The Mundane

Well my friends, the no spend month is ending soon. I can’t say I’ll be sad to see it go but it sure does help me refocus when I do this. When I’m not spending on house stuff I can concentrate on bettering what we already have. I’ve decluttered a TON and whenever I felt the urge to go out and walk through a store I just found a new spot to sort through.

I’ve gotten a ton done this month but there’s so much more on my list! When I’m focused on the larger projects I find the smaller ones tedious. But when I’m working on a to do list and not bringing anything new into the house the mundane little things are oddly rewarding.

I’ve put off painting the inside of the built in cabinets in the family room for months – I finally sat down and just did it:

Even though you can’t see much with the doors closed you can tell it’s darker and more uniform in there which I like. For this girl who never even paints the inside of the cabinet doors, this is huge!! ;)

Speaking of painting…a lot of it is happening in the kitchen. I’m still working on the second coat on all the window trim in the bay window:

I won’t finish the white on the walls till the window seat is done, which will be sooner than I planned!! Whoot! Next time you see this spot the seat should be there. :)

We went through all of the toy bins in the basement and I finished up a few little things down there. We have an AWESOME ottoman with storage that holds our DVD books and other stuff:

Problem is the kiddo pushes it around all the time and we never know which way it opens. We have to move around it and pull till we get the right side. This is struggle people.

My solution took five minutes – I found some old belts while going through stuff and since I don’t wear them anymore I used one to make little handles:

I just screwed them into the ottoman framing and now we know exactly where to open and it’s easier to pull up:

I was laughing because as I was doing this I knew I had used another belt in a similar way years ago -- but for the life of me could not figure out where I did it. I placed my little DIY tray back on the ottoman and realized it was on that tray. Ha! I’m smart.

When something needs to be hung I tend to leave it leaning for months – it’s one of those little things that I put off. I finally hung a cute sign in the laundry room:

Love it! I will be installing shelves between the cabinets but until then I went ahead and hung it. Knowing me that could be another year from now. ;)

We’ve had a big mirror leaning in our newly organized closet for at least six months – and it took me all of five minutes to get it hung:

On a whim back in late December (I’ve technically been on this no spend gig since mid-December) I decided to hang a bunch of the random photos we’ve had laying around:

This wall in our loft is HUGE. I have to get a taller ladder to keep going, but it’s not empty for the first time in years!

And finally, as I mentioned I did a lot of purging, but not a lot of organizing just yet. I did switch the contents of a couple dressers around and things make much more sense now. I put all of our linens in the dresser in the dining room turned library – and I have a couple of empty drawers now too!:

I’d still like to get some shallow baskets to organize things a little more – baskets may be my first purchase. :)

These no spend months remind me that sometimes it’s the smaller projects that make me feel the most accomplished. It also reminds me that I’m pretty darn lucky to get to do the “mundane” in a house we love – I’m grateful for it. :)

Little bathroom updates

Hey there and happy Friday! Today I’m sharing a few smaller projects I’ve finished up lately. I almost didn’t share them because they aren’t anything earth shattering and the photos are even that great cause the SUN WON’T COME OUT but then I realized it’s not always the big projects that make you feel happy about your home. Actually, it’s usually quite the opposite – I feel accomplished and happy when I get little things knocked off the list.

All of these are in our master bathroom, which isn’t anything fancy. It’s big and has really tall ceilings though, which we love. Someday it will get a full makeover but it’s never been up there on my list. I always laugh because I have spent most of the 11 years in our home working on spaces that don’t bring as much value as far as resale. Our two main bathrooms have barely been touched and I haven’t done a whole lot in our kitchen over the years (but that is changing this year!).

