It's amazing how different I begin to feel when it warms up! I really don't feel like myself when it's cold. The warm sun makes me feel alive! One way I know that's true, is that at the first sign of spring I start to feel the need to spring clean. Our spring started really early this year! It was downright hot the second weekend in February. (Although the temperatures seemed to level out again, and we are back down to the 70s/40s.)
Since my BIG declutter in 2016 I really don't have a ton of stuff anymore. In fact, I hadn't really purchased anything decor wise for our house in a long time. When I got my new letterboard I did swap a few things around to give it a perfect home. That also inspired me to swap out our living room throw pillows for the ones in our office. Just that simple act of rearranging a few things made our house feel fresher! (And I ended up finding a trunk load more of things to donate!)
Let's Stay Home
When we were in Lowes last month, I couldn't resist this adorable "Let's Stay Home" sign. It's meant to look like painted wood, and I've had a few guests think it was something I whipped up myself. I can't seem to find it on Lowe's website, but if you love the sentiment as much as I do, Amazon has some great options.
The Shed
So, we have an abnormally huge shed. It's really more of a workshop, but it also houses our laundry room and has plenty of room for our ping pong table. Yeah, it's that big. When Blake bought the house, there was actually a kitchenette and bed out there-someone was living in it!
The shed has sort of been neglected. When I started moving in, we spent a whole weekend gutting it and cleaning it out because I had the grand idea of making it an art studio. It needed the clean out, but I quickly realized we should be spending our energy and money on the inside of the house first! Since then it's been a catch all. We did drywall and finish the laundry room/ping pong table half, so that looks decent. The other half houses all of our tools, yard equipment and odds and ends. I would show pictures, but you know-robbers.
For our anniversary, Blake's gift from me was a new tool box he had been eyeing for months. It's actually beautiful in person, and he had a blast sorting his tool collection. It sort of inspired a complete declutter/organization of the whole shed. It turned out SO nice. It's still a shed, but I don't get the heebie-jeebies out there anymore.
We found some RANDOM stuff in the shed. Including a box of Blake's childhood stuff. Trophies, pez dispensers, and legos just to name a few. My niece and nephews loved seeing some new stuff in their toy bin here at our house. A lot of the stuff had to be tossed, but most of it came clean enough to have a new life.
This nail organizer was such a game changer! We have quite the collection because of DIY projects. Now it's all sorted out and we are ready for our next project.
My New Garden
If you would have told me 10 years ago that I'd be growing a garden, I'd laugh. I was raised in the city, so when I first moved here and all the people I met had gardens I felt left out! I had a pretty successful garden the first year we were married. It was just a rectangle, with 2x4s as the frame. There were lots of problems with that garden, namely that it was too shallow and that it got in the way of mowing the yard.
This time we were going to do it right! We followed this tutorial, which we actually found very confusing. They say "I'm making two tables so you won't need this many [boards]" but then proceed to give us the correct amount of boards. Anyways, we managed!
This thing is SOLID. It isn't going anywhere, especially now that it's filled with dirt. I'm growing tomatoes, bell peppers, lettuce, and some herbs. We will see how it goes! I'm out of practice.
It's killing me that the rest of the yard needs attention. We have 2 large oak trees on one side of our house that drop leaves every spring. It's absolutely pointless to do anything until that's over with. I hate when everything is brown! I can't wait for everything to come back.
Color Printer and Paper Cutter
Alright, you know how excited I get about office supplies! I'm not sure how we made it this long without a color printer. I'm obsessed! We also bought some photo paper, and I've really enjoyed printing out some new photos to hang up around the house. (Again, it's those little things that refresh a space!)
I replaced the prints in the frames on the shelves in the guest room with some photos from the beach trip we took in 2014. That was one of my favorite trips! It was a close tie with some pictures from our Jamaican honeymoon, but that's the cool part, I can easily do that if I want to later on.
So, I've also been dabbling in invitations. I made the invitations for my sister's baby shower, and I also just made one for our congregation fish fry. It's been SO fun to do. But, a paper cutter is essential!! I don't know how I lived without one.
Car Diffuser
I kind of felt silly buying this, but I love it so much I'm glad I did. Groupon has this great diffuser that fits perfectly in your car's cup holder. I love diffusing peppermint in the car because it helps keep me awake and headache free. This one also comes with a regular power cord so you can plug it in inside. I brought it into the kitchen when I accidentally burned (or is it burnt?) something!
Roomba!
I may have never wanted anything more in my entire life! My parents, grandparents and siblings all went in to buy us a Roomba for our anniversary! With 3 pugs, you do a lot of floor maintenance. I was sweeping basically every day. I pride myself in having a home that doesn't look or smell like dogs live there.
This could not be more perfect. Roomba has a schedule, and our floors are always cleaned before we get home. It's legitimately life changing. Bailey and Delly don't really pay attention to it, but Winston still barks at it occasionally. He's a mess.
By the way, everyone I know who has one of these gives it a name. We went with DJ Roomba because of Parks & Rec. :)
Props to you if you stayed until the end! I am obviously long winded when it comes to cleaning and organizing. It's something that I'm actually passionate about. Hopefully as it warms up some more, we can get some stuff done in the yard and I can continue minimizing our home!
Leave a comment below if you are as crazy as me and actually love spring cleaning! Let me know what projects you've got in the works!
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