Front Garden Update

On Saturday my mom and I had a garden center day! We spent the morning visiting a few local garden centers and then had a lovely lunch. We had such a great time and both of us kept commenting on how nice it was. I love spending time with my mom and now that I have gardens of my own I actually enjoy going to garden centers, something that has long been one of her favorite activities. She managed to do a good job at passing down her love of gardening to both my brother and I because we both love to buy plants and see nice looking gardens!

I picked up five new plants on Saturday and a little garden friend! Since our front garden is in the sun 90% of the day I always try to pick plants that do well in full sun. The plants I picked up were; Russian sage, Iberis in pink ice, a pink azalea, a dwarf butterfly bush in pink micro chip, and a dwarf Alberta spruce. Tim and I had a gift card from his parents for a local nursery Clark Farms so I was able to pick up the azalea and butterfly bush there. I actually picked up the other three at the Walmart garden center and they were all on clearance! I have no problem buying clearance plants and trying to make them work in my garden.

Now for a quick look at the garden...

This was on Saturday evening and you can see the Russian sage and iberis on this side of the garden. I needed to fill that middle area and am hoping that since they are perennials they will come back each year and fill this area nicely. I can foresee adding other plants in here in the future because a garden is never full, but for now I am really loving have a couple of plants to fill the void.

On the left side of the garden you can see the dwarf alberta, the butterfly bush and the azalea lined up nicely here. My mom has the same spruce in her garden and it doesn't get very big at all but adds a bit of green in the wintertime which is exactly what I'm looking for. I love the colors of the butterfly bush and the azalea and know they will get larger in time and I am looking forward to seeing them take up more room in the garden. Also, you can see my little hedgehog friend who I picked up from HomeGoods for only $17! I was looking for a little garden friend and was thrilled when I found him because everything else was too large or too strange looking for me. 

Some closer looks at the new plants. That azalea has the most stunning pink color!

I also checked on our little garden near the road and am happy to report that everything I planted last year came back and the evergreens are still in good condition. I think we might need to limb up the tree though so it looks less like a bush. I am hesitant to do it though because it's been so healthy and I really don't know much about taking care of trees!

Yesterday Tim helped me bring the bird bath around the front and it's now living next to the spruce. It looks a little tall for the area currently, but once the spruce grows a bit and we fill in more areas I think it will look so nice out there.

Next weekend we plan to mulch (it got up in the 90s this weekend and we just couldn't bear to be outside long enough to get it done) and then hopefully the front gardens will be complete for the season. 

As for the backyard? Well, that's a work in process which we hopefully will complete soon too!

Have a great day everybody!

 

Under Bathroom Sink Organization Project

Happy Christmas Week!!

I can't believe it's the week of Christmas- this month has flown by! Today I just want to share a quick organizing project I did recently. Under our bathroom sink has looked like this since we moved in:

A total disaster. I literally would just toss products in here because there was no place for them to stand upright. I had no idea what was in the back and it was just a nightmare trying to find anything.

So I did what I always recommend everyone to do- pull everything out, organize into categories and put everything back in! Remember it always gets worse before it gets better. 

I picked up two new organizing products from The Container Store to help me organize.

The first is the Silver 2 drawer mesh organizer which is a reasonably priced container at $25. I feel like sometimes organizing products can get a little ridiculous, but $25 doesn't seem bad for the amount of products it holds!

The second product is the iDesign Linus Deep Turntable  which I think is another reasonable product, the large one I got is $19. I decided to use this to store all my cleaning supplies.

The only other product I used was a basket that I bought at Target years ago. Everything fit back in the cupboard neatly and having just a few places to corral products truly made a huge difference! 

It's definitely not "pinterest worthy" but not every organization project has to be about that. Most of the time you simply need to be able to organize in order to make your life easier! Every day I benefit from this project and I'm so glad I finally completed it!

