File This

Back in the early part of the winter, I read "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. I was (and still am) quite enamored by it and all the ideas she shares for increasing the happiness in your life. One of the more tangible ideas that struck me immediately was a memory box. Specifically, a memory box for your children. To me, a person who loves to save things but never has an ideal place to put them, and one who took over two and a half years to finish #1's baby book, scrapbooking and album keeping sounds lovely in theory but would never get done. But this memory box, I could do this. Simple and organized. Now, why it took me nearly six months to get around to it, well, we'll just blame that on the baby.

So here's the idea: get a stack of hanging file folders and a box to keep them in. Gretchen Rubin got very nice ones for her girls; my boys got standard, inexpensive plastic ones. I figured I wasn't up to spending $50 or more on each box right now, and it would be simple enough to upgrade later on if I found the right box for the right price. (I actually cashed in some credit card points for a Staples gift card to buy two boxes and two 25-packs of hanging file folders, so I only had to spend $11 out of pocket.) Then, label your folders for each school year or age, other activities, etc. depending on your kid. I looked around Pinterest for a bit for a good list and adapted a bit to end up with these labels:

I took a little time to type up labels in Illustrator with a font and with a little extra decoration; some of the things on Pinterest showed using Avery labels that you use with a template in Word. My final rundown of labels is:

• Age 0-2
• Age 3-4
• Documents & Certificates
• Health Records
• Baby Information
• Kindergarten
• First through Twelfth Grade (one folder for each)

One box has gray folders, the other has green, and I just put the extra, unlabeled folders in the back so that I can use them in the future (maybe for activity-specific stuff, like Boy Scouts or something). Then it was time for my handy labeler to label the outside of each box with the boys' names.

Then on to filling them up! How nice to go through my office and gather all the cards, projects and pictures that I've been randomly stashing. I also put photos of each of them from Halloween in their boxes.

So, what do the boys think? They don't care a bit. Keith was nice enough to say it was a good idea. Someday though, their wives will thank me. I just know it.

Feeling Shelf-ish

As you well know, the laundry room is a work in progress. A long, slow progress, but progress nonetheless. The latest changes have been adding a shelf and putting up a drying rack.

We picked up brackets at Lowe's months ago, then got a board from the farm when we were up just after Christmas. We finished it was some spar urethane to seal it up, then installed it.

The placement is a little odd because of the location of the outlets. Ideally, it would have gone right above the top of the washer and dryer, but we had to put it up higher, which is why we sprung for a little fancier brackets since we would see them all the time. We didn't even float the idea of moving the outlets because that just seemed like a lot more bother than it was worth.

Either way, all the laundry supplies are within easy reach and no longer clutter up the top of the dryer. And there is a bit of space for a few plants, since this room gets a lot of light. It took less than a minute to fill up the shelf. Go figure.

Then we finally put up the drying rack my friend gave me for my birthday at least a year ago. Now I'm trying to figure out how we lived without it. It is so handy for drying diaper covers and other delicates I don't want to put in the dryer, and for putting wet mittens, gloves, and hats on when we come in from playing in the snow.

It is high enough that we can walk under it, but really it doesn't stick out so much that it's in the way.

And it folds up nice and flat when we aren't using it. Which has rarely happened since we put it up.

Considering how much laundry I do these days, these little changes make a big difference in my daily routines. Now I don't have to shuffle things around on top of the dryer, or find random places to lay out diaper covers while they dry. And that makes this mama happy. 

A-Tisket, A-Tasket

...six vintage locker baskets.

I had been hunting around online for some kind of metal bin or basket for the shelf in our laundry room. I saw a few things I liked, but they all seemed a bit pricey. Then my friend Claudia, peruser of all things vintage, old, antique, and otherwise interesting, sent me a text that a store near her had a stack of vintage locker baskets. The size was right, I could get the six I wanted, and the price was reasonable, so I jumped on it. Well, I asked her to jump on it and she kindly went and got them for me.

Six fit nicely on the longest side of the shelf, and Claudia was able to get consecutive numbers, which makes my orderly self very happy.

Now we've managed to corral those odd-ball things that get stashed in the laundry room into matching bins that are a manageable size to get on and off this high shelf.



And though we definitely still have a ways to go in here, these are a major improvement over the previous situation.

The new baskets had the added benefit of spurring me on to sort out everything that was on that shelf and in the brown cabinet  you see below and determine if it really belonged in the laundry room. And, surprise surprise, many things really belonged in the garage or the basement. The sorting, putting away, and discarding actually allowed us to move that cabinet out of the laundry room entirely, freeing up even more floor space.

Two of the baskets are still empty, and I'm not sure what will end up in them yet (but I have no doubt they will get filled eventually). My long term goal is to move most of the things out of our coat closet into this room, leaving the closet free for more toys and games since it is in the middle of our living space. There are plenty of hooks back here for seasonal coats and jackets, and out-of-season things can go to the cedar closet upstairs. So that's the goal and eventually we'll get there. Still have to pick that paint color though...