Just for you Mom!

As I was chatting with my mom on Sunday, telling her about my projects, I realized that I had only posted pictures on facebook. So Mom hadn't seen them yet! I promised I'd post them, and since I'm waiting for my neat, green toy box to dry... I thought I'd go ahead and get these up.


My kids have this deplorable, yet slightly admirable, ability to break things. Namely, pieces of furniture they can climb on. We've been through.... 1... 2... 3 bookshelves over the last few years. At one point I just had the books on the built in wire shelves in the closet. But I don't have that at this house. Nathan jumped onto the last bookshelf from the top bunk, going right through it. So I knew the next one would have to be sturdy, and since I don't have a handy $300 for a SOLID bookshelf, I had to make one!



Now, if they'd keep the books on the shelf, it'd be perfect.




The dresser was not built by me. This was a thrift-store find that had seen better days. It had already gotten repainted white and stenciled "Pants", "Shirts", and "Sunday" since at that point the 2 older boys were sharing dressers and that kept their stuff separated. But it was desperate for another redo. Oren requested plaid, but was more than happy to accept the stripes that I did. (Okay, I basically told him I wasn't going to do plaid, stripes were enough work. And he didn't pitch a fit. :-) )


It works surprisingly well with all the other colors in the room, and I'm very glad I stayed with just stripes. Plaid would have been WAY too much going on!

As for the toy box? I combined the yellow from the bookshelf with some of the blue from the larger stripes, for an awesome Spring-y green. The box is huge, a lot bigger than I thought. So it should fit plenty of toys! I'll be doing probably 1 more of them, as well as some storage cubbies screwed onto the top, so it'll will be a storage system thing. Theoretically. I'll take a picture in the morning so the light shows the real color, and so that it will be dry.

I'm really hoping that the storage units will help them keep things clean. They love to dump out the rubbermaid bins and then stand on them. Thus, breaking the bins and leaving a disaster in their room. We figured up that I've spent 3 times the amount the wood cost me, on rubbermaid bins for those boys and their toys. So it seemed a worthwhile investment for something they can't tip over. Sure, they can empty the bins and then get in them, and it will be fun to see how long it takes them to figure that out.... But they can't tip them over, and there won't be lids to lose, and they can just chuck things in there while keeping things like legos a little farther out of Daniel's reach.

That's the plan, anyway.