Guys, I have so many projects (organizing/cleaning/redecorating/renovating) that I want to complete in the near future, so make sure you stick around!!

Have a great day!!

 

Privacy Fence is Up and Future Garden Ideas!

Friends, the privacy fence is fully installed! No thanks to me, but lots of thanks to my wonderful hubby! Now we just need to figure out how to continue the fence around the backyard with the wire fencing we purchased. Hopefully it's fairly easy and the rest of the process can be completed pretty quickly (fingers crossed).

On Saturday Tim got to work finishing the final two panels for our privacy fence.

Sophie and I watched. We are the best helpers around! 

Sophie has no clue that her freedom is slowly being stripped away from her. She continues to run around the fence and thinks it's a fun game to disappear behind it. Soon she will be trapped in the backyard....poor Sophie! 

Now, you might be looking at this picture thinking the fence looks slanted. Well, it is.

Our lot is sloped on both sides. There is a hill on the side of our house that isn't technically our property and belongs to the people who live behind us (the former owners of this home too) and while that piece of property used to belong to our house, before they sold it to us they split the property in order to allow for a driveway to be put in there someday. It's only 50 feet, which isn't much and they say they have no "master plan" which we are choosing to believe but that explains the slope that we can't really do much about. 

Also, while we are on the subject I am cautiously planning out what we will do if we ever hear that they want to put in a driveway...or if/when we go to sell the house. I am thinking of planting trees/shrubs along our property line to make sure we would still have privacy if they did decide to clear the wooded area.

Nevertheless. I love our new privacy fence. I am so happy we went with the final fencing and love that we now have some privacy in our backyard. It makes it much nicer when I head out there in my pajamas with Sophie in the morning!

Now, let's talk about gardening...because that has been the topic on mind recently!

I picked up these tulip bulbs from the Christmas Tree Shop and decided to plant them in our front garden by the street.

You can see the disturbed mulch area where I've planted them and I hope that it will be a nice beginning to spring. Keep your fingers crossed for me that they take and we see them in March! You can see my tree that the previous owners planted is changing colors, and the evergreens I planted are still doing well. The lavender I planted has gone past, and the annuals are long gone. I'm anxious to see how all of this will do through the winter and am keeping my fingers crossed that the evergreens make it through!

Other than the tulips I don't have any plans for this small garden. I may purchase annuals again next Spring or maybe some new perennials, but I haven't decided yet!

Now, by having the new fence it means I am given the opportunity for new gardens! I am thinking of getting evergreens for this area so there is always something colorful in front of the fence. I might do an arborvitae on the corner where the vinyl fence meets the wire fencing, but I don't want to completely cover the rest of the fence by planting tall evergreens along it. 

I am thinking about mixing some conifers with possibly rose bushes. I can't wait to play around with this area. It is tucked behind a Siberian elm tree the old owners planted so it's a little secret garden area. We aren't having a gate or anything over here so I could really bring the garden out as far as I want it which is dangerous. I need to not go crazy or I will spend all my money on plants.

The picture I just showed you meets up with this one. Along the side of our house in front of fence is a skinny area we dug out and mulched in the summer. I planned originally to just fill this with hostas but Now I'm not sure, I definitely want to include hostas since they do well in our area but I am thinking I might bring in some other plants to enjoy. 

Also, don't judge us for still having our AC in....my husband runs it almost every night and it will certainly be in until November... I just pile on the blankets over here!

Now on the other side of our house we have the vinyl fence with our gate. There is only a tiny sliver of area between the driveway and the fence so I'm not quite sure what we will do here.

It definitely needs something, but it will have to be something that doesn't need a lot of space to spread out. 

However on the back side of the fence I have lots of room to play! You can see my bird bath here as well and my plan is to fill this area with a mix of evergreens and perennials to keep it looking amazing and colorful in the spring and summer but still have enough winter interest in the fall and winter. I also would love to add a bird feeder here and want to add bird feeders and house around the yard. I might be turning into my mom....

