The winner of our giveaway of a signed copy of Daria Sockey's The Everyday Catholic's Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours
is…
Carolyn!
You will be getting an email from me shortly!
Congratulations!
So on this brisk snowy Monday things are quiet here. Bridget is at Driver's Ed. this week. The instructor, who has taught a number of our kids, is named Ed. So yes, they call him Driver's Ed. The good news is that he was there this morning. The bad news is that no other kids were anywhere in sight, which was just weird. It's going to be a long vacation week if my homeschooled daughter has Driver's Ed all to herself… but she did take a phone, so I'm going to assume that it all worked out!
I am going to show you my closet of fabulousness.
To refresh — BEFORE:
Yes, that was bad. Peeling paint, prison off-white/acid yellow color, missing plaster, everything shoved in there. You can see someone (Deirdre, I think) had made, long ago, a half-hearted attempt to label a shelf or two.
Risk? I'll tell you what's a Risk — venturing to play one of these games or do a puzzle. You Risk pulling everything down on your head!
Who needs Hens and Chicks when the closet itself is one of those games where, pull one bit out and the spring-loaded mechanism flings them all at you!
But now, ta-DA!!! It's all bright white and fixed up and clean.
DURING:
AFTER:
Games on one shelf. Puzzles on another. Things that littles can get for themselves within reach. Things that they shouldn't, a bit higher up. There are floor puzzles that are fine for them, and I would like to say that the red marble run on the floor there is something I got out of someone's trash long ago. It remains one of the best-loved toys in our house! A two-year old can pull it out and play with it for an hour.
And while I did throw some things away and give away a few others — most notably two boxes of VHS tapes, since we no longer have a player — I have to say that for the most part, things were in good shape. For instance, all the numbers are present and accounted for in that Bingo game. Not that I really want it.
The knowledge that it wasn't a hopeless tangle consoled me. Really, it was the space itself that needed cleaning up. Long ago, but better late than never! Lots of kids still come and play here, so it's worth it to me to have it neat and tidy and not just shut the door, forgetting about it forever.
Confidential to Twitter and Gwenny, yes we did put the records back, but only because there are massive amounts of space in there and The Chief is recording them onto computer files (by means of a turntable-and-computer-hookup) and needed to have a chance to catalogue them, which he did yesterday. Once he has determined that they are a. all recorded and b. the recordings work, we will figure out what to do with them.)
I think next year I might put all my Christmas decorations on the top shelf and never go in what we call “The Dark Attic” again. Or maybe I should have The Dark Attic painted! Hmmm….
KarenTrina says
Yes, it does look fabulous, but my question is: How long will it stay that way? I can organize and label and remind (nag), but my great organization does not always stay looking as great as it did when I finished the organizing project. Not trying to be a ‘negative Nellie’, really curious as to how you keep it looking fabulous.
Lorraine says
Karen Trina took the words right out of my mouth (Great minds think alike!). How hard can it be to put things back in the same spot you took it out of? Unfortunately it is not just the little ones and teenagers that have a problem with this concept. I know some adults that don’t seem to have ever learned how or why to do this (you know who you are.) In any case your closet looks wonderful. If it were mine, I’d be opening the door periodically just to have the pleasure of seeing how great it looks.
Jenny says
That’s my question too. I’m the only soul in the house who seems to understand that to maintain an organizational system, you have to put things back where you got them.
Kim F. says
That is a thing of beauty! I just found out that we are going to have to remove EVERYTHING from our attic and put it in our basement. Turns out our roof wasn’t put on correctly AND we need more insulation (so all that stuff can’t go back). I want to cry about it all. Would you be willing to sell that Bingo game? I’d be willing to buy it…and I’m not far over the border in NH. All the Bingo games we have just have cards that you put into a hat. That’s so boring. I love the ball cage thingy!
Tamara says
It looks great! Nice job. It is amazing what a difference a coat of paint makes. As for keeping it that way, I bet you won’t have much trouble. I think I remember you saying Bridget really cares about keeping things clean, right? And the married- with- children bunch *get it* now that they have homes to keep up too. So Im thinking maybe its just those single sons you’ll have to keep an eye on 🙂 Odds are in your favor! 🙂
Leila says
Tamara, Bridget is my secret weapon! But I will say that it was more than a coat of paint going on here — it was replacing the light fixture, repairing the old, old plaster, and then painting! Lots of work that should have been done long ago.