But anyway, I’ve had quite a few little projects on my to do list in our master bath for a while now and I got most of them knocked off. I had one extra shelf and two sets of brackets that I didn’t use over the basement kitchenette so I thought about where we could use the extra bit of storage:

The placement isn’t my favorite, I’ll be honest – but with our sinks right there it was the only option without bonking our heads each time. AND the crazy-A cat can’t get up there. At least he hasn’t tried yet. I had those pretty glass containers on the vanity and because we keep Q-tips in one and he is OBSESSED with them, he would knock it off every. single. day.

So…it’s not perfect but it’s functional and I’m just happy I can keep my Q-tips nearby. It’s the little things my friends.

I shared these on Instagram the other day because they are SO dang pretty. I ordered these simple glass votive holders from CB2 months ago and they finally arrived earlier this month. They were only $2 each – and I thought they’d be pretty spread out on a wall. I couldn’t decide where I wanted them to stay permanently so I just put them up in the master for now:

They really are beautiful! I don’t know if they’ll stay here forever but I love them!

I have an old vintage wood bowl that was just sitting in the storage room. I brought it out and filled it with my random bath bombs and Epsom salts:

I used to keep all of it in big glass containers but I just wanted a simpler look. It’s much easier to access it all now too. :)

If you’ve been around for a loooooong time you may remember my DIY shower curtain. Well about two years ago the tension rod fell and broke -- rehanging it has been on the long list since. I actually purchased the new tension rod a year or so ago and it’s been sitting in the closet. As always, I am SUPER on top of things!:

It’s literally a few yards of terry cloth from the fabric store hung up on a tension rod with curtain clips. Simplest shower curtain EVER. It’s hard to find a curtain long enough (if you want it to hit the floor) so this is a great solution. And it hides our really ugly shower so that’s a big bonus. :)

The project that took the longest was the linen closet – it actually stays fairly organized but it needs some “fluffing” once a year:

With time things get tossed in the wrong bins and stuffed in places. I don’t know WHO would ever do that, but it happens.

I sat on the floor for about an hour and went through everything and resorted – and got rid of another set of towels. :)

I have to mention my favorite part of the closet. The organization part is pretty cool but these little stick up lights are the bomb:

That’s an old pic, things look a bit different now.

I am pretty sure you can get these at Target now – I can’t remember where I got mine. Amazon has them too, $10 for two. One of the things I wish I would have done when we built our house is add lights in the closets – it seriously is one of those things that drives me bonkers because I can’t see anything inside. I have a few of these and they work great.

Like I said – little projects that I’ve had on my list for quite some time. And all either make the room function much better or make it look a little better. It feels so good to cross things off the list, yes?

Have a wonderful weekend everybody!!

 

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Five things we have too many of

Yeah, yeah, I can hear my elementary English teacher yelling now -- don’t end a sentence in a preposition. But I have limited space here people!

Last week we talked about clutter busters – some of the ways I corral things that tend to mess up the place. This week I’m talking about five of the things I think we have way too many of – and when I say we I mean me and maybe you.

The older I get the less I can stand extra stuff in our house and the easier it is for me to let go of things. It’s still a struggle, don’t get me wrong. But I have less patience for crap we don’t use.

As I continue to move my way around our house this new year, I have noticed a few things we tend to hoard and I finally took a good hard look at whether or not we need so many of them.

I have a feeling many of you have multiples upon multiples of the same. First up, the sheets.

You’ll see I have many “soft” things on this list. I’m not sure why that is. :) So up till a few years ago we had easily four to five sets of sheets for our bed. I’m not sure why I always felt the need to have so many. When we take one set off to wash…we put another on. Not three. Yeah, I could see having a few different sets if you like to change up the look of your room. And yes, there’s always the need for an extra set for those times in the middle of the night when someone is sick. But we do have a washer and dryer – in a matter of a couple hours we’ve got a clean set again.

I’ve already purged our sheets down to three sets -- winter flannel, a more decorative one and our favorite, super soft set. That’s all we need! I did go through it all again and get rid of about eight extra pillow cases – not sure why we had so many?