On the back side of this fence I am thinking along the same lines as the other side. Evergreens and perennials, maybe some grasses? I need to figure out how to get all these areas filled without spending a million dollars...

I'm not even going to show you the back of the house because although eventually I would also like that to be a garden, right now it's storing extra bricks, fencing, etc... and is a disaster. I couldn't resist sharing this little face though! She was watching me out the window and just looked so sweet!

Any ideas for my new gardens? I might do a post with some inspiration pictures I've found on pinterest...so keep an eye out for that!

 Also, can you believe that two years ago tomorrow was our wedding day?! It's flown by and I am still so in love with my sweet husband! Although two years ago I never imagined being in a global pandemic on our second wedding anniversary, I am happy that through it all I have someone reliable, kind, and amazing to wake up next to every morning! Happy anniversary Tim, I love you!!!

Rainbow Shelves and Tap To Clean

 Do you guys have today off too?! Three day weekends are so glorious, I would love to have three days off every weekend! Over the course of the weekend I got a ton of things done around the house which was great. Nothing too exciting of course... we are still mid-way through the fence project and haven't started or completed any other projects lately. I had a long list of to-dos and managed to get through about half of them. 

Have you seen the "tap to clean" trend on instagram? I am so obsessed with it and like to do them on my own instagram (@balancingonmytoes).

Here is one I did last week...

I love when I get through a chore like dishes or laundry, it's so satisfying to me!

I also made a rainbow bookshelf in our office a la The Home Edit. If you haven't watched The Home Edit show on Netflix yet you definitely need to! I love the rainbow color coded shelves, it's so esthetically pleasing. 

Isn't it funny how your home never truly feels "done" and you can continually find areas to update, things to buy, etc... I am constantly finding areas where I want to move things around or where I could buy something new for the area. It's definitely a never-ending feat!

What have you been doing around your house lately?

How We Make a 960 sq ft House Work For Us.....And Why It Won't Work Forever

Just over a year ago we moved into our first home! 

Buying your first home is the most exciting feeling, especially when you've been renting an apartment for the previous four years. We were thrilled to finally own our home and be putting money every month towards something that was all ours. We were thrilled to finally have more space and a yard. Everything about it was thrilling, from the time we made our offer to the day we officially moved in I was off the wall excited. 

Don't get me wrong I still love all of those things about our home. I love that we own it, I love that it's bigger than our apartment, I love that we have a yard... but it's not as much space as I initially thought it would be. The day we moved in and I realized that some of the rooms were much smaller then I pictured I was a little disappointed. Which is so sad I know. When we were shoving our bedroom furniture into the largest of the three bedrooms and I realized what little room we had to walk around I was frustrated because I was so sure that buying a home would be the answer to the space problems we always had in our apartment. News flash: it wasn't the answer!

Today I want to share some ways we are making our 960 sq ft house work for us. We've had to get a little creative around here! Then I want to share why it's not going to work for us forever...and what we are going to do about it. Before we get started though I want to say that I am so grateful for the home we have, I don't take it for granted. We are lucky that we are in the position to be able to own our home and a lot of my issues come from seeing huge custom built houses on Instagram, so please take this post with a grain of salt. That being said, here we go!

How we are making our 960 sq ft house work for us

- We are getting creative with food storage

If you haven't heard yet, we don't have a pantry. It makes food storage a little more difficult but we are doing a few things to help. 

1. We installed a behind the door unit that fits on the back of our basement door. The basement door is right next to our kitchen so it allows us to store things like canned goods, oils, etc without having to take up precious cabinet space.
2. We only use one double cabinet for food storage. We pretty much only keep items in here that are open. So open bags of chips, open jars of peanut butter, bread, or any sort of snack items in here.
3. We installed three shelves at the top of our basement stairs. These hold overflow items and other closed containers of items. There's a lot of rice, pasta, and other boxed items on these shelves. 
4. We utilize our home office to hold any overflow drinks that don't fit in our fridge. This includes soda and bottled water. 

