Before and After

I've mentioned here before that I have been on a kick lately of doing lots of little projects around the house.  Also, on a related note, I love Pinterest. Through that site I have found so many neat ideas and lots of inspiration! Plus I found some pretty cool blogs of other ladies doing neat things at their homes. One of those bloggers posted a project she did to keep all the things you usually put on your fridge on the inside of a cabinet. I read that and realized that I totally did that months ago, before Christmas! If only I had blogged about it!

So, here's the first project. I was annoyed by the cluttered fridge, and then walked by the practically empty bulletin board hanging in the laundry room, where no one looks ever, especially not for saved articles from magazines, wedding invitations, or school papers. So I decided to combine the two for a solution and got to work.

First I had to get the frame off the board, because it wouldn't fit attached the the inside of the cabinet door that way. This resulted in me randomly banging on the wooden frame with a hammer, accomplishing nothing. Eventually I turned the hammer around and started prying it off. Once the cork part of the bulletin board was free, I took the screws out of the hinges of the cabinet door and laid it on the table. I found some hard-core glue we had in the garage, squeezed a bunch on the back of the bulletin board, stuck it on and let it dry with some heavy items on top to hold it in place. I put the door back on, pinned all the fridge stuff to it, and voila. 

And here's the before and after:

Once I started working from home and really picked up the Pinterest home decor habit, the following projects happened:

I decided to paint and organize the laundry room. I just purchased those black bins for a few bucks each to house all the random stuff stored on those shelves, and used paint I had leftover from our bathroom. It's really an awesome change and definitely worth the effort!

The next night, I realized part of the reason I never scrapbooked is because I had to lug out this big tub full of junk and pull everything out before I could start. So I used a small shelf I had in a linen closet and a couple of containers I had lying around to hold the smaller pieces, and now it's easy to access! And I even got creative--the taller container on the top shelf is actually a beaded candle holder, but it works great for pens and scissors! 

A week later, my husband replaced our kitchen faucet, which forced me to face the horrendous condition of the cabinet under the sink. Since I had to empty it for him to do his work anyway, I used the opportunity to purge some stuff and reorganize. By the way, we had FOUR separate half-empty bottles of carpet spot remover before this reorganization. It's so much nicer to get the cleaners and trashbags out now without having stuff fall out! 

Last project to date: I refinished my first piece of furniture. I purchased a small sander, a paintbrush, and a tiny can of stain. One evening later, the beat up old bench in our bedroom that my husband loves looks a ton better and now matches the dark finish of our bedroom furniture!

Off to Pinterest to get some new ideas for my next project!