All of our sheets fit into one bin:

We have one extra set for the guest bed and the Bub has three sets as well. Honestly we don’t even need the three but considering I’ve whittled down this much already I’m pretty proud. ;)

Here’s another biggie around our house – the cups.

Let’s throw mugs in there too, right? What the heck is it about glasses and plastic cups and mugs? They multiply in our house. It doesn’t happen with plates or even bowls – just things we drink out of. It’s because so often a cup turns into a souvenir for us. All those plastic cups that I think I need to remind me of a great trip. I do not need the cup to remember seeing Wicked on Broadway. :)

Or that cactus glass you got for “free” with the margarita and then you went back and got another one so you could have a set? Yeah. Been there.

I pulled every glass and mug out of the cabinet and then purged. This is what we’re left with:

I think that’ll be plenty for the three people in this house. :) And ten mugs for two people who don’t even drink coffee? Yeah, we’re good. Those mugs though – they’re always so cute right? Especially ones with an initial – those really get me.

Next up – blankets. I have a thing with magazines and mugs and blankets. Actually, throw blankets, for real. I swear to you, I think in the back of my head I’m always preparing for the next blizzard. I picture us huddled in the bed together, shivering, with my extra 25 blankets piled on top of us, keeping us alive. Thank GOD for my blankets!!

I mean, seriously. It’s not entirely reasonable but the just-in-case part of my mind makes me keep all the blankets. But I got rid of a few, because we don’t have storage space for 25 of them. If you do I’m tempted to tell you to just keep your blankets to KEEP YOUR FAMILY ALIVE.

I cleared out some and now we have some extra space on my DIY closet shelves:

You know…for extras. ;)

Am I alone on the blanket thing?

My fourth thing you I have too many of – gloves and hats and scarves. You’re probably tired of seeing this closet lately but it’s how we organize it all:

For the kids, yes, numerous hats and pairs of gloves are worth it. But for us, how many do we really need? At one point I had like ten pairs of gloves and I wore two of them, EVER. Now I keep one heavy duty pair for working outside, one pretty/cute pair and one extra set just to have. My husband has the same. I do give myself a pass on scarves cause I’m a girl. :)

By the way, many of you have asked about the tie backs screwed into the door – we have hollow core doors and they hold up just fine. I’ve had them up for years and they hold the weight of bags and backpacks every day, but our son doesn’t bring home any heavy school books just yet. (I don’t use anchors to hang them but that would help!)

My final one is another softie – the towels. So here’s the thing – all my adult life I’ve had many, many sets of towels. But I read something awhile back that really stuck with me and I’ve purged even more since.

We don’t wash our towels every few days and I’ve always felt kind of bad about that – but when you think about how often we wash our sheets, the ones we sleep on at the end of the day, sometimes at our dirtiest, and compare that to how often we’re “supposed” to wash our towels, that we use at our cleanest every day…it doesn’t jive.

I know, towels need to be washed and they can get yucky smelling from not drying out well but if you hang them there’s no reason why you can’t use them a bit longer. And if you’re only using one set at a time…why so many sets? You know what I’m saying?

We’re down to four sets of towels for us, four towels in the Bub’s bathroom and two towels in the basement bathroom:

Honestly, four sets is more than enough for my husband and me. I can still let a few sets sit in the laundry for weeks (not that I would ever do that…) and still have a clean pair of towels to use.

Seriously, what is it about the soft stuff? And of course those are the things that take up the most space!

I went through all five of these for a quick purge this week and it took me about 30 minutes. I piled up a bunch of cups and mugs:

And a whole pile of blankets and pillow cases and towels and scarves:

And the house feels lighter, yet again!

By the way, if anyone is interested in that airplane sheet set, send me an email. I got a few sets years ago for the Bub’s room knowing they may discontinue them. (They are a full sized set.) These have been taken, thanks! :)

Are there any other items you would add to this list? Do you have too many of these as well? Do you keep extras of all the soft things like me?