- We use multiple closets for our clothes

My husband has a lot of clothes. I personally think the amount of clothes I have is pretty average but my husband has more then the average guy. (At least in my opinion)

Right now all of his hanging clothes currently live in our bedroom closet. All my hanging clothes currently live in the guest room closet. I recently moved all of Tim's sweatshirts to live with our jackets in the coat closet by the front door. I am constantly rearranging items trying to find the best system.

- I am constantly decluttering

I love to organize and declutter, I think it was just something I was born loving to do. I find myself constantly donating items and looking for junk to toss. For example the other day I moved some items around in our home office and I found myself testing all the pens and highlighters to see if any no longer worked. By constantly looking through items and getting rid of things that we don't want or need I am consistently opening up space in our home.

- We dream up and complete projects 

Any projects we do bring our house closer to being our dream home. Also, every project we complete makes the resale value of our home go up. We got a great deal on our home and know we will make a profit on it if/when we decide to sell. Doing projects makes this house more appealing to us and everyone else. Win all around!

- We are embracing the crazy

We know things won't be like this forever. Some day (hopefully) we will have more space then we know what to do with. We are doing our best to enjoy this chapter of life and feel very at home with our current house.

....and why it won't work forever....

We know this house, the way it is right now is not our dream "forever" home. We didn't purchase it thinking it was our forever home, it was simply a starter home. We live in a coastal town in Rhode Island where the taxes are much lower then the surrounding towns and buying a house in this particular town was our top priority. The neighborhood we bought in was one very familiar to me, one of my best friends grew up just down the street from our current house and her parents still live there today!  It seemed like a perfect situation for us but we've learned a lot since moving in.

Despite having a basement for storage we are very lacking in space. I can think of a ton of rooms that I would like in a future home (whether that be adding them on here or moving to a different house) including; a pantry, laundry room, master bedroom/bathroom/closet, mudroom, garage, dining room.  Not having these rooms make simple things difficult. Not having a dining room means it's pretty much impossible to entertain. We can have a few friends over but we don't have a place for everyone to sit and eat which is frustrating. Without a mudroom we walk directly into either our kitchen or living room meaning there is dirt all over the floor constantly and it's a constant battle to get coats and shoes put away in the closet. 

If we have kids we will be giving up our guest room which is fine since we don't ever have guests but the bigger issue is I will no longer have my own closet. We will somehow need to move all of my hanging clothes back into the closet that Tim has filled in our bedroom. If we have more than one kid, I don't know where we would put them. In the same room together? Give up our home office that I currently work in every day? 

The bigger question is what our future plans are and I honestly don't have an answer for you! I am not sure if we will plan to add onto this house or if we will build/buy a new house in the future. I am personally on team build a new house but that is because I'm spoiled and want to plan the whole thing out and make it perfect for us. I also would love to have more land and have our house more hidden from the road. Right now everyone can see if we are home and see if we are in the front yard. I always dreamed of living in a neighborhood but honestly I think I would prefer living on a back road with more land. I like to spend time hanging around the house and would personally prefer a lot more privacy then we currently have.

I also am hopeful that we will have kids and would love to have a second floor with a playroom for them to enjoy. 

I could sit here and make a wish list of everything I hope we have in a future home but the main point is that we will end up doing something in the future, I'm just not sure which way it will go. For now we will just make improvements that work for us now but will also work for resale if we decide to go that route.

Tell me about your home! Is it your forever home? What is the square footage? Do you ever feel like you need more space?

Outdoor Fall Decorating/ Life Lately

To every person who reached out to me through comments/emails/texts after my post last Friday, thank you. It means the world to me that you are here and while my world and story aren't always picture perfect  I am so thankful to have each and every one of you here for it.

