Look what I did!

I need to admit something. Something REALLY embarrassing. I made the decision this summer that spending time with the girls was far more important than cleaning, and my house has gone to the dogs. Ew. My decision's not embarrassing, but the state of my house is. The girls have been back to school for one week and I am slowly but surely gaining my house back. Well, aside from the huge pile of donations that is growing in my living room and taking over, but that's another story (for business) and totally acceptable.

I've decided to tackle one room a day. Well, I work on it until it's done or my brain is done. Whatever comes first. So far, it's been as the room is done. Weekends don't count by the way. Everyone needs a break.

The other day I redid my mud room. This is our catchall room that houses the girls' shoes, coats, winter paraphernalia, random things that belong to The Mister (why?), games and art supplies and tools that don't have homes. We have a closet in there, and then one of those standard white wire shelves. I am sooooo proud of me. I filled a huge trash bag full of stuff to toss (who knew I'd have THAT much crap in a room that didn't look like it had that much crap to throw away?). I donated 2 grocery bags of things using my favorite easy donation process, freecycle.

The games are now neatly stacked. The shoes are neatly put in bins, where they will stay for - oh, about one day. I went through the coats, hats and gloves and donated a good amount that we don't need. I reorganized the closet. It was feeling pretty good. My Debbie Downer was the annoying thing I call "useless junk you need for school". Bookbags and lunchboxes will probably be the death of me. Because in the past 4 years, I have never really been able to figure out what to do with these things. I've always settled to have Angel's and Bean's bookbags hanging on the two doorknobs in the mud room and the lunchboxes tossed in the pantry. With Bug starting school this year I now had 3 bookbags and 2 knobs. Hm.

A while ago, while browsing around on Pinterest, I stumbled across this CUTE idea of using drawer faces and knobs as wall hooks. Um, stinkin' cute right? Well, I really didn't want to have to go thrifting and pay for a piece of furniture only to tear it apart and toss 90% of it and then have to buy new handles on top of it. So I wussed out and went to Walmart to buy wall hooks instead.

I found some pretty nice brushed nickel ones in the bath aisle for a few dollars each. I needed three, and these happened to have 2 hooks per piece. Awesome! Solves my lunchbox AND bookbag woes in one shot. I brought them home and told The Mister I needed his help to put them up. Well, The Mister likes to take his time with projects (ahem - wait until I've asked him 2.3 billion times), and I'm really impatient. Hmfph. I could totally do this.

I whipped out his screwdriver and hung those hooks like a pro! Lookie!

Forgive the really cruddy quality of these, I used my trusty iPhone. It is just far too much work for me to get out my big girl camera to take pictures of these things. (Just one of the many curses of the professional photographer)

You can see the two rather convenient hooks for both lunchbox AND bookbag!

Yay me!!! I am sooooo proud of me, I really can't tell you. I know what you're thinking. Aside from being really proud of me too, you're thinking "Congratulations. You know how to turn a screwdriver." I just want to remind you that I do not do these things. This is "mans work" to me. I'm new into this area. I likey. I need my own pink screwdriver now. :)