My best clutter busters

Hello my friends! I’m back today with some really simple and quick tips that I use around the house to coral the clutter a bit. We talked about clutter last week and I found the comments really interesting!

It may have sounded like my house was a clutter disaster after reading it and it’s really not, I swear. ;) But I struggle with it on a daily basis like so many of you do.

I have a few tricks I’ve implemented over the years that have really helped and I thought I would share a few of them with you today!

I like to utilize things in an unusual way AND I hate wasted space so this one a good mix of the two. I started this project by painting magnetic paint on the insides of a couple of our cabinets doors, but that was a fail. I can’t get that paint to hold anything but supersonic magnets, even with like six coats.

So plan B was to adhere some metal sheeting (make sure it’s magnetic!) to the cabinets instead:

Obviously we keep the take out and delivery menus there (CHUYS!!) but you could use it for a grocery list, receipts, whatever. I’ve seen really clever ideas of using the inside of your cabinet doors for hanging measuring spoons and cups as well. We can’t do that because the middle panels on our cabinets are too thin to screw into, but I love the idea!

You can see more of how I did this and the materials I used here. It’s a great way to get some of your smaller items out of the way and out of sight.

This next idea is one we’ve used for YEARS and I LOVE IT. I think I shared it with you a looong time ago but it’s worth mentioning again. Instead of keeping DVDs and CDs (all old, we haven’t bought a CD in years now) in their cases we now do this:

BOOM.

Seriously…I cannot express how much space these save! We have the smaller versions that hold about 130 disks:

We have one for CDs and software, one for Halloween and holiday movies, one for our movies and one for the kiddo’s movies. We actually need to get another one because as I’ve gone through things lately I’ve realized we have a ton of movies.

This is a bigger version of ours (it holds way more) and this one is just a bit more than what we spent on ours but holds even more (more than 200 instead of our 130).

When we buy a DVD now it immediately comes out of the case and into a sleeve. I can’t even imagine how much space these would take up still in their cases! By the way, you can’t typically recycle the DVD cases at regular recycling locations. There are some that will take them so do a search in your area. Also, I know photographers can usually use them so you could ask around. (Or is everything digital now? Could be.)

This little storage container is another one of my favorites – I was giddy when I was filling this thing up:

When I first shared this many of you mentioned alphabetizing it and I’ve since done that. After you said that it was giving me hives.

I got this sorter at Lowe’s and it’s meant to hang up on a peg board or something. Honestly though, after having filled it up I’m not sure it would hang well. Mine is so heavy I’m pretty sure the plastic would break. BUT it’s still the bomb – those drawers look tiny but they are deep. I can fit so much in there. It’s awesome to have a spot for all of the little doodads that I need day to day.

OK…so the paper issue is HUGE, right? I have to say – I have tried so many “tricks” over the years to get it under control. I tried binders, drawers, boxes…and they would work for a few weeks or even months and then it would get out of control again.

But I’ve found the solution. And it’s earth shattering, so hold on to your seats. I’m about to blow. your. mind…

A basket:

One basket. That’s it people. That’s. it.

We keep our recycling bins in the garage, so I do my best to sort through ads and junk mail as I come in the door with it all – but sometimes I don’t and I just dump it all in the basket. When it gets full I go sort through and file the important stuff and recycle the rest. Yes, I could just do this when I walk in the door…but I don’t. I have learned this about myself and have embraced it. :)

It is a wondrous thing, the big, deep basket. Seriously, when I had a spot for five different things it was too much and I stopped doing it. One spot? My brain can keep up with that. I’ve also started using those white boxes from the Container Store for the Bub’s school projects. I have one for each grade -- I put the ones I love in there and then when it gets full a month into the school year half way through the year I sort through that too. I’m trying to be better about that stuff – as some of you mentioned on that post last week, who am I keeping these for? Will he really want these as an adult? Will his wife frame them and hang them on the wall? I’m guessing no. So I am trying to be more deliberate with what I keep.