On a lighter note today I'm sharing what we've been up to lately...which honestly isn't much! Are you still laying low where you are? In some ways it seems like things are a little more back to normal because I feel more comfortable going into stores, school has started in person/hybrid here, and it just feels like life is a little more normal. However, on the other end of the spectrum everyone is still in a mask all the time, I still work from home nearly all the time, and we don't have a lot of plans besides being around the house! I love being at home so I truly don't mind that part of it, but it leaves me with not too much besides house updates!

This past Saturday my papa and his girlfriend Vivian stopped by to visit us (well mostly Sophie) and it was so nice to have some visitors! Sophie was fairly well behaved and loved being fed a million treats and gaining a new toy. While they were visiting they mentioned stopping at a farm and once they left Tim and I decided to head to a local farm to pick up some outdoor fall decor. We love going to Shickasheen Farm and if you are in the South County area they are a great side of the road farm stand with awesome prices! Our friend Emma and her husband run it along with their family and we loved getting the chance to chat with Emma a bit and pick up a pumpkin and a couple of mums for our front steps. Emma mentioned that they were going to have some more pumpkins soon, so I will definitely be back for some more decor soon!

I love having a bit of fall sprinkled on my front steps. I also recently replaced my front door mat and bought a new buffalo check mat for underneath as well. Both were purchased on Amazon and I love them! Quick question for you, how often do you replace outdoor mats? I am finding that mine wear out super quick, but they are exposed to the elements (no overhang) so I suppose it makes sense. I just assumed they lasted a bit longer, but maybe I just paid no attention when I was younger and living at home!

Oh, football is back! Thanks Soph for the reminder! 

We have been busy drafting fantasy football teams and watching the first week of games. I was quite pleased that the Patriots won on Sunday afternoon and even more pleased when Tampa Bay had a terrible game. Brady and Gronk weren't looking great and I selfishly enjoyed watching those traitors suffer. If you've been around for awhile, you know I have always loved Gronk so I feel a bit betrayed by him. Brady I think all of New England is angry with but I don't know what he expected to happen.

It's nice to have football back on for another bit of normalcy since Tim and I spend most of our Sunday with football on the tv!

We are still going on a lot of walks around here! Tim said to me the other day that no other dog in the neighborhood seems to be getting two walks a day...but this girl does! I have been doing a healthy living program lately and I will talk about it soon, but it is definitely encouraging me to get out and be active every day! 

So that's what's been up around here lately. Let me know what you've been up to!

 

Our Guest Bedroom

Getting real today!

Our guest bedroom is nothing special. The furniture in it is the furniture I grew up with in my bedroom. The mattress is on the floor and it's Tim's old mattress (although super comfortable!) 

I store my vacuum fleet (yes, I have more than one vacuum and I want more...) in this room. The decor is just kind of thrown in there. 

So yes, nothing special. But to be honest we haven't ever hosted anyone in this room. This is a three bedroom house and when we turned one room into an office, we set up the second bedroom as a guest room. Eventually if we have kids I imagine this becoming a nursery. But for now it's just an extra bedroom in case someone spends the night!

When you first walk in the door you see the dresser with the tv and DVD player on top and my vacuum fleet. Also a signed Gronk picture that is making me a little sad lately.

As you can see this was just a typical day where I didn't clean up for you for pictures. #keepingitreal 

Donations and items listed on poshmark were just sitting on the bed.  

I love this ladder bookshelf but there just wasn't room for it in our living room so I stuck it in here. Maybe if we renovate someday or if we move it will fit out in our living room again. Do you keep furniture even if it doesn't work for you currently?

A look back towards the door. So, as I said at the beginning...nothing exciting! But this room is basically filled with things that didn't work elsewhere in our home. 

Do you have a guest room in your house? How often does it get used?

Our Kitchen

Hey everyone!

Today we are talking about our kitchen! If you've been reading along you might have noticed that I'm slowly sharing with you each room of our house. Our kitchen is used daily and along with the living room is the place we spend the most time.

