Use the hall

When the kids come home from school they walk through the door and drop their backpack and coat on the floor right inside the door. For years I have tried different areas in the house for the kids to store their backpacks but they always end up being on the floor. A couple backpacks and coats can quickly make a room feel really disorganized and irritated me. And the mess only got better when they dug through their bags to retrieve homework. All the art projects and graded papers were pulled from the bags and left on the floor. I knew their had to be a better way.
Our solution (I hope it works long term) is to install hooks in the hall for coats and backpacks. This is what the area looked like before we started. I used it to store molding and panels of wood.

The long trim piece on the wall isn't normally there. It's the wood I used to do this project. I had just purchased it from Home Depot and balanced it up on the panels to see what it would look like and find the right height for us.
Did you notice the vinyl skeleton on the wall. It's a leftover from Halloween. I made the SVG format for him, one of my first and we like him so much he may stay there all year.

Here is the hall now. Ok, that isn't actually true. The hooks now are filled with coats, umbrellas, bike locks, hats and backpacks. Better there than on the floor.

So much nicer looking.

Each kid has two hooks, plenty of space. And I also found these cool frames at Walmart. They are 12 X 16 frames matted to display a 9 X 12 piece of paper. That's the size of construction paper used at school. Nicole and Ashley are always bringing home art work they want to display on the fridge and after awhile the fridge looks like it's wearing a fuzzy coat. These frames are awesome for displaying and organizing their work. They like them because the frame is theirs and it makes them feel like their artwork is special. It's frame is only $14.00, bargain. I like them because I got my fridge back, sort of.

Breanna hasn't put anything in her frame. She tells me she will do it soon, we will see.
Here is the frame open. Elastic straps hold the pictures in place.

If you had a larger picture you could take the paper mat out and mount the picture with double sided tape to the back of the frame. I like these a lot. I debated whether to mount these portrait or landscape. Time will tell if this one was the right choice.

Door Nameplates

I finally did it!
I have been wanting to put my kids name on their door. When I first got my cricut I cut out their names in simple font and painstakingly applied each letter on a carefully drawn line I drew on the door. Each letter had to be individually lined up for height and spacing, took me forever.
I made these nameplates with a SVG frame templates I purchased from my vinyl designer and then in SCAL I added their name. I also have transfer tape at my disposal, this project would not be possible without transfer tape.

Simple yet beautiful.

Did you notice the door knob? They were gold before and now oil rubbed bronze. No, I did not buy new ones. I painted them with Rust-Oleum metallic advanced formula. Love this spray paint. It's super durable and works on almost any surface. It also has little specks of glitter in the paint that can only be seen when the light hits it just right. I have purchased bottles of this spray paint and my kids think I'm going to spray everything in the house with it until the whole house turns this color. Silly kids, mom wouldn't do the whole house.

I hope they never stop selling this advanced formula in this color. I hear other people in other towns have a hard time finding this in stock. So far so good at my local Home Depot.