Organizing

5 Laundry Room / Mudroom Design Ideas

June 9, 2014 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

A mudroom or a laundry room, whatever you name it, is a multi-purpose area that is invariably becoming one of the most important spaces around the home. Whether you’re renovating your current abode or building a new home, your laundry room design and decoration deserves to gain the same attention as your kitchen and bedroom.

Although not the biggest room, but for some, it certainly is one of the most important and most used spaces around the home. From adding a space to store hockey bags to incorporating a project work area, laundry rooms are extensively being used as multi-functional spots for more than just cleaning clothes.

Here’s presenting a comprehensive list of 5 useful tips to help you design and build an ideal laundry room:

Let’s Begin With Flooring

Your laundry room is exposed to consistent foot traffic so make sure you opt for a floor that is easy to clean and is also durable. Linoleum, concrete or tiles constitute some of the best choices while selecting suitable flooring for your laundry room.

Also, if you could incorporate a space where you can wipe off your feet while entering the room would simply be amazing. You can add in a circular right at the entrance of the room, plus it would also help in enhancing the décor of the room.

Equip It For Rainy Days

If your laundry room, also doubles as a mudroom, then it will be helpful to have a dedicated space to hang hats and coats. This area should be loaded with sufficient amount of hooks. Be sure to hang the hooks over a rug so that the water can be easily absorbed in case it drips off the clothes.

Enhance Your Walking Space

The more storage space you have the better. Make sure you build spots to store muddy shoes such that you don’t track dirt and mud throughout the house in rainy seasons.

This place would also constitute an ideal storage space for toys that are meant for exterior activities only.

From Laundry Room To Cozy Niche Space

There are laundry rooms which don’t even look like one. Even you can transform the look and feel of your laundry room and make it a cozy place by working on its color palette. Try feminine cottage style décor with softer hues to make it a comfortable niche space.

Just a little forethought and you can transform your boring laundry room into a cozy space to read on your favorite book away from the family. Such an environment is certainly going to make laundry feel like a less chaotic task and more of a tranquil getaway.

Have Your Way To Storage Space

Storage is certainly the most important aspect of laundry rooms, so make sure you take advantage of ever inch you can. Build up your storage space as close to the ceiling as you can.

Place shelved cabinets which run horizontally above the washer or dryer unit. There you’ve build a perfect place to hold you laundry essentials.

About Author: – Bob Fortune is a professional writer & worked as an Customer Service at Fortune Restoration. Fortune Restoration is one of the best companies in Chicago for providing Services like Painting, Restoration services for residential homeowners from Hyde Park to Lincoln Park. To Connect with Bob Fortune in Google plus click here.

Innovative Kids’ Storage Solutions

May 6, 2013 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

How often do you find yourself telling your children to tidy their bedroom? Why is it that children seem to continuously manage to create a bomb site of their room?

Is it because they pull out every toy under the sun? Or could it be because they never put dirty clothes in the laundry or clean ones in the wardrobe? Well, all these things are factors, but perhaps the main reason behind messy rooms is a lack of storage.

As adults, we find all sorts of nooks and crannies to stash things away making it difficult to find them again! Children always need access to their clothes, toys, books, homework, pens, computer and so on, so they find it easier just to leave it where it is.

With innovative storage solutions, you could make it a whole lot easier for your child to tidy up after themselves and you to keep on top of the mess.

Kids’ storage should be colourful, fun and useful. If your child’s bedroom is packed full of dull brown and grey drawers or wardrobes, they won’t engage with it. Just picture the bedroom of a three year old – I imagine serious and dark furniture isn’t what first springs to mind.

Use Colour

By incorporating bright colours into the room, you’ll immediately make it more interesting and engaging. Of course, colour alone isn’t going to lead to a tidy bedroom. When installing furniture in a kid’s bedroom it needs to be safe and durable. Some key things to look out for include rounded edges, the construction material and just how much storage it really offers.

There are loads of pieces of furniture you’ll need to make up a kid’s bedroom, including the bed itself, wardrobes, drawers, desks, study units, shelving and so on. With this in mind, many parents avoid going down this route for the fear that kitting out a bedroom packed with kids’ furniture will cost an arm and a leg.

Fortunately, that’s no longer the case, as it is possible to get stylish pieces for less than you think. For example, Kidspace furniture available at Woolworths.co.uk manages to incorporate colour, style, durability and remain at a relatively low price – so why not take a look today?

Organization Tips for the Kitchen Food Pantry

November 14, 2012 by Painter Mommy 1 Comment

Having a food pantry could be really helpful to each household’s kitchen. Of course, it can only be such, if you manage to keep it organized and neat. If you live in a small home or apartment, the pantry is considered a must. It can come as a real relief to the person doing all the cooking. To know how to keep the pantry clutter-free is very important. This means to arrange the entire pantry’s content in such a way that you have no difficulties finding whatever you need. A stocked pantry saves you countless trips to the store, which is great for people who live in secluded areas, for example. Once you are already familiar with the bare necessity of owning a pantry, take a look at the following ideas for keeping it organized.