When we first moved in we immediately painted the cabinets and then bought new appliances. Here's what it currently looks like:

Our island is where we sit to eat all of our meals. There isn't room for a kitchen table in our house currently so we spend our meals at the counter. In our apartment we sat on the couch so at least this is a step up!

Eventually we would like to replace the countertops and floors. I could see us also redoing the entire kitchen if we decide to make this our forever home. For right now it works just fine but seeing a quartz countertop would be so nice :)

I love the appliances we picked. Tim was the person who actually pointed them out. I was so set on getting stainless steel but I never thought about the black stainless and I honestly like it better. It looks so good with the white cabinets. We have loved our LG appliances so far and I would definitely pick them again in a future home!

All of our KitchenAid supplies and other teal decor is my favorite! How nice would it all look with a grayish quartz countertop on both the regular counter and the island?!

This is the main door we come in and out every day. I really love how homey it feels. As many improvements as I can come up with, I love this being our first home! I know we will probably outgrow it someday and need to make a decision whether to add on or move but I do love coming through that door into our home every day. Especially when a little furry face greets me :)

What is your kitchen like? Do you have any big plans for it?

Life Lately

Hey friends! I am getting ridiculously lazy around here with updating you. Maybe it's the work from home life that has me so lax or just the fact that there isn't a whole lot happening around here since things still aren't completely back to normal.

What is open in your state? Here in Rhode Island there are some dining options open, we are required to wear masks inside any stores or public areas, and are still super concerned about the Coronavirus spreading but it seems like across the country each state is very different! We still haven't been to a restaurant besides picking up food since March and have only seen a small number of our friends. Tim has worked through the whole time since he works for a family business and they don't see customers in person. I have been rocking the work from the couch life which I am loving! I think I get just as much done, work even more hours, but have the flexibility to stay home with Sophie and throw in a load of laundry. It's truly the best of both worlds for me! I'm glad I am able to see my friends and family again though, which I will talk a little more about later. 

I am so glad we have this bubbly little girl in our lives! She has been my constant companion over the last few months and the two of us are more bonded now then I ever could've imagined! I am slowly working on preparing her for when I go back to the office which should be in the next couple of months and she's even gotten me into a brand new habit in order to help with this.

I started waking up at 6am every day in order to take her for a walk. I know I need to get more exercise into my routine so I thought that starting each day walking Sophie would be a great way to do that, make sure she gets to use the bathroom, and tire her out a bit before we leave. Now obviously I take her for her walk and then she sleeps all morning until I take her out at lunch time quickly and then when I normally would get home from work I take her back out for a second walk of the day. I'm hoping this new routine will help her adjust to us being gone during the day but man am I going to miss being with her all day!!

So, what have we been up to besides work and hanging with our dog? Honestly not a whole lot!! We did visit with Derek and Ally and Ally's family for her birthday earlier this month! It was our first real socialization and it was so nice! I loved being able to hang out with other people but I was completely exhausted the next day, apparently socializing is exhausting for me, haha.

Of course I have no pictures because the only pictures I've been taking lately involve a furry friend or are a picture of the house or yard. I need to get back into picture taking mode!

Last Thursday I was able to reunite with Rachel and Brittni for dinner at Brit's house! We got to see all four of the kiddos and then go home to our quiet house, haha! It was so nice to get little kids hugs, hear "Auntie Melissa!" screamed at top volume and just watch them all play for the first time in a looooooong time! We love spending time with these two families and left recapping our favorite stories from the night. It was also just amazing to be back with my best friends! Quarantine was, at times, super lonely and depressing. When you work from home and are home all day alone and you are waiting for your husband to get home from work every day it can be very isolating. There were days that were really hard for me. Days where I felt like sobbing, days where I felt like screaming but finally, finally we are back to having a little social contact and I am so happy! Again, I absolutely love working from home, but I didn't like not being able to go to a store or socialize or see friends and family in person. I am much happier with a little time with my friends!

