Express Happy House Challenge Plus Week 5

Guess what gang? It's the 5th and final week of this Express Challenge! But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Let's talk about last week. I definitely wasn't perfect. Not even close. I feel like I had 3 projects going at any given time and I lost site of my daily goals!

Make the Bed: 6/7
Empty the Sink: 6/7
Sweep the Kitchen Floor: 5/7
Clear the Clutter: 5/7
Sort the Mail: 5/7
Spray the Shower: 6/7
Organize Your Outerwear: 5/7
Write It Down: 7/7

See? Definitely not perfect, but my goal this week is to seriously hit every, single one of my ten tasks, every, single night!

Challenge PLUS
Week 4: Bedrooms (Start from the top and work your way down)

• Clean all light fixtures/fans
• Strip all bedding and clean (I actually didn't do the guest bedding, but will this week)
  
• Dust all furniture
• Organize closets
• Organize drawers
• Clean mirrors and windows
• Vacuum and/or clean floors

I know you want photographic proof. I don't have befores for Cam's room and the guest room, but trust me, our bedroom is before enough for all three of them!




After:






Alright, NOW let's look at our last weeks' tasks! You're going to like this, I know it!

Clean the Counters!

This is my cheater task...I'm pulling a two for one....

Yep, that's the kitchen AND the bathroom. But it's such a quick task, that we can combine them. You use them every day, they see a lot of action. The counters in the kitchen and bathroom take a toll, so give them some love and wipe em down! It can also be a motivator to keep your counters cleared! Less clutter = Happier Counters. I swear! But brace yourself for our second task of the week, it's a doozy.

Relax & Enjoy Your Clean House!

Sounds tough huh? I think you can handle it though. What's the point of working hard to have a clean house if you can't sit back an enjoy it. So make sure to take a minute each day to appreciate all your hard work!

Before you kick back and do task 10 though, let's get our PLUS addition! It's the last one, and I'm thinking you might know what it is.

Challenge Plus
Week 5: Living Spaces (Family Room, Living Room, Den, Etc.)

• Dust/Vacuum/Clean the furniture
• Clean the windows/blinds
• Deep clean the floors/Vacuum the rugs
• Dust the lighting

Let's recap:
Week 1: Make the Bed & Empty the Sink+ The Kitchen!
Week 2: Sweep the Kitchen Floor & Clear the Clutter +The Dining Spaces!
Week 3: Sort the Mail & Spray Your Shower + The Bathrooms!
Week 4: Write It Down & Organize Your Outerwear!
Week 5: Clean the Counters & Relax & Enjoy Your Clean House!

So don't forget to either link up your own Express Challenge blog post or simply give us your results in the comments! I love seeing how everyone does, perfect scores or not! Really give this week all you've got! Thanksgiving is next Thursday, the day after our last check in! Let's roll into the holiday season with style!

Small Clothes: Big Organization- A Peek Into Cam's Room

I've received one question multiple times:

How do I organize Cam's clothing?

I've wanted to answer it for awhile, and finally got the kick in the butt I needed when my dear friend Elizabeth asked me to guest post over at her blog, Our Life. Go check it out and give her some love! If you've already been there this week, the following might be a repeat for you. If not, read on to see just how I organize all Cam's clothing!

Tiny clothes are adorable, but for some reason, at first, I was thrown for a loop when it came to organizing them. I finally got in a good groove, but I'll be honest, something about making the clothes smaller made them more daunting for me. What I've found that works for me is using his closet for the most part, but a good closet organizer is a must in my opinion! We bought the Rubbermaid System that is sold at Lowe's, and it was easy, or I suppose it looked easy to install. Carl does all the hard labor around here, other than the cleaning, and having babies I suppose.

First, let's get a reminder of Cam's room.

Full nursery transformation here

Now, onto the task at hand. I keep Cam's current size in the top middle section, and then the upcoming size to the bottom left. I like to do it this way because more often than not, it seems like he is bridging two sizes, especially depending on the brand of clothing. I also use two bins for his laundry. I wait until I have a full load, take the bin downstairs, and use it to carry all the folded laundry back upstairs. Sometimes I don't get the whole process done in one day, so I like having two :)

These two drawers are really useful for items that don't hang well. I've labeled it pretty thoroughly so no further explanation here.

