Laundry Day

We ALL dislike this 'day'... right? I mean, if you actually enjoy it I'd argue that you might be crazy!

So, how do we make doing laundry less hectic and easier?

 

We had our house built and one of the options was to have mudroom cabinets in a little nook area next to the laundry room. I chose to not have those installed because this was the spot I wanted to build my laundry sorter. You HAVE to have some kind of laundry sorter! Organization is key to making this task less stressful. I got my inspiration from Pinterest. You do not have to build something, you can buy one from anywhere: target, walmart or this one from bed bath and beyond. It can be anything, just needs to have a minimum of 3 compartments, preferably 4 and they must detach for easy carrying to the washer.

 

This is the one I built. :)

 

 

I went to Home Depot bought everything I needed, measured it out on the wall, made my marks, put in dry wall anchors and fastened the brackets. Then I made signs, laminated them, put a hole in the corners and attached them with some little zip ties. So easy! I LOVE IT!



right next to my laundry room



You want to avoid having piles, heaping piles of laundry everywhere! You know what Im talking about! Where you dump your overflowing basket of dirty clothes on the floor and then proceed to pick through them separating the darks, the whites, the colors and the towels or blankets... not fun and some what gross!! Having a laundry sorter will eliminate this! Your laundry will already be sorted, just close your eyes and think about how much nicer doing laundry will be!

Personally, I dont have a laundry 'day.'  I wash a load when I have a full load. If you have a sorter you will be able to see when it is time to do a load. If the color basket is full, just grab it and wash it. If theres not enough to do a decent size load of whites or blacks yet, then don't. Thats one of the things I love, I dont have to waste time doing small loads of whites because I never have as many whites as colors. On average I do 2 color loads a week, 1 white and 1 dark.

I know some people like to just get all their laundry done and out of the way in one day, and thats great! Do what works best for you! But if you end up with a heaping pile of clean clothes in the middle of your floor, on your bed, the couch or where ever your designated dumb spot is then you need to stop trying to take it all on in one day! Only wash when you have a full load. You might think it's more work to wash laundry multiple times a week, but I promise, handling less clothes at once is a lot easier!

I still do the whole 'take the clean clothes out of the dryer and dumb them in your designated spot' thing because my laundry room is small, otherwise I would do this straight from the dryer to avoid this. Immediately after I have a load clean I grab 3 smaller baskets, (i'd love to have them each a different a color, but i didnt think about that til later) one for the boys room, the girls room and one for mom and dads's room. I separate them by room, I do not fold the clothes in the family room. Once the clothes are in the baskets of whose room they belong in, they are taken to that room and put away, folded and hung up in there.

My kids put their own clothes away. So if there is a basket with clean clothes in their room they need to put it away before playing. Remember, we are dealing with 1 load at a time so there isnt a lot to put away, they usually finish with in 5 minutes. I start this around 3 years old, depending on the child, I think when they learn to dress themselves thats a great time to involve them. When they are little I will help them separate and fold their pants, shorts, socks and underwear, we hang shirts. Then they will put the pants in the pants drawer and so forth until everything is where it belongs. Even at 3 they can slide a hanger in a shirt, or at least attempt until they figure it out, and then I will fix it and hang it up. The happiness and joy in their eyes when they've done something to help Mommy is priceless at this age!!        
  

And thats it! No messes, no hassle! 



***I am new to blogging! Please feel free to leave your advice, good or bad.
Stay posted, more cleaning tips and advice will come soon! Thanks! :)***

Building a House

We were so excited to buy a house, let alone build a brand new one! We had been married for 7 years, our 4th child was due in just a few months James was in predeployment training getting ready to go overseas for the remainder of the year. Perfect time to buy a house, right?! A deployed husband, a new baby... I didnt care how hard it would be, I was so excited for this adventure!!  

The process of building a house is more than most would think, so lets start from the begining! 

Picking your builder: This is the most important thing! There are lots of builders so we researched the ones we were the most interested in. Talked to friends that had built with each one, talked to local people and friends about what they thought, checked the BBB and looked at their years of experience. We decided on Coleman Homes. www.mycolemanhomes.com They had no reports against them, the people we knew that had already built with them had nothing but good things to say, they used high quality products, they had 40+ years building experience and their subdivision was amazing with a resort style pool, playground, gym, club house, beautiful landscaping and so much more.

Picking your floorplan: We knew we wanted a single story house, note: this is not our forever house, it is our perfect for us right now with young kids house. We also knew we wanted 4 bedrooms and I definetly wanted a seperate living room. The good thing about building a new house is that you can change around just about anything! So we went with the Taylor floor plan.  It was almost perfect! We added a covered patio, a sliding glass door to the master bedroom, a second sink in the main bathroom and most important we were able to flip the floorplan to give us the seperate living room at the front of the house! This is what the floor plan of our house looks like after the changes were made. Now, it was perfect! Papers were signed and a construction date was set!



The lot.

A little advice: use a real estate agent! The sales consultant will tell you not to and that you dont need one - you do! Especially when it comes to signing documents, the sales agent will not represent you, despite what they tell you, their job is to do what it takes to sell you the house. You will want that agent to represent you, to explain the process to you, to contact the builder to arrange walk throughs and to work with the bank when it comes time for closing on the home. Of course, this is my opinion.

Time to Customize: As fun and exciting as this part is, it is also extrememly overwhelming! You can customize, upgrade, or change anything and everything! It was done in a two part meeting, each one taking close to 4 hours because there are just so many options to discuss! In my case, my husband was deployed so that left every decision and little detail up to 8 1.2  months pregnant me. So I asked for a list of the bigger options before the appointment and found my own price quote from an outside source on all the items. This was great, I felt more knowledgeable going in and it gave me a better idea whether or not an upgrade would be better to do during construction or if it would be more cost efficiant to do ourselves later on. I want cover all the choices just the main ones. We insulated the garage, you def want to do this. I kept the standard styles of door hardware, plubing and lighting fixtures but upgraded them all to oil rubbed bronze. I upgraded the carpet padding, i found it to be more cost efficiant to do this instead of upgrading the actual carpet. I had all the cabinets stained to an espresso color because I like dark wood colors. I got to pick the paint colors inside and out, I kept everything pretty plain with browns and tans where I could have chosen shades of blue, red, green or yellow. During the selection process I had to remember that this is not our forever house and it will eventually be sold so the upgrades I made needed to be ones that would hold value and be appealing to a future buyer. We did not go with granite counters, hardwood or tile floor for that exact reason. Those upgrades are typically more expensive to be done by the builder so if we were building our forever house we would need to take into consideration the hassle of doing contruction ourself later to save a little money verses paying the extra to have the builder do it and have it done and perfect for move in. We did upgraded the counters and flooring to ones that was nicer than just the standard choices though. Lastly, my most favorite upgrade was the central vacuum, I had never even heard of them before but oh my, I love it. It is a must have for a new house!

Waiting: It was so fun to watch our house be built! Every Sunday after church I would drive by to see the house and take pictures to send to my deployed husband. The kids also loved watching the house go up! At some points during construction we walked through the house and met with the superintendents, they were very personable and great through the entire building experience also.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The house was finished!!

 

Walk Through/Final Inspection: After the house was complete I walked through the house with the owner of Coleman Homes and the superintendants. I checked everything, looked for anything that needed to be fixed and learned about the features of my home.

 

Finally time to sign papers and get THE KEYS: This moment, the moment I had keys to MY house, the house we'd dreamt about for years, the house we worked so hard for, the house that would be our HOME was finally here!! It was especially emotional for me having had to go through this whole experience while James was deployed.