Sarah says
Just be careful with those records. My Father has a collection of about 2000 classical records, courtesy of a friendship with a Symphony Orchestra conductor in his youth who got him access to the record warehouse! His first project when he retired was to digitize them (they were already cataloged…my Dad is a cataloger supremo) but he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of them once he had converted them to MP3. They still occupy half the study, and I don’t think they have been played in 20 years…now he just listens to the MP3s as they “are so much more convenient”.
Anyway, the closet looks fantastic. So orderly.
Mrs. Pickles says
*sniff* It’s so beautiful! I love a good organized storage space! When I was growing up, my grandmother had a bedroom closet with kid-friendly toys on the lower shelves. Dollies, legos, little cars, puzzles — enough to keep us happy for hours. Even at a tender age, I appreciated the thoughtfulness of this. Everyone loved going to Nana’s house — I’ll bet small people feel the same about yours!
julie says
Love it:-) do you happen to know the name of that beautiful soft green paint on the wall just outside the closet?
Leila says
Julie, the paint is Benjamin Moore Guilford Green. I love it! The trim is Calming Cream.
Kristen says
Games! I do have a somewhat related question for Auntie Leila (and others, of course) to fight winter-cabin-fever-boredom-crazies…i was able to convince my game-hating husband to try out Dominin by Rio Grande and he LOVED it. Now, we have played it a lot and need a change. These games are pricey and I don’t want to make a bad move with my newly converted to games Mr. He would not want his time or money wasted :). If one does enjoy Dominion, what other Rio Grande games would be a sure bet? The website is overwhelming- and truly I just want someone to recommend a fun game. (See this question is related-ish to a post about game storage, right?)
Thanks!
Katie P says
Kristen, our family enjoys Dominion too, but we don’t own lots of the “good” strategy games either. So I’m not an expert! One of our favorites is Carcassonne, a tile/puzzle game in which one competes to establish pastures, monasteries, towns, etc. We like it because it works for just two players (and is still fun that way), but can accommodate more when friends or family all around. It’s also pretty quick– less than an hour for sure– which compares favorably to Settlers of Catan, which is fabulous but sometimes goes on forever! I don’t think Rio Grande is still the publisher of Carcassonne, but I know it’s out there as we gave it as a gift this Christmas.
Some friends of ours own Bohnanza and Puerto Rico. My entirely subjective opinion is that Puerto Rico is a bit finicky to learn and complex to play, but maybe I haven’t kept at it long enough to get the fun-payoff. Bohnanza has a funny bean-planting premise but can get exciting if you are in the spirit of wheeling and dealing. We also like a simple German card game called 6Nimmt. It’s based on 104 number cards and the order/location in which they’re played, so even the younger members of the family can learn and enjoy it on an equal footing with the grown-ups. My youngest sibling started to love it when he was in about third grade. I think it may also be sold in the US as Take 5.
Like you, I’d love to find out about other good games!
Anne-Marie says
Another really fun game is Set, though it’s a card game rather than a board game. But it’s quick to play and very cheap compared to games like Dominion.
We like Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne too, and also Pandemic. My kids like one whose name I forget, since I’ve never played it, but it’s about creating and maintaining the electrical grid.
Miranda says
In your last picture, the shelf on the wall with the miniatures… is that a printer’s shelf or whatever they call it? My aunt gave me a shelf like that this past year that I have hanging in my bedroom with nothing on it. She said it was meant to keep the pieces of a printing press?
And your closet is great! Now off to read your follow up post!
Leila says
Miranda, yes, it’s a printer’s drawer — printers kept all the type in drawers in big cabinets or chests. Not pieces of the press, but actual letters and punctuation marks — because before computers, every single character had to be set by hand! Thus, “typesetting.”
Ours is our family “museum” — you can read about it here: http://www.likemotherlikedaughter.org/2009/03/our-museum-and-why-i-cant-think/
Gwenny says
My husband has so many records, scored when the music department at his university set them out for the trash. I think really I’m just wishing I could throw ours away. Good on Mr. Lawler for doing something constructive with them!
Angela Mayer says
The closet looks wonderful! A note to those who were concerned that it wouldn’t stay that way: I have the same problem with our large game cabinet, but it has been somewhat ameliorated by a simple, handlettered “map” that I taped to the inside of the cabinet door. It reminds all of us where to put things back and it seems to keep it from getting completely out of hand. It also helps my younger kids to be able to make things right after they’ve stuffed for a few weeks. HTH.