Right now, Cam is able to fit in 6-12mo and 12-18mo, so I'm already having him rock the sleepers on the bottom left. One is a winter snowman one which is making me ridiculously excited for the holidays! Up top is one of my favorite gifts we've received. My sister buys each niece, nephew and her own kids one of these bags. My Godson/nephew chose the blue color. We use this bag all the time! It's perfect for 1-3 night stays.


Bottom right are storage bins. The bins of tears, because I cry when I have to put away itty bitty clothes when my chunka chunk moves up a size. We have a spot in the basement for these, but things are a bit of a disaster down there right now, so I'm storing them in his closet since we have the space. The shelf is where I store clothes that are further out, like a year+ down the road. I have issues with clearance racks. Really, really, big issues.


The only other clothing type storage we have is the Hemnes dresser from Ikea. It also doubles as our changing table. If you are looking for an all purpose piece that will grow with your little one, look no further! I love this dresser! And wait until you see how much it stores.



Oh, I lied. There is one other piece of storage. Carl and his Dad made Cam's crib. Yeah. I'm kind of lucky in the "the men in my life know how to build stuff and stuff" way. I requested a specific crib design because it had more storage. The crib sits on a base with two drawers.

We don't keep a lot of toys in Cam's room, but what few ones we do, we keep on his custom made built-in bookcase made, again, lovingly by Carl and his Dad.


Are you inspired? Is your closet, or maybe your little one's closet about to get organized? I hope this is the answer some of you were looking for, and if you need further explanation on anything, you know you can just ask!

Fitted Sheet Folding Tutorial Vlog

The other day I posted this picture saying one of these sheets was the impossible-to-fold fitted sheet.

Does it even really matter? They both look lovely, right? Well, if it does, it's the top one. More importantly, how do you achieve that nice, crisp folded fitted sheet? No more shouting $%^& it, rolling it in a ball and throwing it in the linen closet. It's time to learn how to do the impossible.



If anything isn't clear, please just let me know! Making a vlog with a whiny, woke-up-from-his-nap-early, mobile, 9 month old isn't as easy as it sounds :/ Feel free to ask any questions in the comments, or for an easier reply, use the My Happy House Facebook Page!

Lastly, I'm always willing to take requests on tutorials! Just throw it at me! Except for ironing and hospital corners. Carl does his own ironing (shocking, right?) and he doesn't allow me to tuck in his side of the sheet because his feet need freedom at night :)

Tackle It Tuesday: My Monica Closet

You know how everything in life can be compared to a moment on Friends? Well here is one for you. Remember the episode with the closet? The one where Monica won't let Chandler see inside it and it turns out it's because it's her junk closet. It's her messy space. Well, let me introduce you to My Monica Closet.


What's that you say? It doesn't look THAT bad? Oh....perhaps that's because you know I'm awful at remembering the "before" photo and that's after I had already taken all of this out.


It had been awhile since I purged our guest room closet, AKA my off-season or rarely worn items closet. I have a bad habit of holding on to clothes thinking "I miiiiight need to wear this one day." I don't. I forget I even have the stuff. It was time to purge. So I started piles. One for donating and one for an honest to goodness I really will wear this again, including winter coats and such.

I organized everything going back in the closet. Along with the clothes, we keep our luggage, some spare bedding, purses, sleeping bags and our air mattress for extra guest sleeping space in here.





Last step is to fold all the clothes I'm donating, put them in bags/boxes and schedule a pick up from our local charity organization.
I ended up donating two very large black garbage bags full of clothes. Man does that feel good! Yeah, it really does. Go tackle something that's been weighing on you!

Get in the habit....

...of changing your sheets weekly.  My process is to throw the sheets in the wash in the morning (usually on Monday).  Before I put the sheets back on, I start by dusting.  Work your way from top to bottom.  I do the fan and then all the furniture.  Bring in the vacuum and clean the mattress and carpet or rug.  Lastly, put your sheets back on and your done!  You'll keep your room dust free and clean and have refreshing sheets all the time!

Is this something you already do?  If not, are you going to implement it?  It definitely works wonders for our bedroom!  We finished up a big DIY project yesterday, now I just need to gather all my info and create the post.  I can't wait to share it with you!

Outerwear Organization

Since this week we added "Organize Your Outwear" to the challenge list of to dos, I thought I should show how we've updated our "outwear" organization. Keep in mind, my definition of outerwear is anything you take out of the house with you on a regular basis. Shoes, coats, purses, laptop bags, diaper bags, sunglasses, etc.

