Never Ending Laundry!

There are some things in life, especially as a mom to a young child, that seem so repetitive and never ending.  As soon as breakfast is made and cleaned up, it seems a snack is being requested and then it's time for lunch.  Crumbs are constantly being vacuumed off the floor and from inside the couch.  Even the simple routine of brushing teeth, washing hands, and reminding him to go to the bathroom before we leave the house.  And the laundry, it never ends!  Between the washing, folding, and ironing, it seems that by the time I have one load completely done, another has already piled up in the hamper.  

laundry basket 

I can't say that I hate doing laundry as much as some people do. I actually do find satisfaction in having all my clean clothes folded and put away and love having an empty hamper, even if it's only for an hour!  When Noah was a baby and spit up often, it felt like I was always throwing a load on.  And I try to block out the time in our life when Noah was leaking through his night diapers and I was changing his sheets on a daily basis.  Now that we are in a more predictable stage of life (at least when it comes to laundry), I've found that creating a loose laundry schedule has helped a lot.  I wash all of our clothes on Mondays and Fridays.  I usually end up doing three loads since I like to wash Noah's clothes separately and often have to wash my tops on gentle cycle.  Barring there were no middle of the night accidents, I wash sheets on Tuesday.  And all the towels (bath, kitchen, and swim) are done on Thursday.  As for ironing, this is a work in progress.  Right now, Chris picks out 6-7 shirts for the week and I iron on Tuesdays.  Ideally, I would like to have all of his shirts ironed and hanging in the closet so that I just iron as I do the laundry.  That way he wouldn't have to plan out his outfits in advance and we will be more prepared if something comes up last minute. 

^^^ we have three of these laundry baskets (old from Crate & Barrel) in our house.  One for Chris and me, a second for Noah, and we use the third in the basement to store Noah's stuffed animals!  I love the divider so I can keep my "gentle cycle" items separate from the rest.  

When we were looking at houses, I was very torn with whether I wanted the laundry room on the first or second floor.  I knew I didn't want one in the basement (two sets of stairs didn't sound fun), but other than that I didn't have a clear preference.  While having it on the same floor as our bedrooms sounds convenient, I didn't love the idea of the loud washer and dryer waking Noah if he was sleeping.  And I kind of like being able to switch loads throughout the day while Noah is playing without having to go up and down the stairs.  In the end, the house we ended up buying had a laundry room on the first floor, and so far I really like it.  It's not huge by any means, but it's much better than the "closet" we had in our apartment.  In theory, I love the idea of front loaders which then give you a work space above to fold.  But in reality, I didn't love our front load washer in the apartment.  It was constantly getting mold in the rubber front and I never found a way to fully clean it.  So while I miss the extra work and storage space, I was very relieved to have a top load washer again.  

When we moved in, the laundry room had a small linen closet as well as a hanging rod above the machines.  I knew I would need more storage than that, so we hung a simple wire shelf above the machines.  In the future, we might upgrade to actually cabinets, but for right now this works well.  We use this room to not only store our laundry needs, but also to store some extra bulk items, like tissue boxes, sponges, ziploc bags, and cleaning supplies.  Chris loves buying in bulk, and as you can see from the photos, we are very well stocked!  While I don't think I'll be buying sponges or detergent any time soon, I'm always amazed at how quickly we go through tissue boxes!

In addition to extra cleaning supplies, I also keep Noah's swim bag in the linen closet.  I find it easy to just empty Noah's wet towels and swim suit into the washing machine, and then refill the bag as soon as everything has dried.  It's so much easier knowing I'm prepared for the next week's class.  

I thought I'd share a few helpful tricks that really work for us.  First, is having an extra hamper that I keep in the laundry room.  Noah prefers to get dressed for school downstairs after he eats breakfast.  So every morning, his pajamas get thrown into the laundry room hamper instead of having to run back upstairs to his room.  It also comes in handy when Noah inevitably takes off his socks or I have a dirty kitchen towel.  My second trick is so new that it isn't even shown in the photo. I recently added a small trashcan to the bottom of the linen closet.  While I haven't really had a problem emptying pockets (yet), I do use it for cleaning out the lint.  I used to avoid this for way too long because it was a pain to have to take the lint trap to the kitchen (even though it was just around the corner).  But now that I have a trash can right there, I empty it out more often.  When it's full, I empty it into the large kitchen garbage.  I love when super simple additions make a big impact!

