden Ridge. And all 4 pillows were on CLEARANCE!! People, that is my love language. Well, that and food.

These cutesy shelves were in the damaged section at Bed Bath and Beyond for $5...so I bought them. I had no IDEA what to do with them, but I figured it would come to me.

It didn't.

They sat in that very sad hodge-podge state for months.

Iamsoashamed.

But yesterday? That changed! Now they are filled with cute little things that I like! That go with our room! That I like! (Yes, I said that twice...it was double important)

I mean, seriously, how cute are those little speak no/hear no/see no evil owls?!

I also went through ALL of the toys and got rid of about 10 million things.....but more on the toy de-cluttering/organization, tomorrow. :)

And, most likely....the entire layout of the room will be flipped in the next 2 days. I told you I was taking advantage of having the Man home! :)

~Whitney Copyright 2013