The Mundane

Well my friends, the no spend month is ending soon. I can’t say I’ll be sad to see it go but it sure does help me refocus when I do this. When I’m not spending on house stuff I can concentrate on bettering what we already have. I’ve decluttered a TON and whenever I felt the urge to go out and walk through a store I just found a new spot to sort through.

I’ve gotten a ton done this month but there’s so much more on my list! When I’m focused on the larger projects I find the smaller ones tedious. But when I’m working on a to do list and not bringing anything new into the house the mundane little things are oddly rewarding.

I’ve put off painting the inside of the built in cabinets in the family room for months – I finally sat down and just did it:

Even though you can’t see much with the doors closed you can tell it’s darker and more uniform in there which I like. For this girl who never even paints the inside of the cabinet doors, this is huge!! ;)

Speaking of painting…a lot of it is happening in the kitchen. I’m still working on the second coat on all the window trim in the bay window:

I won’t finish the white on the walls till the window seat is done, which will be sooner than I planned!! Whoot! Next time you see this spot the seat should be there. :)

We went through all of the toy bins in the basement and I finished up a few little things down there. We have an AWESOME ottoman with storage that holds our DVD books and other stuff:

Problem is the kiddo pushes it around all the time and we never know which way it opens. We have to move around it and pull till we get the right side. This is struggle people.

My solution took five minutes – I found some old belts while going through stuff and since I don’t wear them anymore I used one to make little handles:

I just screwed them into the ottoman framing and now we know exactly where to open and it’s easier to pull up:

I was laughing because as I was doing this I knew I had used another belt in a similar way years ago -- but for the life of me could not figure out where I did it. I placed my little DIY tray back on the ottoman and realized it was on that tray. Ha! I’m smart.

When something needs to be hung I tend to leave it leaning for months – it’s one of those little things that I put off. I finally hung a cute sign in the laundry room:

Love it! I will be installing shelves between the cabinets but until then I went ahead and hung it. Knowing me that could be another year from now. ;)

We’ve had a big mirror leaning in our newly organized closet for at least six months – and it took me all of five minutes to get it hung:

On a whim back in late December (I’ve technically been on this no spend gig since mid-December) I decided to hang a bunch of the random photos we’ve had laying around:

This wall in our loft is HUGE. I have to get a taller ladder to keep going, but it’s not empty for the first time in years!

And finally, as I mentioned I did a lot of purging, but not a lot of organizing just yet. I did switch the contents of a couple dressers around and things make much more sense now. I put all of our linens in the dresser in the dining room turned library – and I have a couple of empty drawers now too!:

I’d still like to get some shallow baskets to organize things a little more – baskets may be my first purchase. :)

These no spend months remind me that sometimes it’s the smaller projects that make me feel the most accomplished. It also reminds me that I’m pretty darn lucky to get to do the “mundane” in a house we love – I’m grateful for it. :)