Customized IKEA Cart

Yesterday my oldest daughter turned 14.  (I'm still trying to figure out how that happened!)  Making her Mom super proud, she asked to take a trip down to our local Ikea store to do some shopping ;)  I stumbled across this cute idea from Polka Dot Chair on Pinterest a couple weeks ago and told her I thought it would be super cute for her room.  Click the image to check out the link to the original post!

We picked up this Raskog cart in the teal color to match her purple, gray and teal room.  When we got home I used my Cricut to create labels for each shelf.

We also grabbed this same utensil holder from the kitchen section that Melissa used and wire tied it to the side to store her flat iron and curling wand. 

I love how this turned out! It looks so cute in her room and is extremely functional at the same time-perfect combination! 

I have this same cart in gray in my craft room...I think it is time to dress it up with some labels too ;)  Any other great Ikea hacks that you have done?!  I would love to hear about them!  Feel free to link them up in the comments of this post! (Please limit to ONLY Ikea hack posts on this thread.  I would love for you to link up any of your other posts each week here on Inspire Me Monday!!  Any non-Ikea posts on this thread will be deleted.)

2014 Top 5!

Wow, can you believe that we are already at the end of 2014?!  Seems impossible!  I want to take a minute to just thank you so very much for all of your support, likes, shares, comments, etc through out the past year!  I truly appreciate each and every one of you taking time to visit my little space on the internet.  Your presence here means the world to me.

I thought to wrap up the end of the year I would share the top 5 posts from 2014.  If you missed one of these be sure to check them out just by clicking on the pictures!  Here they are in order, starting with your most favorite:

Pantry Organization

Cookware Storage

Controlling Paper Clutter...an Update

House Number Post

Spicy Chicken Enchiladas

So there you have it!  I am looking forward to the new year and sharing some fun new things with you!  Hope you will join me in 2015!!

Ditch the Plastic Utensil Tray!

Happy Friday!  Today I am going to try to make you give in to a little peer pressure-the good kind though ;)  See, as much as I love things to be nice and organized, I also want them to look pretty.  That is why I am going to give you these five words of advice: DITCH THE PLASTIC UTENSIL TRAY!!  

As much as none of us want to admit it, we have all experienced the nasty and grimy plastic utensil trays.  And even for the cleanest person, those darn things somehow always seem to collect crumbs in the bottom (which I don't at all understand since you are putting clean utensils in them...If anyone can explain to me how this happens, please do!)

A couple years ago I finally had had enough and went on the search for a better option and found these metal mesh trays from The Container Store.  And while my drawer certainly does not look like it belongs in a magazine, it feels so much cleaner than my old plastic organizer.  I will say that my only complaint with these is that my continental sized knives do not fit in the typical knife section, so I had to put them in the longer slots.  But, I can live with that :) 

Since I have additional pieces in my set (appetizer forks, dessert forks, long tea spoons) I used two trays and just flipped them the opposite way and put them back to back.  Works great!

And my knife sharpener just hangs out at the back ;)

A quick and cheap change that makes a BIG difference.  I wish I had a picture of the before to show you what a change it really is, but just take my word for it ;)  And if you take the plunge and toss the plastic tray, I would love to see your before and after pics!

Storing Toys in the Living Room

With four kids, we certainly have had our share of toys in our house!  Now that my three oldest are able to play on their own, it is easy to keep their toys out of the main living areas. But my youngest still needs to stick around where ever we are so having toys, books and puzzles on our main floor is a must. I also want to maintain an inviting spot for guests though (and honestly, I don't want to be staring at toys all day every day...I have this little cleanliness OCD things that kicks in ;) )  so I keep her toys on the main floor discretely tucked into this little basket. 

I found something that would blend into our decor so it wouldn't stick out and scream "toys live here!"  I also love this solution because it keeps control of how much is in the space-if it doesn't fit in the basket it stays in the play room or her bedroom. Over the years I have used different baskets and storage items that have fit in with our room at the time, but I especially love this one for the size.  It can store a lot but not to the point that it feels like you are going into a black hole when looking for something in it!

My favorite part is that when she is done playing, we are having people over, or when all the kids are in bed for the night, we can quickly toss it all back in there and still feel like we are in an adult space and not in the middle of a toy store ;) 

Thanks for stopping by today!

Chore Charts

I've searched long and hard for a chore chart that functioned how I wanted it to.  I love all the cute ideas on Pinterest with chore cards and magnetic boards, but with 4 kids to make them for and the space it would take to put them up for each kid, it just isn't the best option for us. And I have never found just the perfect basic chart, so I finally decided to make some myself! 

I wanted something simple to use and not cluttered up with a bunch of things I didn't need.  The left side is for daily chores that need to be done (make bed, read, feed dog, etc.)  The right side is for things that just need to be done once a week.

I am laminating them so we can use dry erase markers to change the chores as needed (like during the summer when homework is not an issue and as they get older and can do different things.)  I also printed them out as a 4x6 size so that I can easily have them all displayed without taking up a ton of space.   At some point they could even keep them in their rooms (although I prefer to have them all in one spot so I can keep a close eye on what is getting done or not ;) ).