Drafting this laundry post reminded me of a conversation I had about 10 years ago with some coworkers.  Somehow we started talking about how often we wash our jeans.  Most of us, including myself, said that unless we spilled something that we wore them a couple of times before washing.  One of my male coworkers was shocked at this and told us that he washed them after every single wear.  This memory made me curious to hear how often people wash other things.  For instance, I wash our towels and sheets on a weekly basis.  As for clothes, other than jeans, I'm a wear once and wash.  Everything from pajamas, to bras, to sweaters.  But I really am curious what you guys all do, and I promise there will be no judgment!  I've seen some posts on Pinterest on how often you should wash and clean things, and I'm always convinced that people just don't live that way.  Are there people out there that really wipe down their toilets and sinks every single day?  Maybe there are, but I'm definitely not one of them! 

So tell me, how often do you wash your clothes (jeans, pajamas, bras, etc.), sheets, and towels???

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Purging and Organizing the Kitchen

At the beginning of the year, I shared that my word for the year is going to be focus.  While the word focus applies to so many areas of my life, one of the biggest reasons I chose the word was that I wanted to be more conscious about what we buy and keep in our house.  While we are trying to be better at impulsive purchases, I'm also spending each week focusing on a different room or area and doing a major purge.  Last week I shared how I organize our toys.  This week I'm sharing all about the kitchen.  

On the surface, our kitchen wasn't in that bad of shape.  Sure, we had some things on the counter, but our cabinets were neat and we never had a problem finding things.  But upon closer examination, we had some duplicates and a few things that we just don't use.  So I went through each cabinet and was honest with myself with what we actually need.  I still think we have too many wine glasses, but for some reason I just can't seem to give them away.  After my purge, it was time to organize.  I found that there were better ways to organize the cabinets and moved a bunch of things around.  While it confused Chris for the first few days when he went to look for something or empty the dishwasher, I think we are both used to the changes by now.   

I figured the best way to share what I did was to take photos of all the different parts of our kitchen, label what's in the cabinets and drawers, and then show you inside of them.  And while I could have cleaned my kitchen to make this more Pinterest-worthy, I wanted to show you what our counters look like on a daily basis... complete with drying racks and random papers.  

I wish they had the white drying rack when we got ours back in 2012! 

Before my purging and organization session, Noah's plates and bowls were scattered throughout a few cabinets and we had 2 sets of outdoor plates.  Once we got rid of the older melamine plates and bowls, the set we did keep was able to fit into the smaller cabinet.  I then moved all of Noah's plates and bowls into the larger cabinet.  I love having them right above the dishwasher as it's super easy to unload the dishwasher this way... it's amazing how many plates and bowls we go through each day!

 drawer organizer

To the right of our sink is a cabinet filled with Noah's cups and our plastic cups.  And below, we have this awesome pull out cabinet that is deep and narrow, perfect for our dish soap and detergent.  

We have some rather large corner cabinets that can easily become a black hole for things to get lost in.  While a professional organizer would probably utilize some lazy susans, I found it's easier to just limit the amount of things kept in each to make sure I don't forget about things in there.  The upper and lower cabinets house a variety of things.  I keep things that we don't use as often towards the back and try to keep things we use on a daily basis towards the front.  When we first moved in, we had every lower cabinet locked.  But now that Noah's older and not interested in playing in cabinets, we have started to unlock them.   This lower corner cabinet is the only one I still keep locked.  I probably don't need to, but I keep our electric can opener, apple slicer, and lighter in here and just feel safer knowing it's locked.

Funny story about these EAT letters.  I just bought them off a FB selling page for my town.  I plan to hang them on a wall, but until then I have them leaning against my backsplash.  While Noah can't read yet, at his angle he saw this and said "what does F-A-T spell?".  I couldn't help but crack up.  Not sure anyone wants the word FAT displayed in their kitchen lol! 