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

A kitchen pantry is meant to store food, kitchen essentials and probably some paper goods. It is not a place for cleaning supplies or other non-kitchen items. Whatever does not belong in the pantry should be moved to another designated place or even gotten rid of if it is not something you need or use. Procrastination is not an option. C

Improved Access.

Because of the pantry’s deep shelves, each item needs to be made easy to reach. Keep items that you use on a regular basis at the front of the pantry. The shelves of some pantries are on rails, so make sure that they are kept on the rails so that they could be pulled out effortlessly.

Take full advantage of the space you have.

Use the full potential of the pantry space. Adding more shelves is better than stacking each shelf with twice the load that it is designed to hold. This can cause the shelf to break, which will result in a big mess. Hanging a shoe rack on the door’s inside is another option of obtaining more space.

Come up with a systematic storage plan.

Remove odd-shaped containers. Bags of sugar, rice, pasta, beans, and other items in plastic type bags are not only difficult to be stored properly, but can also be easily torn and cause a big mess. Use plastic containers to store food items. They are stackable and you can keep things in better order. Products that are not kept in their original containers should be labeled. Especially spices which are usually easy to be mistaken.

Easy to spill items are to be put on lower shelves, at or under eye level. Canned foods and bottles shouldn’t be put on higher shelves. Try placing all labeled containers with the labels facing to the front so you know what they contain without having to dig through everything. Try to put as little glass objects in the pantry as possible. Even though they can be put in the microwave and are basically easy to use, they are also break easily.

It might be a good idea to keep a small stool nearby as well. It is ideal for the purpose of helping you to reach the higher shelves.

Don’t just organize the pantry. Do your best to KEEP it organized. Follow a routine. Keep a watchful eye on the expiration dates. Rotate the food. Don’t let the food in the pantry go bad and go to waste.

You can only gain from having a food pantry. It will make your time spent in the kitchen a lot easier. Take the time to organize it. It is worth it.

Guest Post Bio: Miranda is a housewife, passionate to share her experience for clean and healthy home. Read more at www.handymoves.co.uk.

Making the Most of Your Time as a Work at Home Mom

January 24, 2012 by Painter Mommy 2 Comments

“How Do You Do It?”

That is the #1 question I am asked by almost anyone I run into.

They ask me: “How do you do it with 4 kids and running multiple businesses?” .

It makes me chuckle sometimes because I don’t always know how I do it. Yes, I have things that I do to help my life run smoother and stay organized, but I do have my moments when I fall apart and fall to the floor crying because of sheer exhaustion.

I often hear moms of just 1 child complaining about all of their responsibilities and how hard it is living their lives and it makes me laugh. But then I look back and remember where I was when I had my first child and only had one business and how stressful I felt like it was. I would’ve never been able to handle THEN what I am handling now. I really think we grow and learn to deal with MORE as we get older, have more children, and expand in business.

But life is still crazy at times. I mean just today my 3 yr old son got stuck in the metal bars attached to a folding table and we could not get him out. He was screaming and screaming until we were able to squeeze his body through because his head was too big to get out the way he went in. But that was not the only incident of the day so by that time that pretty much threw me over the edge. Thank God everyone is in bed and I have calmed down a bit so I can write. LOL

No, I am not the perfect mom. I do scream. I do cry. I do leave the dishes in the sink overnight. And there are times when I even don’t shower for 3 days straight because there is just not enough time in a day.

But most of the time, I do my best to be a good wife and mom and business owner. I am not always the best friend that I think I can be though because I hardly have time to be chatty with anyone anymore. Basically the only quiet time I have is after everyone is in bed and by that time I am just plain worn out and I don’t feel like opening my mouth anymore, let alone talk.

I always say when the kids get older I will have more time. I wonder if that is true. Any of you older moms out there? What do you say to that? Do small children demand more time or is it the other way around?

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There are many great things that I try to do to have balance and be the best work at home mom that I can be, but a big challenge that I often face is having TIME to be able to do all that I need to.

Here are some points that hopefully will be helpful for you to understand the benefits of truly making the most of your time. They help me tremendously and it really helps for me to write some of them down.