But you know, try the basket thing. It’s revolutionary I know. ;)

And finally, a biggie this time of year in our house – the gloves, hats and scarves. They used to land ever.y.where. Again…first of all, let’s address how many we have. How many sets of gloves does an adult really need to have? I’ve cut us down to about three pairs of gloves each. I get a few more scarves cause I’m a girl and I like my scarves.

My solution for what we really use is a shoe organizer at the top of our coat closet:

I labeled the bottom of each line of cubbies for each of us and just that little detail helps tremendously. Otherwise I’d be stuffing gloves in random slots and we’d never find what we want.

Another tip for the coat closet – use the back of the door:

I use drapery tie backs for hanging scarves and bags because they are deep and hold a ton! Most of them I’ve had around for years but I’ve even started buying them specifically for organizing instead of drapes. ;) I like using simple ones like these that have a good open “hook.”

So there you go – five of my biggest clutter busters that WORK. At least in this house. I’ve used each of these for quite some time now and they help to declutter the stuff that used to clutter up our house. Any simple tips you use and love?

 

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The matter of clutter

So I know I touched on dealing with clutter earlier this week but it’s on my brain for many reasons today. I always talk about ways to deal with the clutter…but I rarely talk about why it happens in the first place.

I posted this article on Facebook yesterday and really enjoyed reading your responses. I find this kind of stuff fascinating – psych was my minor in college because I’m always overly curious as to why we do what we do. The article focuses on a study that correlates clutter and depression in women and I found it really interesting.

I’m never a black and white person so I wouldn’t ever go so far as to say this is always the case, but after reading it it was kind of a “duh” moment for me. It is SO me. The article also mentions that men are not nearly as affected by the things around our house as women are, which again…for the most part I believe.

It got me thinking…if we allow clutter in our homes, why? If we don’t (and I find those that don’t are dedicated to avoiding it every day), what was it that made it unbearable for them?

I’m mixing in some organized spaces throughout to give us some motivation. ;)

As I was reading the comments on Facebook I was struck with a few things about myself. First of all, as with so many things, I think the reason we do what we do is borne out of how we grew up. There is still a deep, internal struggle I go through when I declutter because of that.

(Replacing wire shelves in pantry)

It feels wasteful for me to get rid of things I bought…no matter when I bought them and how often I use them. We you don’t have a lot growing up it sticks with you. I’m a bagger, as I’ve mentioned before, and I will have things in bags for months and never need one thing in there. And I’ll still go through each and every item – when if I’m honest with myself I don’t need any of it after all that time.

I also don’t have many things from my childhood – the only items salvaged are photos and a few other items. So I tend to hold on to many things for ALL of us so that we’ll “keep” the memories.

(Organized linen closet)

I had to laugh because I was watching The Goldbergs last night, which is my favorite show and last night’s was stellar because it was about New Kids on the Block, but I digress. The rest of the story line was about how the mom had kept literally every single art project and drawing from her children over the years and couldn’t part with them. It was to the extreme but I identified with her.

The best part though was when she showed her husband a drawing of her son did with his hand – and how there was no possible way she could ever get rid of it. And the dad said something like, “well he still has a hand!” It’s a goofy sitcom but his response stuck with me.

I struggle with the difference between memories and needing to keep things in order to remember. I think as moms we all want to keep every memory of those little hands…all 50 drawings of them. ;)

(DIY laundry chute)

But I write a lot down and we have a crap load of pictures so do I need every single drawing? Probably not. Is it OK to keep some? Yes.

My other reason that I’m not always on top of clutter around our house is that I’m the only one here fighting the good fight. My husband is completely, totally oblivious to it. Completely. And honestly, I am to a point. That’s where the article comes in – I always feel better with less clutter around our house. Always. But I can deal with it to a degree. I have a fairly high threshold. ;)

I get to that threshold though and seriously feel like I’m going to lose it if it’s not gone right that second. I have cried because of clutter. I sat in our newly organized master closet yesterday with my husband’s clothes piled on the floor and was so overwhelmed I had to walk out.