I was beyond thrilled that this kitchen has some pretty large drawers right under the stove.  It's the perfect place for not only my cooking utensils, but also for my pots and pans.  It's such a better way to store them than in a traditional cabinet like we had in our last apartment! 

drawer organizer 

To the right of the stove, I keep some random things in this bottom cabinet.  I used to have my disinfecting wipes out on the counter, but found it looks better hidden, and really isn't as inconvenient as I thought it might be.  I also like to put our salt and pepper shakers away when not using and have trivets on hand whenever we need to set the table. 

We have a few upper cabinets with glass doors and I love storing my dishes and glasses in them.  They are by far our prettiest pieces.  

I love having this very large drawer for all my small baking accessories.  I used to have more sprinkles in here, but I found that a bunch were expired and we weren't using that many of them anyway.  But having my spices and measuring cups and spoons nearby has really come in handy.  But the spices are still far enough away from my stove that they aren't affected by the heat.  Below this drawer is where I keep serving platters, cake stands, and the rubbermaid that I store all of my baked goods in to stay fresh.  I purged quite a few things in this cabinet that definitely made everything feel a little less crammed.  

drawer organizer  

These narrow drawers are the perfect size for pot holders, dishtowels, and cleaning rags.  I got rid of some old and ratty ones and ended up with an empty drawer! 

This next drawer is the one that changed the most.  It used to hold our corn on the cob holders and other things that we really never used.  Before, I used a narrower drawer as our "junk drawer" and decided it would be better to move everything into this drawer instead.  I bought some acrylic drawer organizers and tried to get a little more organized.  It's definitely a work in progress but it's been so much easier to find what I'm looking for now.  I find that it's best to go through a junk drawer every six months anyway.  It's really easy to just keep collecting things if not.  

Below is some more baking accessories, like mixing bowls, my hand mixer, and casserole dishes.  Buried in the back are all my cookie cutters as well, that I grouped by holiday in some simple gallon ziploc bags.  While we don't bake sugar cookies a ton, I'm happy to have them for when we do.

And finally, our tupperware drawer.  Chris is known to keep every take out container we ever receive.  But I find they don't hold up well in the dishwasher.  So I went through our containers, got rid of the old ones, and we have started to upgrade to better quality containers, including a set of glass dishes.  

We have one more set of narrow drawers.  Just recently I decided to dedicate them all to Noah's art supplies.  More on that in a future post.  

Next up is this butcher block island.  It's not a permanent cabinet, but I love the extra storage it offers and prep area.  This is where Noah and I do most of our baking.  It has two small drawers in the front, where we keep all of our vitamins and random coupons.  

I used to keep our baking tins in a nearby closet.  But I found that they were taking up a good amount of shelf space while these baskets in our center island were being extremely underutilized.  I instead, moved my cupcake and bread tins to one of the baskets, using a divider for some extra support.  The other basket holds random things like the charger for my vacuum battery, Noah's lunch box, and some reusable grocery bags.  

Above my oven is where I keep vases and wine accessories.  I still plan to go through this cabinet one more time and get rid of the vases we never use.  I also want to add a small wine bottle rack to store the few bottles we keep on hand.  Underneath the double ovens, we have a shallow drawer (that I forgot to photograph), that holds my baking sheets and cooling racks.  It's the perfect size and location for my baking sheets.  

One of my favorite features of this kitchen is all the storage.  We have a pantry located in the actual kitchen and a large walk in closet right around the corner.  The pantry is where we keep all of our food.  I try to keep Noah's snacks on the lower shelves so that he can grab what he wants without asking me non stop.  The closet is used for multiple things.  I keep all my baking supplies (sugar, flour, chocolate chips, etc) as well as my cooking oils.  In addition to that I keep our vacuums, swiffer, ironing board, and even our off season candles.  I also keep Noah's extra paints and playdoh in this closet.  More on how I store Noah's art supplies in a future post.  

So that's our kitchen.  This was probably the first room that I ended up throwing things out more than donating.  I'm always amazed at how easy it is to forget about expired food in the pantry!  We did have a box or two to donate, but nothing crazy.  I'm happy knowing that what we have in our kitchen are things we actually use now.  And if we don't use them in the next year, I know it's time to finally get rid of it!  

