We made comically little progress this week for the One Room Challenge, but we also don’t have that much left to do, so I’m trying to convince myself that no progress isn’t a big deal.
The big last thing we have to do is building a step up to the porch. We’ve been delayed on doing that because we are waiting on materials and have had a lot of rain to deal with. I’m a little bit frustrated because we ordered the supplies over a month ago, but fingers crossed we get them soon and wrap this up!
Over the weekend we attempted our mini project to smooth out the facades of the posts in the front of the house. We really wanted it to be simple and make it work with common boards from the hardware store, but the dimensions were a little off and we would need to get something fancier than what we had to make it work. Honestly, I think a smooth facade would help the house look more “finished”, but it’s not an exciting enough project for me to want to spend the time and money on. Not worth the headache. We tried, we failed, we are moving on.
In good news (ok, great news!) I finished my little shed makeover and I’m super excited how it turned out! A lot of the updates we do are purely cosmetic, but this one makes the space function so much better and. I challenged myself to do this shed makeover by mostly using things I had on hand and it ended up being so much fun.
The first step was to get everything out of there. I moved our camping gear up to the attic and sorted through all of the random little things that were floating around. I grouped everything together based on what kind of tools we typically use for projects and then put them in transparent plastic bins. Now we can grab a bin based on the project! We’ve been using this system for two weeks now and it’s already made setting up and cleaning up for projects so much easier.
These are the bins we ended up with:
- lawn care
- sanding & clamps
- tiling supplies & caulk
- stud finder, drill, fasteners & screwdrivers
- paiting supplies
- stapler & nail gun
- extension cords
I made the labels with my cricut and have never felt more organized. The bins are a pretty huge game changer, but I might even be more excited about my solution to wrangling our collection of nails and screws. I bought this bead organizer with adjustable compartments and it’s a game changer. We can tuck this little box in our bin with the drill and it’s already made our life easier.
After all the bins were tidy, I moved on to the peg board. I painted it the same color as the exterior, carefully arranged the tools on the board and then pulled out a sharpie paint pen to outline all of my tools.
I glued strong magnets to clothespins for simple glove storage after I ran out of room on my pegboard.
The last tiny organizational thing I did was add eye hooks for bungee cords to keep my scrap wood corralled. So easy, inexpensive, and effective!
After all of the organizing was done, I used leftover deck paint to make some magic happen on the floor! I painted a windowpane plaid to brighten the space. I know this space will get dirty quickly, but it was a fun place to try out a patterned floor!
My husband laid a little brick “doormat” right outside of the shed. We had been sinking in to the mud prior to this, so the brick was a huge improvement!
Hopefully this coming week we can get the rest of our projects done for the exterior refresh. We are getting really close to the big reveal and now it’s time to hustle. Make sure to check back next week to see how we are doing and also follow along with everyone else participating in the challenge!