Hoping this is finally the system that works for us!

Organizing Cookware

I am so lucky that our house has two pantries!  One for food and a smaller one that I use to store all of my cookware (you can see how I organize my food pantry here).  I spent many years battling lower cabinets and trying to fit everything in them just right.  And then when I wanted to get something out, it was a whole new battle!  I am so grateful for this space in my house! 

Now I will say that this space is definitely in need of some TLC....I guess the previous owners decided to add the top shelf at a later time and didn't match it up to the other shelves.  There are nail holes, bad dry wall spots, and a whole lot of painting that needs to be done!  I wrestled with whether or not to share this with you before I got all of those things repaired or not, but what the heck, here it goes (just don't look too closely!)

 Here's a look at each shelf:

Right now I have 2 different sets of cookware, and yes, it drives me crazy that they don't all match!  But they have to work for now.  I dream of the day when I will open this pantry and everything will match :)

I must say that two of my favorite organizers ever are in this pantry.  The skillet and lid holders are amazing!!  You NEED them if you don't already have them :)  You can find them almost anywhere and they are usually only a few dollars, but make such a HUGE difference!

Here's another look at the whole thing.  The right side is just where I hang aprons.

So there you have it.  I absolutely love having this pantry and can never have another house without one!  Do you have a good spot to keep all of your cookware, or have you found a good solution for those dreaded lower cabinets?! I would love to see how you keep everything organized! Thanks for stopping by today!

-Emily 

Spring Cleaning-Paper Clutter Update

Happy Sunday!  We are back for another round of Spring Cleaning talk!  We have a gorgeous Spring day here in the midwest, so it seemed like a great day for another cleaning post!  (But a quick one since I'm itching to get out into the warm sunshine with my kiddos!)

A while back I shared with you my method for keeping up with paper clutter.  You can see that post here.  In that post I mentioned that I had high hopes for a wall filing system to install for my kids' school papers.  Unfortunately, when I took the filers out of the box, I realized that because my Command Center is behind the door to the garage that every time the door opened it would smash into it...being plastic I knew they wouldn't last long that way.  So very sad :( 

But this week I cleaned out my desk drawers and came across this wire mesh filing system that we used in our old house.  We had a great spot for it there, but not so much in our new house.  I stuck it in the filing drawer in my desk but it never fit well.  So I reconfigured that drawer without the filer.  Then I had a great idea to try it on my kitchen shelves that were continuing to have organizational 'issues' (aka:  too. much. paper. in. our. house.)

Here's what my shelves are looking like these days:

The top shelf has my new organizer.  The middle holds a charging station for cell phones, iPods, & iPads, and the bottom are our 'his & hers' baskets for dropping sun glasses, my husband's wallet, etc.

So here's a closer look at the organizer:

The back section holds my notebook with all my ongoing lists of house and organization projects and my cleaning schedule (you can see that post here.)  I usually pull my cleaning list out and set it on the shelf to look at but I can also tuck it away now when I'm done for the day or people are coming over.  The middle section is "needs attention."  This is my holding area for school papers or other forms that need filling out (book orders, field trip forms, etc).  The front is for mail that comes while my husband is at work for him to look through when he gets home.  And finally, the bottom is a drawer that we can throw receipts in.  My husband was asking for some place that we can put receipts for things that we are trying, checking sizes, or waiting to make sure work properly (we are in the middle of several house projects so this happens frequently around here) so this will be perfect!

YAY!  SO MUCH BETTER!  I can already tell that this system is going to work better and am so excited to put it to use!

I hope your Spring Cleaning is off to a great start! 

-Emily 

Spring Cleaning-The Microwave

Hi!  Welcome to the second post in our Spring Cleaning series!  Yesterday I talked about giving the inside of your oven a good cleaning and gave you my recipe for a homemade oven cleaner (only 3 ingredients that I'm sure you already have in your house!)  You can view that post here.

Today we will tackle the microwave-possibly the EASIEST kitchen appliance to clean ever!! Now, this is definitely a space that needs cleaning more than just once a year, but it is simple enough that you can incorporate it into your regular cleaning routine.  So even though it is not Spring specific, I did want to include it in this series (mainly because mine was in dire need of being cleaned anyways!)

-To start, mix equal parts water and white vinegar into a microwavable bowl or cup.  I used 1/2 Cup of each.  

-Microwave until the mixture is boiling-this was around 2 minutes for 1 total cup of liquid for me.  

-Leave the mixture in the microwave with the door closed for another couple of minutes.  

-Remove the mixture and simply wipe off all the nastiness that has splattered all around your microwave! 

I do take the turn table out and wash it with dish soap in the sink, but if you are short on time, just wipe it off with everything else. 

Here are my before pictures:

Add your 'magic' solution:

And Ta-Da!

Thanks for joining me today!  I hope you will stick around as we conquer some other areas of our homes this Spring!  

-Emily