While I tried to provide links for our new organizational pieces. If there's anything that I missed, or products that I have in my shelves that you are interested about, just let me know in the comments.  

Was one of your goals this year to purge and organize your home? If so, how are you doing with it now that we are a month in???

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So Many Toys!

Toys... if you have kids, you are bound to have toys.  And while you may have a minimalist philosophy, you are still bound to have enough that you will need to figure out a storage system.  While we definitely don't have a minimalist approach when it comes to toys, we did try to pare down this month after Noah got a lot of birthday and Christmas gifts.  Before I share how we store all our toys, I'll give you a little background.  We live in a pretty average size house.  Not large by any means, but I would never describe it as small either.  We have one eating area (not a dining room and eat in kitchen) and we only have one living area (no additional family or play room on our main level).  We are however lucky enough to have a full basement, most of which is finished.  Noah is an only child and chances are will remain that way.  I am a stay at home mom, and while Noah does go to preschool 3 mornings a week and has a few other activities throughout the week, we spend a lot of time at home (especially in the winter months).  And as most 4 year olds, he likes to play.  As much as I would love to only let him have wooden toys that are more appealing to the eye, I also want to make sure that Noah has toys that he actually likes.  And at the moment, that includes a lot of superheroes and trucks, all of which are plastic.  Noah is one of those kids who actually plays with his toys, so I don't mind having a lot of them.  There are times where certain toys don't get touched as often, but then one day he will randomly pull it out and play with it nonstop.  I contemplated rotating toys, but I've learned that Noah is somewhat spontaneous with what toys he wants to play with on a certain day and often likes to mix "characters".  I love seeing the superheroes help out the Octonauts and the rocket ship go on adventures with his pirate ship.  If I set up a toy rotation, I doubt this organic play time would happen.  Instead, I try be thoughtful in the toys I keep on our main level versus the ones we keep in the basement "play room".  In theory, I could make it that toys are only kept in our basement, but in all honesty, that would make my daily life harder.  During the week, I'm often doing laundry, cleaning, or preparing meals in the kitchen while Noah is playing.  I prefer that he plays nearby and on the same level as I am.  If all his toys were in the basement, I would feel very limited in what I could get done each day.  Instead, the basement is where he and his daddy often play on the weekends.  They create elaborate scenes with blocks, construction trucks, and the Paw Patrol.  And since it's downstairs, they are able to leave up their creations to continue playing with the next day.  While upstairs, I like to have a few of his more recent favorite toys as well as quiet activities like puzzles, Magnatiles, and Legos.  So in a way, we are rotating toys.  He plays with his upstair toys during the week and his basement toys on the weekend.  And this way, he is very excited to play with each of them after not seeing them for a little while.  So far our system is working out well.  

So now for the details... and lots of photos!  

First up, is our living room.  Our main form of storage is this large Hemnes entertainment center (base, shelves, bridge) from Ikea.  While I would have preferred it in white, I do have to take Chris' opinion into consideration, and he really preferred the brown/black.  I am constantly changing up how I store and display things as Noah's toys are updated.  The only thing that has stayed the same, is that Noah gets the bottom 3 shelves and drawers for toys and I get the top shelves to style and decorate how I choose.  While I would love to have the entire unit to make Pinterest pretty, that's just not the stage we are currently in.  We are a very kid oriented family and really like that our living room is for our entire family.  

Here's a close up of the left side of the entertainment unit.  I tried to label as much as I could, so the photos should be pretty self explanatory.  We have some photos and beach souvenirs on top.  I also like having my DSLR handy so that I can grab it easily, but still like that it's concealed.   As for Noah's things, we have books, some alphabet puzzles, quiet games, and a few larger toys in the bins.   

gray cube bins | wicker basket | alphabet puzzles 

When we first moved in, we had a lot of larger trucks on display in the shelves.  For the most part now, he prefers the smaller vehicles and figurines that are easily stored in baskets.  I like filling these drawers with his Transformers and monster trucks.  It's an easy way to have Noah help clean up since he can just throw everything in to the appropriate drawer at the end of the day.  And he knows where to look when ever he's looking for a particular truck.  

plastic baskets 

I slid the Magnatiles boxes under the drawers.  I really like the separation the original Magnatiles boxes provide, so I decided to just leave them as is.  It might not be the prettiest, but it is super functional.  

