Category Archives: Our House

Organized Legos

This is the second time in a month that I have attempted to organize the boys legos.

The first time I only had three drawers so I just divided them, the people and weapons, the flat pieces, and everything else.

It seemed fine until I was asked to help them build something.

I could not find anything!

It was a pain in the neck.

sorting

 I actually gave up and decided right then I was going to organize them differently.

storage

We had one of these drawer systems from Micheal’s so I decided to buy another and sort their legos according to color.

black

The process took a little while but the boys actually said it was fun!

I guess they just like working with me on things.

Several hours and millions of legos (maybe it just felt like millions) later…

color

I put cardstock in the label holders so the boys could easily see what is in there.

The little book is a binder I made for their manuals.

It just has the plastic sleeves inside with a piece of cardstock put in it.

I just drop a manual on each side of the cardstock.

I got tired of finding torn up manuals everywhere!

If you are like us and have already lost some manuals, check out the lego website!

They have over 3000 online for free!

drawers

So far it seems to be working!

This should also help with building them since the instructions always have a certain color you should use.

I did this for my “boys”, right…

It is not because I like to play with Lego’s at all.

wholeroom

I moved the boys table closer to the lego storage (it is in that back corner on the left) because I knew the farther they had to walk the more likely they were to not put them up.

table

 Creationary is the boys new favorite game and what pushed me to finally do this.

It is like pictionary but with legos!

The storage area for all of the legos is color coordinated though.

Here are some more lego storage ideas:

I need to make a do not touch box like this one shows.

Over 40 ideas all in one place!

Some pretty storage, here. The rest of her site is pretty amazing as well.

Under the bed storage!

I really want to make one of these travel boxes but have been having trouble finding a mat that fits.

Is anyone in your house lego crazy?

What do you do with all of those little tiny bricks?

A garden teepee.

I saw the idea on SouleMama’s blog.

Her blog is so beautiful you can’t help but find something inspiring there.

She made teepee’s in her garden for some of her climbing plants to grow up on but also so her children could play in them.

I loved the whimsy and I really wanted to do something similar for my garden.

She used branches but I did not really have any I could use so I bought these bamboo poles at Walmart for less then a dollar a piece.

I bought the twine at a farm store but I think Walmart carries it also.

I held the four poles together and just wrapped the twine all around the top.

Then I started at the bottom of a pole tying the twine to one, then wrapping it around and zig zagging my way to the top.

I left two sides open because I was worried about blocking this path for my dog.

It is right next to my vegetable and herb garden and I was worried she might choose to walk through that instead!

My Morning Glories are already climbing it!

I get to see this everytime I look out my kitchen window and it always makes me smile.

Do you have anything that makes you smile in your garden right now?

Something fun or maybe even silly?

You should!

My Pervoskia has just started blooming also!

So much to smile about in my garden right now.

Hope you find many things to delight in today!

Before & Afters plus hardwood floors 2yrs later.

I am in no way an interior designer.

That being said my husband did tear up all the carpet in our house about two years ago and put in all wood floors!

I thought I would share some of the before and afters followed by what I think after using them for a couple years.

I basically called our spare bedroom the closet.

We had a walk in closet!

Doesn’t that sound so much better then junk room!

This is after my husband put in our beautiful floors!

These are Handscraped Engineered Hardwood floors from Virginia Mill Works Co., Richmond Plank Birch.

We bought all of our floors from Lumber Liquidators.

They had a really good selection for a good price.

I would definitely use them again.

This what the room looks like now (I actually took this picture this morning!).

I really like these floors!

The texture is really nice and hides dirt pretty well!

If I could go back in time knowing what I know now I would use this throughout the rest of the house!

More pics of our schoolroom, here.

We used a Brazilian Cherry Engineered floor in the boys room as well as the livingroom, diningroom, and hallway.

It is a beautiful floor but probably not my best choice for a home with two active little boys.

It scratches easily and does not hide dirt.

The map wall is showing wear also.

The first thing my oldest did when he slept in his top bunk was pick at the wall!!!

I still really like it but I wish I had made it a little clearer beforehand that we do not tear the maps off…

I could not find the before pics, if you want to see some check out the before and after post I did, here.

Here is the same Cherry floor in the livingroom.

I of course did not take a good before picture at the time…

What is wrong with me?

As you can see the floor is gorgeous!

I can see why cherry is so popular.

I really should have waited to take these when it was not overcast.

Everything looks green…

You can really see the scratches in this pic.

See my gorgeous entertainment center!

My baby made it for me!

Check out more pics, here!

Again these were taken this morning.

My husband is going to think we have company coming over since I cleaned these rooms to take pics.

This is what people see when they first come in our door.

I am definitely not a decorator…

I am more a copy and paste kind of girl.

I see something someone else did and have to copy it exactly to get it to turn out.

Here is my bedroom before.

I really should have taken before shots before we starting doing flooring!

I probably should have taken a picture of the floor also…

Here are the beautiful floors my baby installed in our bedroom!

This floor is my favorite.

So beautiful.

It is Bellawood Prefinished Hardwood Floor in Australian Cypress.

It is is the only solid hardwood we (I use the term we loosely) installed in the house.

Here we are over two years later and I still really like them.

I would use the word love but my husband does not like me using that for objects…

I did not even sweep these floors for this pic!

That is it for the before and afters for now.

I am tired of cleaning my house and my dining room needs some work done before I show it off.

To recap:

Handscraped floors with lots of texture hide flaws really well and are beautiful.

Dark cherry is beautiful but shows scrapes and dirt.

Light colors like the one we used in our bedroom hides dirt and scrapes.

I did not state this before but I would definitely bank on putting a big plush rug in a young childs room with hardwood. They are really good at tripping and hurting themselves!

I hope this helped someone trying to decide on what hardwood to go with!

Thanks for stopping by 🙂