Make the Most of Your Time

Schedule & Routine – Having a schedule will help you to get more accomplished in a day. You can have a daily home routine and a daily work routine. There are certain things that I do the same everyday like get up at the same time and get the kids ready for school. But I also do certain things on certain days of the week. One day I focus on the laundry. One day I will focus on an area of the house that needs to be cleaned or organized. One day I will work on something for my business like updating my website or sending a letter to my email list. There are also certain times that I do things during the day. I am a HUGE clock watcher. I KNOW when 12:00pm is approaching because it is NAPTIME (my main client work time) and I make sure my little ones are fed and ready to go down for their nap. If I am 15 minutes late with that time, it can screw up my day. And that is the last thing I want to happen. (But I also want to throw in there that you have to be flexible because life always throws stuff at us that is just plain unexpected and we have to adjust)

Stay on Top of the Cleaning – As we all know, a perfectly clean and tidy house can get completely destroyed in just a day when you have children around. And if you miss a day of cleaning up the messes, it can pile up until you need an entire weekend to get it all back to normal again. I am not a big fan of cleaning, but I know that it is something that needs to be kept up with on a daily basis. I know I admitted to leaving dirty dishes in the sink on occasion, but I normally like to have everything cleaned up before I go to bed. It is wonderful to wake up in the morning to a clean house. That allows me to have a free mind to be able to focus on my priorities for that day. My daily cleaning consists of putting the kids toys away (they help with that), vacuuming, fluffing couch pillows, cleaning the stove, table and counters. There are lots more, but those are just the basics.

Set Boundaries with Work Time – This is something I have always had a hard time with. Balance is not always easy. I struggle big time. I think it is something that I will always have to work on, but I am definitely getting better. I used to stay up all hours of the night trying to get client work done and I would be a wreck in the morning. It took almost a year of me doing that to finally realize that I was WAY too stressed out and it was hindering my health, my sleep pattern, and my demeanor as a mom. I now try to make sure my computer is shut down by no later than 9pm and sometimes I actually shut down earlier. This has been huge for me. Also, I not only set boundaries with my work, but I also set boundaries as far as setting aside time for my family. Weekends are when we get away and go on fun adventures and I am able to get my head away from work for a while. Nobody messes with our weekends. 🙂

Plan Ahead – Planning ahead is something that can be so simple and yet so hard to stay disciplined and follow through with. One example is with meals. I am the type of person who would rather work than eat. But that can be a problem when you have multiple children. They HAVE to eat and it often seems like they never STOP eating. LOL Well, one thing that I try to do is prepare meals early so that I am not stuck doing everything last minute. I thaw things out from the freezer the night before. And I take a mental note of what I will prepare for that day. Another way that I make sure I am prepared is by having everything I need whenever I leave the house. I am known as the person who is super prepared because of how much I take with me. It almost seems like I am moving out everytime I step out the door. But you are really better off being more prepared than less, especially with children. Whenever we go anywhere I make sure there is a toy bag ready for emergency situations in case we have to wait a long period of time somewhere. And I am always stocked up on snacks and drinks as well.

There are really a lot of different things that we can do as moms to make our lives easier and our time more efficient. I would love to hear some of your ideas as well. Us moms have to stick together. Time flies by and I don’t want to look back and think that I could’ve done things differently or better. I want to do all that I can NOW and be the best mom that I can be in spite of juggling working from home and everything else in between.

So, please leave a comment. I always love to hear from you!

3 Tips For Organizing Your Office Or Office Area

June 15, 2011 by Painter Mommy 3 Comments

Guest Post:

Many households have either a home office or an office area where a computer and important documents are stored. It’s easy for this area to get out of control as more and more documents pile up. The large number of documents coupled with the numerous cords running to and from the computer can make the space feel cluttered and dirty. Here are 3 tips to keep the space clean and organized.

1. Determine Which Documents Are Important and Which Have Important Information

The first step to organizing your office space is to eliminate unnecessary documents. Many printers have scanners built in, so you may already have a scanner without knowing. If you do not have a scanner, you should probably invest in a 3 in one printer, scanner and copier. Once you’ve secured a scanner you should begin organizing the documents. Legal documents such as birth certificates should be filed away in a portfolio; everything else can be scanned and thrown away.

2. Get Rid Of As Many Cords As Possible

Another great strategy for getting rid of office space clutter is to get rid of unnecessary cords. Wireless keyboard and mouse sets can be purchased from any electronic store for less than 30 dollars. These go a long way to cut some of the clutter since often the only two cables that aren’t easily hidden are the keyboard and mouse. Another way to cut the cord is to consider buying an all in one computer or laptop to replace your tower. This is a much more expensive option, but if you haven’t updated your computer in a few years it is definitely worth looking into.

3. Get Rid Of Any Unnecessary Fixtures

Many of us like to decorate our computer desks with small knickknacks. While these knickknacks look good when they are first set up, overtime they are thrown askew and often only end up contributing to the clutter. Sometimes these knick-knacks also serve as a distraction during homework and often end up being more trouble than they’re worth.

Guest Post by Maria Rainier. She is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education where she’s written on teaching jobs along with online esthetician programs. In her spare time, she enjoys yoga, playing piano, and working with origami.