The right bookcase is filled with photo albums, Willow Tree figurines, and all things Octonauts!

large canvas bin 

Noah's Octonauts Gups are the most difficult for me to organize.  While I don't love the look, I've found that the easiest way is to "display" them on the shelves.  It's easier for him to pick which Gup he wants and I find he plays with them a lot more than when they are just thrown in a large basket.  So while I would love it if they were more hidden, I'm learning to accept it.  

white baskets - old from Target 

While the Gups are out on display, I do use a large basket to corral some of Noah's larger and more random toys.  Like his Miles spaceships and his claw and shield that he uses on a daily basis.  

In the last year, we added this Trofast unit.  Originally it was just for Noah's Duplos, but since then we've used it to store some of Noah's small figurines as well.  Noah has graduated to building with Lego Juniors, but he still likes coming up with his own creations using the Duplos.  So while I've pared down his collection, he still has plenty to build with!  On top, I corralled all of his superhero and Ninja Turtle vehicles in a basket.  

Trofast | basket

And while most of Noah's books are stored in his bedroom, I just recently added a wire basket filled with a few of our current favorites.  It's perfect for some afternoon reading.

And finally, we have a few last toys stored in the sofa table... like his dinosaurs!

Moving onto our dining room area.  This is where we have Noah's toy kitchen.  I find that Noah loves to play in it when I'm cooking and he loves bringing Chris and me toy food when we are eating our real dinner.  This is also one of our most popular toys for when friends come over.  No matter the age or gender, everyone loves playing in the kitchen.  That's why I love having it out in our dining area since that's where we spend most of our time when entertaining. But my favorite part of Noah's kitchen is the "Only Pizza" sign he made a while back.  I just love it so much that I never plan to take it down!  

Kallax | kitchen | striped canvas bins | wicker basket

We have one more Kallax in our dining area that now holds all of his Lego Junior boxes.  We do most of our Lego building at the dining room table, so it's nice to have our unopened boxes nearby for when we want to build something new.  I also keep a basket full of activity books and kid magazines for us to grab when we are going out to dinner.  

And I know I've shared this before, but recently we moved our China out of our buffet cabinet and store all of our board games and floor puzzles in here instead.  I'm really loving how everything is behind closed doors but still easy to access.  

And I have to share how we store Noah's Matchbox cars.  We quickly grew a very large collection of cars.  I bought these plastic cases that are actually meant to store sewing thread.  The great thing is, they are the perfect size for his cars!  Each one stores 48 cars.  While I think 48 cars is plenty, Chris and Noah thought otherwise, so we have 2 cases ;)  Whenever it's time to race cars, Noah can find the exact car he wants and then easily put them back and out of the way when he's done.  

And while we have many systems in place, there's still a few works in progress.  Like all the Lego Junior creations we've put together.  Right now they are taking over half of our dining room table.  The plan is to hang some shelves in Noah's room so that they can all be stored and displayed in once place.  

And now for our finished basement.  I mentioned that this is where Noah and Chris mostly play.  This is where we keep Noah's building blocks, trucks, and his larger toys like his trampoline, train table, and basketball hoop.  When Chris is home on the weekends, he actively plays with Noah.  They come up with some pretty fun games down there with all his trucks and blocks!

The one thing I still need to do is finally finish this gallery wall!  It's been like this for almost a year!  The craziest part is the printed photos are all in the frames... I just have to hammer the nails in the wall!  

As you can see, we really love the Ikea Kallax and these striped canvas baskets from Land of Nod... we have them all over our house!   

Congratulations if you made it all the way to the end. I know it was a lot of information (and toys).  While we have a lot of toys and make lots of messes on a daily basis, I love that we have a system in place to clean it all up at the end of the day or when company is coming over.  

Pin for later??

Do you have a lot of toys or do you follow a more minimalist approach?  What are your favorite storage systems to manage it all?

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