(DIY rolling drawer)

He didn’t do it to be disrespectful – he was going through clothes to wash. But I could feel my blood pressure rising while sitting in that room.

We’re both creative types and for us clutter isn’t always a big deal – but even when I’m not overwhelmed by it I’m annoyed by it. My husband is never annoyed by it. But if I’m being honest here…he’s not the one cluttering up our house. It’s me. And if he attempted to organize the clutter I’d probably stress even more…so there. you. go.

I don’t make resolutions but I always focus on cleaning out our house this time of year and I DO love the feeling. It is freeing and light and truly amazing. I have a lot more to go through yet and I’m actually looking forward to it. It is hard for me to let go of things but I can count on one hand all of the things I regretted donating. And that wasn’t for emotional reasons, it was purely a “oh I could have used that thing for this” reason.

(Organized coat closet)

I have made a vow to myself to stay on top of the clutter more this year than I ever have before. I focus on projects around the house so much I don’t focus on the little things like the kitchen island piling up with crap. But I’m realizing those “little things” become big things and weigh me down emotionally.

I would never go so far as to say clutter makes me depressed, but I can certainly see how it could cause that. And clutter is a crazy thing – the more it builds up the less we want to deal with it. It can paralyze us.

(Simple utensil organization)

Do you identify with any of this as well? Of course the opposite is true for so many – they grew up in a home with a lot of clutter so they absolutely cannot handle it and stay on top of it. OR they grew up in a home that was free of a lot of stuff and they continue the same in their house. I admire that – I want to do the same.

I do want to find a good balance. I don’t think it’s wrong to want to keep the kid’s drawings and the birthday cards with sweet messages from ten years ago. I just think I need to be a little more selective. And this post may sound like I’m Beverly Goldberg and I’m not. ;) For the most part our house is organized and functions well.

Does the clutter in the house affect your mood? Do you stay on top of it daily or can you let it sit like me? And was your childhood home the same?

My tiniest (organized!) room

Well hello! I’m back to kick off January with a little purging and organizing. I introduced you to my favorite room in the house a couple years ago. It’s not what you would expect as a favorite, since half of it has cement walls:

That’s how it looked years back before everything was drywalled in. Considering I used to have all of this down there:

Getting down to this little 60-square-foot room was pretty fantastic.

It’s actually stayed fairly organized for the past couple of years. I think it was around when we started construction on taking down the wall in the family room that it became a complete and utter disaster area:

I show you this because I love you. Be kind.

This room serves a couple functions for us now – one is storage and one is the “cat” room. A couple of the litter boxes are in here. One is upstairs as well and that’s the only one they like to use but that’s a longer story.

I actually got all this done before Christmas. I was fed up with the space and a woman on a mission. The first thing I did was to take every single thing that was on the floor or stacked up on something out of the room:

We keep our dehumidifier down hooked up to the sump pump but we turned it off some time ago because the sound of it was terrifying one of the cats. He’s heard it for literally years and all of the sudden…terrifying. So.

Also, we don’t use it in the winter anyway and we’ve been told a couple times it’s really not that necessary in our dry basement anyway. So it went to the under the stairs storage for now and that opened up quite a bit of room.

The biggest problem has been the paint. I haven’t gone through it in years and I didn’t have a great system set up. All of this was sitting on the floor in the room:

Most of those were on the floor because I had already decided to get rid of them. I just was too lazy to take them all upstairs? I guess? Who knows.

Even when it was fairly organized I would get frustrated finding a color I needed. So I grabbed some mailing labels we had:

And used them to label those that weren’t:

I put the room I used them in and how I used them too – ceiling paint, trim paint, whatever. What was funny is that for some of the colors I had to search my own blog to figure out how I used it. ;)

The paint area was a mess mostly because I just didn’t have enough room for everything. I had all the little sample and quart cans stacked with the bigger ones and it was a mess.

