Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals

Well, this is a week where despite a son who has been SUPER destructive (I spent until now today cleaning up the serious mess he made my upstairs while I was cleaning and organizing the den) I actually got a decent amount of things done!

So, let's get to it shall we?

I managed to reorganize the den and got my sewing area set up!  The shot above is what you see when you enter my den from the hallway.  I also, as you can see, got the glider rocker upholstered and placed in the den for my son to use.

 This is the shot of what you'd see if you were standing with your back to the glider rocker.  You don't see the bookcases off to the left and right of the cabinet that are still a major mess, but it's hard to make VHS tapes look good, so I just focused on the clean parts *laugh*.

I would share the before photos of the den, but honestly it was just a HUGE mess.  My sewing area, after we got the TV cabinet was all over the place, some of which was in open Rubbermaid containers that were stacked wherever.

 And here's a shot of my new sewing corner.  I am super happy with how this turned out and I can safely say I paid not one penny to get this done as I shopped around my house to find the things I needed to get it done.

For instance, the clock on the wall has rotated around two houses now.  When we bought our previous house it was on an estate sale and was FULL of stuff when we got it.  The clock, and the antique fold out bar came with the house.  We had the clock hanging in our bedroom, but would always use the digital alarm clock to tell the time, so I moved it out to the den so I wouldn't lose track of time when in the den.

The crate on top of the basket I received with a free thing of Melissa and Doug blocks I got years ago (I had a 10.00 off 10.00 code for some site and the blocks were on sale for 10.00.  It was awesome).   It's very solid and even dove tailed, so I use it to store current sewing projects I'm working on.  The basket hamper under it I use to hold my fabric scraps.  That was found at a used store a couple of years back for 3.00.  Didn't work as a hamper as it was just was too big for the area I needed  a hamper in, but it works great as a fabric scrap basket.

The dresser houses some of my cloth stash and a bunch of my crafting things as well.  On top I used some of my vintage jars to house zippers, plastic weight beads, buttons and other sewing notions. They'd been sitting on the sill above the TV cabinet, but always looked cluttered.  So, I moved them where I could access them easier.  I then moved a lamp for added light to the top of the dresser as well.  The basket housing my "most necessary" patterns was a leftover from my pantry redo.

The dresser itself?  Well, this was actually my dresser from my bedroom.  I got it at a local antique store years ago at a great bargain.  I just fell in love with it (my husband still, I think is kind of baffled by my love of it as the veneer on top of the dresser is shot, thus the tablecloth cover) and the character it had.  I desperately needed SOMETHING to clean up the den and knew we didn't have the money to build shelves or something to house my sewing and crafting items, so I figured the dresser would get the job done.  And it looks great with the all the pine in the den, I think.

I'm living out of Rubbermaid containers for the time being, until I can pull a dresser out of storage, but it is worth it.

Above the dresser I even hung up my little collection of vintage embroidery hoops.  I thought it came out looking awesome myself.

The sewing table I got at a used store about three years ago for, geez, I believe it was like 20.00 or something close to that.  It's unique in that you can mount whatever sewing machine you want to the table and then the entire sewing machine folds down into the sewing table when not in use (instead of needing a special sewing machine to go with the table, which is what I normally see).  Under the dresser I stored some of my bolts of material.  And then I stored a glass jar of ribbon behind the crock (not shown, obviously).

The crock I had picked up at a yard sale for next to nothing a long while ago.  Honestly, I'm not sure why I picked it up, as it had another family's name on it, but I always wanted a crock, so I bought it.  I turned it around so the name wasn't visible and it had been housing some of my children's blocks, but I cleaned it out and placed all of my hem tape, bias tape, quilt binding and the like in the crock.  I love the little design element it lends to the area.

The red toolbox is my "stuffed fuller than full" sewing box.  It folds outward like a tackle box in both directions and my husband brought it home from one of his expeditions years ago.  I thought it would make a great sewing box, so he gave it to me.

So, yeah, I am proud of the den.  Can't tell can you?

Other than all of that, I finally managed to go through the rest of the storage we had, or at least anything that I could access anyway.  The rubbermaid containers of lawn sale things are currently stacked in the corner of my bedroom where my dresser used to be and also in a couple small areas of the den, but at least it's done.  Now we just need to find time to have a yard sale, or at least start to slowly donate or give away the things we don't need.

I haven't gotten the master bedroom reorganized yet, although I did make a floor plan and worked on figuring out where I wanted to place things.  I'm hoping to get to that next week.

I dehydrated some more herbs and kale this week and even got a few more rosehips out of my yard and dehydrated them.

I pulled about 1/2 of the garlic from the garden.  I didn't want to give up on the healthy looking garlic, but I might just pull it all this week and call it good.  I've been saving my coffee grounds to work into the soil after I pull the garlic to help it get some nourishment to help see the soil well through the winter.

So, let's get onto this week's goals!

1.  Cut out shorts for children.
2.  Rearrange master bedroom.
3.  Continue to dehydrate herbs, vacuum seal and store.
4.  Set up new printer.
5.  Shampoo upstairs carpets.
6.  Pull rest of garlic and compost that area of the garden.
7.  Make laundry soap.
8.  Make tablecloth for living room coffee table.
9.  Cut out pillow shams and handkerchiefs.
10.  Get kids ready for school and make sure upstairs space is ready to accommodate lunch items such as juice boxes.