I already showed you how terrible our front closet was looking up until now. Yipes. But it's in much better shape now. I organized our shoes that we wear often in the baskets in the bottom. The rest went upstairs to be put away in our shoe holders in our bedroom; more on that later. I also went through our coats.

I promise, unless the photo is supposed to have Gibson in it, I do not stage these things. I think he's trying to become famous. Sorry Gib, I don't think this is the way to get there.


Let's stay downstairs and discuss my baggage. No, not my emotional baggage. My literal baggage, the things I put my whole life in and carry around with me! We started putting a lot of things in the laundry room including our laptop bags, but once Cam arrived, it was getting way too cluttered. Between laptop bags, diaper bags, my purses, and more it was just too much. We scaled that entry area back to just purses, my diaper bag and my reusable shopping bags as those are the things I take out of the house the most.
We also still have the other shelf/mirror on the other wall that we use for car keys and our sunglasses.


However, that meant we needed a new place for the less used items. Carl came up with the idea to use the staircase wall heading down to the basement. Perfect! We used these hooks from Ikea because if they aren't being used they flip up which was important to us to avoid any potential injuries.




That's it for downstairs. We've got a place for our bags, shoes, coats, keys and more. But what about all those other shoes that aren't worn as much or perhaps are out of season? I've been using this system for years now, and granted, I let it go for a bit, but when you actually USE it, it works! The Shoes Under system just slides under our bed. I bought four of them and unfortunately have filled them all...and then some. And that's after this recent organization when I got rid of about 20 pairs of shoes. I'm not kidding. Granted, many of those shoes were very old or just flimsy flip flops.

Anyway, it started like this:


And now it's like this:







All neatly organized and each one is slid under the bed, easily accessible. I take these photos not just to show you how they look, but they also get put up on the inside of the door of the closet. That way, I know at a glance what shoes are where rather than to slide each individual holder out and look. Lazy? Maybe a little...I like to call it resourceful!

Lastly, if I take the holders out from under the bed, they are immediately replaced with my four legged friend. This photo was not staged, but it is just to show you what goes under my bed. I still haven't figured out that fascination.



Was that enough inspiration to go organize your outerwear? Hopefully, cause that's all I've got for you right now! Hope you are all enjoying your weekend!

How I Make Our Bed

I've been asked before how I make our bed, so here is my tutorial. However, if you have a big aversion to wrinkles, you may not want to go any further. There was no time to iron out wrinkles when I took the photos. Sorry.

First, here is our naked bed, or at least as naked as it gets for us. We use a waterproof allergen protector on our mattress. Carl has allergies, so this is a necessity. Plus, the bed skirt is on there (again...forgive my wrinkles. They have fallen out by now, promise)


Next goes the fitted sheet. Flat sheet goes over that. I put ours on what looks like it would be upside down. You'll see why later.
This next step I do every day even though Carl undoes it....every day. I like my side tucked, he doesn't, but when I make the bed, it's all tucked. Sometimes I tuck the sides, but not usually.
Next I prep the duvet cover. I scrunch up to the two furthest corners.

I then place the duvet inside the cover grasping the corners of both the duvet and cover and shake like a mad woman to get them to line up. Button up the bottom and ta da- duvet all set!
Next, about 1/3 of the duvet gets flipped back.

And then about 1/4 of the top sheet gets flipped back. This is why it gets put on upside down.


(Alternate sheet fold)
Sometimes I'll fold the sheet back and wrap around the duvet like this:



I like it both ways (that's what she said...).

Lastly, place the pillows. I like to have an odd number of pillows. It's just my preference. I like two Euro pillows (the square ones in the back), two regular ones (laying flat), two sham pillows and then one accent pillow. You can also see the flat sheet folded under the mattress at the head of the bed for a cleaner look as well.

So that's that. Nothing too fancy, but it makes for a nice looking bed. As for a washing schedule, we have two sets of sheets. I change the sheets once a week. Every two weeks, the two sets of sheets get washed together. On the off week of washing the sheets, the duvet cover, euro shams, regular shams and accent pillowcase get washed. This way we get new sheets every week, and the rest of the bedding is washed twice a month without overloading the washing machine.Sooooo...did you make your bed today??