Let's finish a basement: Getting started

My family has decided it's time to finish our basement. When we bought the house we new this would be on our project list. We've lived in our home for almost 6 years and now that our kids are getting bigger it's getting a little cramped. We figured the easiest way to add space is to make the space we already have livable.

First things first. My husband and I are DIY-ers. We are not professionals, but we do have professionals in our family who have all the answers to our many questions. Since we are tackling this basement remodel together and it's our first big project, we have a ton of questions.

Next sit down as a "team" and come up with a design. We (my husband & I) scoured the Internet looking for a website that would allow us to design our own floor plan and we wanted it to be free. We found a couple, but the one we decided to use for this project was  www.floorplanner.com

www.floorplanner.com

Floor planner is a easy to use site that allowed us to enter our measurements and play around with wall placement. As you can see it also allowed us to put furniture pieces to show the flow of the rooms.

www.floorplanner.com

After we were finished measuring all the walls and drawing it to scale we waited. And waited. We saved our $ and waited some more, until finally we had a budget in place to work with.

Follow me as I take you on our journey of finishing a basement into a family entertainment area.

Next up: sealing cement and painting brick. Oh what fun!

Eli & Shannon April 25, 2010

This wedding was held in a planetarium.

Wedding Colors: Palm Beach Coral & Silver

Jewelry Colors: Crystal & Sterling Silver

All of the ladies wore this necklace and earring set

Crystal Swarovski Crystals & Sterling Silver

(I know that sounds a little redundant-but that's the name of the color.)

What They Wore:

Both dress styles were from David's Bridal in Palm Beach Coral

Maid of Honor

Bridesmaids

Whoosh...

That was the sigh of relief that just escaped me as I sat down in a chair. After a wonderful 4 day weekend in MN we are home and my house is back up and running at a normal pace. It's crazy the amount of dirty laundry that a family goes through in only 4 days, so that's at the top of my "to-do" list.

The drive was over 12 hours and it's good to be home. We couldn't have asked for better behaved kids. I think they asked "are we there yet" less than 10 times. They kept themselves occupied with movies, games, and fun in the back seat. When they weren't doing that they were sound asleep. Which brings me to a side point...Why are booster seats so incredibly uncomfortable? The padding is very sparse and it really doesn't make sense to me why. The seats in the car have nice cushions, so why can't a booster seat? Has anyone out there made a seat cushion for their kids to help alleviate their little booties while on road trips?

Back to the main reason we were in MN in the first place. A wedding! Congratulations to the Newlyweds! I hope you guys are having fun in Hawaii! We were so happy to make the trip for your special day. And A was very happy to be one of your flower-girls. By the way, as a thank-you gift for being in the wedding the bride made name hangers for all of her girls and the flower-girls received silver sequin "Uggs" to match the brides "big girl" Uggs. Extremely cute.

I'm thinking about giving the name hangers a try, if I do I'll post a tutorial. I hope everyone has a great Thursday. Talk to you soon.

So much ribbon, so little space.

My ribbons and various notions were overflowing my shoe box storage system. Since one of my resolutions this year is to become more organized I figured I would tackle this little project. Like any good crafter I scoured the various stores and websites for any ideas I could find. I came across rain gutter storage that would work great, if I had more room. I found shoe box styles with holes in the sides for ribbon, but that wasn't going to work, since I'd need more than one to accommodate my stash. Then I discovered this on pinterest.

Genius. I gave it a try. I already had the pants organizer on hand.

It worked for a while until I outgrew it. What I didn't like about this version was that I had to stagger the spools in order to make them fit. This left me with a lot of unused space.

So then I had to get a little creative. What I ended up doing was combining a couple of different things. The pants organizer is still being used, but now the ribbon is mostly on badge clips from Staples. 

It reminds me of the "clip it up", but a ton cheaper and less space is being taken up. So what do you think? I'm pretty proud of this. If I ever have a craft room instead of craft closet I will probably reevaluate my ribbon again. Until then, I think this will last me for years. How do you store your ribbons? Are you a rain gutter on the wall kind of gal? Do you use a paper towel holder or dowel to store your ribbon vertical? Or do you have everything shoved in a box with a lid that won't close? Feel free to leave a comment below, I love hearing from you.

Happy New Year 2012!

Happy New Year! The Christmas tree and all of the decorations were taken down and put away this weekend. Which means my house now looks naked. I love it when my home looks as if Christmas threw up all over it but right now it's just strutting around in it's birthday suit. My mantle is bare. My front door no longer jingles. It's a sad sight.

The great thing about holidays is that there is one or two every couple of months. Which means in the next couple of weeks I'll be bringing up more boxes from the dungeon to start decorating for Valentine's Day. I think I may even make a few new ones this year...since our Valentine's decor is pretty sparse.

With the new year finally here many of us are making new goals and resolutions for ourselves. From working out and getting fit to organizing our home and becoming more productive. Of course I have a few of my own...

Goals:

1. To blog more consistently, having at least 2-3 posts a week.

2. To start an Etsy store...because I'll never know if I don't try.

3. To make a blogging schedule, give it a try, and tweak it where it needs tweaking. This may take all year to accomplish.

4. To faithfully stick to numbers 1 & 2.

Resolutions:

1. To eat healthier. This is a resolution because I'm keeping it real. I'll eat healthier for a couple of weeks, maybe months, and then go back to eating like an American. I'll go back and forth with this all year. That's what works for me. I'm a firm believer of anything is better than nothing when it comes to health and fitness.

2. To organize my home and get rid of the clutter that causes chaos in our lives. An organized home is a happy home in my book. Clutter is an unnecessary headache. If this is on your list too you can visit www.mythirtyone.com/HBlock where you'll find all sorts of totes and things to help organize you and your life.

3. To not leave clean clothes in the laundry basket unfolded for more than 1 day. I have been known to go at least a week living out of the laundry basket. I'm ready to grow up and wear clothes off of hangers instead of from a mountain.

Well that's my list. What about yours? What are your hopes and dreams for 2012? Is it to plan your wedding? Get in shape? Have a happy, healthy baby? Feel free to leave a comment below and share your thoughts, I love hearing from you.