Reading Nook

I have been working like crazy lately to try to get our house cleaned and better organized.  Organization is NOT one of my strengths... and that's putting it mildly.  I've never been a tidy person.  I'm terrible, TERRIBLE with clutter.  I have no idea how to organize the house and then keep it clean and organized and pretty.  But I have been trying so hard lately to turn that around!

This weekend I tried to tackle the playroom, but it was quite frustrating.  It's a pretty small room, and we just have too much stuff.  We also have this weird little open space in our hallway where our laundry room door is, and I've been trying to figure out how we could use that space to our advantage, instead of either having it empty and wasting it completely, or just using it to store stuff that doesn't have anywhere else to go, which is what we've been doing.  And that of course looks horrible, but like I said, I'm so bad with organization and clutter! 

I finally decided last night that I wanted to turn the little hall alcove space into a reading nook for the girls!  This would free up room in the playroom since it would get the bookcase and a couple other things out of there, and it would force me to stop using that hall space to store things. 

I think I'd like to get the girls some better chairs, probably for Christmas.  Something cushy and comfy that I can plop on the floor in that corner, like bean bag chairs or something.  And someday I'd like to frame my mural poster thing that's above the bookcase, but it's a funny size (like 29 inches by 10 inches) so I haven't been able to do it yet.  But for now, the reading nook is done! 

The Playroom is Finished!! (Almost)

We still have a million things to do to get our house in order, and our bedroom is full of boxes that need unpacking, but I spent most of the day and all night finishing the playroom instead!  Because that's way more fun.

There are a few things that I'd like to do before I'd call the playroom 100% finished, but most of those things won't happen for a long time, if ever.  For example, in my dream world, I'd love to have a giant bean bag chair, like a lovesac, as part of the reading nook.  But that will probably never happen, because those things are freakin' expensive!  I also want to hang a few more pictures above the dress-up center.  I have some cute photos of the girls in their dress-up clothes that I want to put in some 4x6 frames and hang up.  So I'll do that someday.  And I have an AWESOME poster print that I want to hang up above the bookshelf.  It's in a frame, but the frame is cheap and won't work, so I have to wait until I can find a better frame.  Anyway, it's a poster print of the mural on the wall of the children's section of the BYU library.  I love that mural.  It's got characters from nursery rhymes and lots of children's stories incorporated into it.  I got the print as a gift when I was in college, and I've been planning on hanging it in a reading nook for my children ever since.  So now that I have kids and a playroom with a reading area, I am going to hang it up!  And it's going to be awesome.

That's my big poster print... I don't know if you can actually see any of the details, but it's awesome.  Just take my word for it. :)  Some of the stories that are in the mural are The Chronicles of Narnia, Shiloh, Aesop's Fables (You can see the Tortoise & the Hare)... those are just a few.

I had to order a toy organizer thing for our toys, because they looked something like this:

It was ridiculous.  But now they look like this:

So pretty!  So organized!  I love it.  I maybe was super ridiculously excited to get that organizer.  I knew it was coming today, because I was tracking it online, so I was waiting for the FedEx guy all day.  Naomi & I put it together as soon as it got here, and she actually helped me clean up and organize all the toys!  It took almost an hour, too, and she didn't stop helping until we were done.  She is a pretty great helper!

Here are some more pretty pictures!  I organized our playroom into sections.

Reading Area... in my dream world, if I had a giant bean bag chair, it would go right under the window.  Lots of natural light for reading!  But for now, they use their animal pillows that they got from Aunt Rebekah for Christmas!  Also someday I'd like to put up some fun curtains.

Because I'm a perfectionist, I had to organize the books all pretty before I could take pictures.  It took me about 45 minutes.  And by 10:00 tomorrow morning, they'll probably all be on the floor.  But it looks pretty for now!

Kitchen Area:

Dress-up Center:

When I was teaching, one of my students gave me this framed thing as a gift after I had Naomi.  Her mom made it for me.  I thought the saying fit in pretty well with the dress-up center.

There's a lot of empty space on the wall above the dress-up center, so I want to hang some cute pictures of the girls in their dress-up clothes.  Here are some photos I took just a couple days ago.  My mom sent the girls little tiaras in the mail, so we had fun dressing up and playing with them!

Ridiculously cute, I know. :)

Ok, Art Area:

In the magazine holder above the table, I have coloring books & paper.  In the 3 little buckets above the easel, I have markers, crayons, and chalk.  And the chalkboard eraser is beside the chalk bucket.  And it looks like the buckets are kinda crooked, so I will have to fix that!  You can't see it, but the side of the easel facing the table is a chalkboard.

The art supplies are super high on the wall, but I had to put them high enough that Naomi and Aleta can't reach them even when standing on the table or the easel.  They are both climbers now, and I don't want them to be able to dump all the art supplies on the floor.  Eventually, I will start hanging some of their artwork on the wall there, too.

The last wall is all the rest of the toys.  Someday I'd like a cuter way to store the stuffed animals, which are just in that big plastic bin right now.  I saw a cute swing idea on pinterest, where the animals are all sitting on little pieces of wood that hang down from the ceiling like a swing.  But that's not really practical for our house right now! 

I love the playroom so much!  Having all of this space for the girls to play and keep their toys has made life SO much easier.  It's so nice for them to have their own space.  And they have been playing with their toys so much more now that they're organized and in a room of their own.

So, who wants to come play with us?