Here is my little friend chilling in her doggy pool! This picture is from Saturday when it was 80 degrees and I filled it up for the first time. She wouldn't lay down in the pool even though I kept telling her it would be cooler that way, but she seemed to enjoy herself and loved when I sprayed her with the hose. I really want to get her out on the water this summer because I know she will love it! We usually do a family kayaking trip so that is definitely a possibility. At some point we will hopefully purchase our own kayaks so we can go out whenever we would like!

Of course on Sunday we had to celebrate Father's Day (or Pawther's Day!). Sophie signed on to Amazon and ordered this shirt for Tim and proceeded to rip a hole in it within minutes so onto Amazon we went again for another one. (No, the hole wasn't repariable. It was in a weird spot not on a seam and would've looked odd) 

After giving Tim his card and shirt I headed off to my parents house to have breakfast with my dad and brother while Tim and Sophie headed to his dad's house to have breakfast with his side of the family. I had a big lunch event with my mom, brother, papa, uncles, cousins, papa's girlfriend, and both my uncles girlfriends in my moms backyard and it was so nice! It was nice to see family again! (Don't worry, our number was at 12 so we were underneath the Governor's order of 15!) While I was having lunch Tim was golfing with his dad for the afternoon.  When I arrived home Sophie was thrilled to see me since it was the longest that she and I had been separated but I heard from Tim that she had a great time at Poppy (Or Pawpy's) house that morning so I knew she was exhausted! 

So that's what we've been up to lately, what have you all been up to?

Have a great day!!

Our Home Office

Growing up both my parents always had offices in our home. My mom was a teacher so hers was full of crafting supplies and for some reason I got it in my head that I would have an office in my house when I grew up too.

Tim pointed out that it wasn't necessary because neither of us work from home. Well... now, with everything going on, I do. 

Our office was outfitted with Ikea furniture and mostly just holds office supplies and everything else we aren't sure what to do with but I love that we have this space. We still need some serious organization systems in here and definitely need to do an overhaul at some point, but for now it's working.

The desk is from Ikea and I would love to get a new office chair since this one squeaks constantly. Right now I have quite a few work related items on this desk but usually it is just where I house my items for paying bills and my coupons.

The Alex 9 drawer from Ikea used to house all personal items like makeup and lotions. Now it houses those items in the top few drawers and then office supplies in the bottom. I plan to eventually make this full of all office supplies.

It certainly isn't a perfectly organized and beautiful space but it has come so far! I love collecting books and it makes me so happy to have all my favorites housed on the bookshelf along with some of our personal decor we have collected. 

I haven't found a solution for my scrapbooks so for now they are just stacked here. This small organizer has some office supplies and also holds all my hanging files. I try to not keep extra paper but we do have quite a bit that I think is important to save.

I love my Martha Stewart wall organizer where I house my "TO DO" and "TO FILE" papers. It's nice that Tim and I have a place to toss things and I can set aside time each week or so to file and do the items inside. I find that this saves me time in the long run instead of constantly filing!

All my jewelry (aka all my Wet Seal and Kohls jewelry) lives in this jewelry armoire along with my collection of free sunglasses and sewing supplies. What can I say? I'm not an expensive jewelry girl. I don't take good care of sunglasses so I will never spend more than $5 on them and I know I will break all of my jewelry so it's not worth it for me to spend money on it.

I love my tall bookcase from Ikea. It needs a little work but as some point I will put aside the time to get this done!

Another look back at my small bookcase. 

I love having some decor from our wedding in here! I hated the idea of buying things for the wedding and then getting rid of them so I made sure things like our card box and our decor (MR&MRS sign) were things I would include in my house. My brother made our card box and I found a decal on Etsy to attach and it turned out amazing. He is truly talented!

Do you have a home office? If not, where do you keep all your office supplies and paperwork??

Have a great day!