I had a few more of the metal brackets (super cheap) and grabbed the best piece of scrap wood I had from the basement. It was only a one by six (all the other shelves are at least one by ten) but it was just big enough to hold all the small cans:

And obviously I got rid of a ton of stuff. I saw this years ago and try to keep it in mind when clearing out: It’s not a 100 percent for me, but pretty good advice. This goes for your closet too! What to do with the stuff is another question that I covered here – I do a mix of all of those things usually. It’s been awhile since I hosted a swap, I may have to do that again soon. :)

I’ve said it a million times but I’ll say it again…you waste money when you aren’t organized. I’ll be the first to admit that when my storage spaces become a mess I end up buying something again because I can’t find it. It’s such a waste and must be the reason I have approximately 12 tape measures.

As for the stuff still in the room – a lot of it is for future projects, a lot of it is just decorative stuff I actually use:

The awesome part? I have empty space on nearly every shelf. Hopefully by the end of this no-spend month I’ll have more projects done and even more space!

One of my favorite tricks is to use the drapery tie backs as big hooks. I use them in our coat closet for bags and scarves and they work GREAT! I used to use these on every one of our windows but have since taken them all down – so I have a lot that I use this way:

And yes, I have a little lamp in here. Every room needs some low light. HA!

There you go – one space completely purged and organized! It feels so good!! I’ve moved on to other spaces and will share those as well. Are you feeling the decluttering bug right now? My goodness, when I have the time and patience to focus on it I love this process!

Another no-spend month!

Hello all! I hope the end of last year and the start to 2015 were great! We stayed at home and partied in the basement…meaning we sat on the couch and ate popcorn. ;)

I’ve been busy going through rooms, purging and organizing and it feels so good. I love it. I’ve had zero desire to bring anything new into the house – it all must go! So I figured this would be a great time to do another one of my no-spend months.

I’ve done these a couple times before and it’s just a time for me to focus on what we have, make things work and get stuff done around the house. I always have list a mile long of projects I want to accomplish that get pushed aside because of the bigger stuff. And it just feels good to not bring any more STUFF into the house. My only cheat may be an IKEA trip that’s already planned, but I may just reschedule. ;)

I thought I would share a few of my favorite projects from no-spends past so you can see what I’m up to during these months.

I still love my little candlestick table that sits in our family room:

You can see how I made that (with items from Goodwill that I had) here.

Years ago I found an amazing online resource for free prints and used that to create some art in the family room:

I later added some gold rub n buff to the corners of those frames too:

Those prints now sit on the built ins near one of my other favorite no-spend projects, the DIY wood trough: 

This is one of the projects I get asked about most! I made it from scrap wood and it’s SO EASY. These are great for the middle of a long table too.

Another one of my best no-spend projects was when I took an old 80’s night stand we had forever:

And made it over with white paint and handles (all we had on hand).

So much better!:

I didn’t love the scrolly wood underneath so I recently removed that with my jigsaw, as you can see in this Instagram pic from the other night:

It removed even more of the 80’s feel. ;)

I used some scrap wood to build some shelves in the guest room closet:

I hate wasted space and this makes that awkward spot SO much more useful!

I also finished up a big project in that same room:

I had the paint…I just never took the time to do it! Still love this ombre wall!

We had some drapes that needed lined and some sheets I was going to drop off at Goodwill – so I used the sheets to line the drapes:

I share how to line drapes in that post too. The sheets were the perfect weight – love how full they make the drapes.

Like I said, I tend to get a lot of little things done in these months and last time I finished up a bunch of little details in our basement bathroom and shared the reveal:

I adore this room and it’s pretty colors! You can see more of this space here.

I’m looking forward to getting some projects knocked off the list! Hope you’ll find them useful too!

You can see all of my no-spend projects here and here. :) Have a great weekend my peeps!