Spring Break Week 2- A week of home projects

Scott was back at school and work, but the kids and I got a 2nd week of spring break!  I got time to work on house projects and the kids got a week to just PLAY!

Living Room Wall

In January, Scott and I started this wall project.  We got the molding up and I caulked and painted a few coats, but it needed more coats, but the paint was put away and the momentum was stopped and there it sat for 3 months.  We are really good at getting project 75% done!  Each month I told my visiting teachers that it would be finished before they came back, haha!  Finally, I got the 4th coat on and also painted the rest of the trim in the living room, the kitchen, and dining room.

Spring Decor
We decorated for spring.  The kids love to get out the decorations and they know I wont until the house is very clean, so it worked for great motivation to get our spring cleaning done!

The Laundry Room
I really should have got a before picture.  It started out with a sheet of dry wall on the top and nothing on the bottom, just all the exposed pipes.  The top piece had two wire shelves on it.  I begged Scott to help me put up the bottom sheet of drywall.  We got started and discovered the right piece with all the holes cut out exactly was in the stack of dry wall in the other room of the unfinished part of the basement.  Sweet, that made that project quick.  But... that got me going on wanting the laundry room to look better :)  So after Scott got the washer and dryer hooked back up and all the drains from the water softener and a/c in the right place underneath them, I decided I wanted corrugated sheet metal on the wall.  My dear husband cut it and we got it up on the wall, trying to work over the washer and dryer but had to readjust them all anyways.  And then, the next day, Scott put up the shelf for me, and had to yet again, readjust everything :)  But he's awesome and didn't harass me to much about my order of operations or why he had to dry wall behind the metal :)  Then I got him to put in a new light fixture, and then make it shorter and put it in again :)  Then he put together the wire basket thing too (so I can actually have a place to put 8 stacks of folded laundry!) and if he fails his chemistry test Monday, it's all my fault!

My laundry "room" is also home to the furnace, a/c, water heater, and water softener.  Not perfect, but I still wanted the area to look nice and be functional.  Going with the industrial feel of the exposed air ducts and unfinished ceiling and all, we put metal on the back wall and the side wall will eventually have faux brick on it, when HD gets it in stock again.  And their will eventually be a pretty rug and I am dying to find wood shutters that I can paint and distress to use as a divider to put between the washer and all the furnace stuff :)

Our progress thus far...

"Play room" shelves
So the toys have been for the most part, either scattered in this room, out in the garage, or in the kids rooms.  I really don't like having toys in bedrooms or in the garage, or ... I won't finish that because some day I will miss the miss the mess they cause!  I think if it takes longer than 10 minutes to clean up, there are too many toys!  But on the other hand, I have a hard time getting rid of them too, so they really needed a place to be organized.  I have repeated "put that away before you get out anything else" 1,000,001 times, at least!  It needs to be broadcast  on repeat in this room, haha!  I would love to have locking doors over the shelves, where nothing can be got out before the last thing was put away!!  Every mom's dream right?!  I also dream of game boxes all being the same size!  Someday we'll have dry wall and carpet, but in the meantime, we can still make the space functional, even if it isn't pretty.

I got the idea, made my plan, bought the wood, and built them in about three hours.  When Scott got home, it being April Fools Day.  I asked Scott if he would help me build some shelves, please?:) and dragged him down to help me measure so I could make the plans.  He was willing because he's always awesome like that, although I know he was thinking about how much homework he needed to do.  That was the extent of my April Fools jokes this year.