Laundry cupboard cuteness

In my laundry room I have this awesome cupboard that I bought untreated, painted the outside white and the inside a lucious red.  Then life came on strong again and I just used the untreated, unpainted, uncovered shelves.  It doesn't take much thought to guess what happened.  See the picture below.

After a couple of years, they were looking like this.  Not good.  So I bought some cute shelf paper at amazon.com and the above picture turned to the picture below.

Isn't that contact paper cute?  I loved how it turned out, emphasizing the red interior, as well as making sure it didn't get too dark inside.  I wish I had some better pictures to show you, but trust me, the new shelf paper is adorable.

We hope that you are having fun with your redo projects as well!  We'd love to see what you are doing, as well as post your pictures and projects.  Just email us at fivesistersblog@gmail.com with pictures as well as permission to use them along with descriptions.

Happy Beautifying!

~Deborah 

45 Club

One day when we were getting everything gathered together to leave for church and I was making sure I had everything I wanted in my bag--mints, tissues and lipstick.  I had the thought how fun it would be to have a box of things like this for my kids.  The problem was, I really believe that things should be earned, not just taken, so I took this thought and tucked it into the back of my mind.

At the same time we were having an issue of everyone getting ready for church early enough.  Something needed to be done to encourage everyone.  I really thought about this for a long time.  As I pondered I came to two conclusions.

1) It needed to be fun.  Sunday mornings should be full of good memories, not frustrations, since when you truly do your best to treat the Sabbath as a holy day, the blessings, both temporal, emotional and spiritual can bless generations.

2) Everyone needed to be ready at least an hour before we had to leave.

After I came to these conclusions, my thoughts about the fun things to have in a scripture bag rose to the surface and the 45 Club was born.

The goal of the 45 club is to be ready by 45 minutes past the hour of choice set by me.  The rules are as follows:

1) You need to be completely dressed in your Sunday Clothes.

2) Pj's put away and bed made.

3) Scriptures and other items needed for church are ready to go.

4) Hair looking nice.

For the prizes, if you make it before 45 past the hour, you get two points to spend.  I've listed some of the prizes and the point values below.

Tic-tacs 2 pts.

Small Pack of Gum 2 pts.

5 wrapped  mints 1 pt.

Pretty fan 4 pts.

Small Notebook 2 pts.

Scripture pencil 1 pt.

Small pill box 1 pt.

Tissues 1 pt.

Roll of Mints 2 pts.

Chapstick 2 pts.

The weather radio is not a prize, by the way!  ;o)

So, we have been doing this for several months and it has been going great.  My two goals of happiness and readiness are being met, so I couldn't be happier!  Sometimes, someone misses out on a week, and have the consequence of no treat.  Usually when that happens, they are the first ones ready the next week.  The treat that my kids grab the most are the tic-tacs.  Let's just say, even though these things are meant for the scripture bags, I don't think that any mints or gum have ever lasted long enough to get to church.

It looks like the 45 club is here to stay!

~Deborah

Garage organization is done!

I'm so excited to show you everything I've done with my garage!  

Here is the first thing that I did--put up a huge peg board.  It's nice having all of our camp equipment, fishing poles, hiking fanny packs, lawn chairs and other things hanging up.  We used to have them on nails pounded into the wall, but this way it is easier to rearrange things.  I love how easy it is to grab whatever I need and then when we are finished, it is a breeze to put back--except for the fishing poles, because I'm so short!

The next thing I put up was the shelf below.  I must admit that I am pretty happy about the shelf, because I am not a builder, and I wanted it to custom fit the space and go all the way up to the ceiling.  This whole thing came out of my mind.  I'm so happy how it turned out and with how sturdy it is.  I know that many of you with more skills would make a much prettier shelf, but I am SO happy with how it turned out.

Next I put up hooks for our snow scraper and ladders below.  The second ladder is currently in use on another project, but you can see the hooks for it below the smaller ladder.  It was also nice getting the snow scraper hung up and not leaning on the wall in the corner.  Now it is nice and neat and out of the way.

Next I put up these two shelves in-between the big peg board and the corner shelf.  We have SO many coolers (there are two more that are somewhere else) and it is nice getting these things put up on a home of their own!  

Sorry about the glare on this picture!  On the opposite wall, I hung another pegboard for the random tools that come with home ownership.  This is definitely better than the nails we used to have up!

The next thing I did was to hang up these shelves above the window and 2nd peg board.  Finally, a place for our sprayer and blower and the off season gas can--since the snow blower needs oil in the gas and the lawnmower doesn't.  

Next we have a one of two smaller pegboards.  I had an eight foot long strip of pegboard that I was trying to figure out what to do with as well as some baseboards that had been ripped out.  I realized that it would be perfect cut it down and use it on the wall on either side of the large pegboard.  I am loving the fact that I now have a place for our beach umbrellas and shovels.

. . .as well as smaller, random camping gear, rope and my watercolors.

Next, we have the infamous shelves that were such an eyesore.  They don't look too bad now, do they!  It's nice to have all of my poisons grouped together by pest type!

Last, but not least are the wire baskets below that I re-purposed from my craft room so I have a place to put things that need to be returned to the store or friends, or dropped off when I run errands.  Now they won't be cluttering up my van, or my jacket corner.  I got this idea from Nikki from At Home with Nikki.  You can find her blog here:  http://www.athomewithnikki.com/  

I chose to use wire baskets instead of her plastic ones, so that dust wouldn't build up inside.

Thanks for letting me show you my garage redo!  With the exception of the 4x8 pieces of pegboard, which I had people hold onto the wall while I drilled, I put up everything myself.  Something else I did that really helped, since I don't have a table saw, was that I paid $7 at the lumber yard for them to do all of the cuts for my shelves, which really saved time.

I hope that the project you are working on right now makes you as happy as this one made me!  Stay tuned for the craft room redo of a redo.

Happy Organizing!!!

~Deborah