My youngest daughter just turned TEN! It’s so crazy to think she’s already in the double digits! For her birthday she wanted a room renovation. She has a tiny little room and it was SO cluttered and crowded with SO much stuff so it ALWAYS felt so messy and disorganized. So along with giving her a few new things that were more her style, we had to find ways to maximize the space in her room. In case you aren’t sure how small I mean by tiny – it’s about 7 feet by 10 feet and I know people who have closets bigger than her room! Anyway, here are a LOT of photos of what we did.
Some before shots – keep in mind this was a crazy weekend for us and her room was EXTRA messy with junk, plus her mattress was in her sister’s room from a sleepover the night before. This is looking toward the right from the door of the room.
And this is looking toward the left from the door of the room.
This is looking straight on, you can just about see the wall on both sides of the room.
First we emptied out EVERYTHING we possibly could with the exception of a couple pieces of furniture. I took down the window treatments and washed the super nasty, dirty windows and window sills.
We FILLED my dining room with all the junk from her room! I seriously thought it looked like an episode of Hoarders and could NOT believe ALL this stuff fit into that tiny little room! Seeing all that stuff motivated me that we had to get rid of some things and make the whole room more functional for her.
And this is the tiny closet. There was one shelf {around where the middle one is in this photo} and one bar for hanging clothes. But her closet was always a crazy mess and she never hung her clothes up properly. So we lowered the bar and added 2 extra shelves … you’ll see in the later pics how much more efficient this makes the tiny space …
Here is the ‘in progress’ photo – the walls are painted, the doors and trim are all painted and it’s just drying overnight.
In the morning we moved the furniture around. This bed is fabulous because it has drawers underneath, but it also had a bookcase headboard that held a lot of junk and just took up a couple extra feet of space – so we took the headboard away and it added a bit of space to the room. Every little inch of added space was helpful!! Side note, someday we will replace the rug, for now it was not in the budget and even though there is beautiful hardwood under it we feel that it warms up the room a lot to have a rug – so that will come at a later time.
See how the bed now butts up against the wall instead of a headboard, she really doesn’t miss the headboard at all at this point. I also painted that little dresser. It used to be in the closet and holds her PJ’s, socks and undies – but we pulled it out to use as a nightstand and I painted it to match the room. At the last minute I decided to try the Chevron look with some scotch tape and it came out pretty good! Not perfect but good enough!
On the other side of the room we put 2 bookshelves. We took the desk out of her room {it was just used to hold clutter and not really functional} and we purchased the cube style bookshelf {the tall one we already owned}. The black shelves you see near the ceiling are ones a friend of ours installed for us when we were pregnant with our first baby. They hold stuffed animals, trophies, etc. and have been a WONDERFUL thing to have in a little girl’s room for all these years {especially girls who like to collect lots of things!}.
I tried to cover her lampshade with fabric – UGH, I should have looked up a tutorial or something because it did not turn out well. But it’s there for now until I can do something better.
And I re-did her bulletin board since she has pretty much outgrown her Princess theme … I got some fabric that matched the room and some ribbon and buttons to match – a whole lotta hot glue later and it turned out great!
Here it is hanging on the wall before putting all her little mementos on it …
And with all her stuff …
And here is the AFTER of her room when you look into it from the doorway … it’s so light and bright and airy now!!! She got the new bedding for her birthday and we already had the curtains.
Because she’s 10 and she still needs to be allowed to ‘make it her own’ she was allowed to put up all her posters after the room re-do was all done.
The paper lanterns in the corner were something we already owned.
Here is her bedside area …
And the opposite wall with some things she already had. The little shelf was something she got a long time ago but we had never gotten around to painting. So I got a can of dark purple spray paint and painted it to go in the room. It turned out so cute!
Here is her tall bookshelf filled with her stuff. We got those blue bins at Five Below and they are fantastic for holding a lot of her things. She also has her American Girl doll bunks and other doll stuff over on this side of the room.
I labeled the bins so it will be easy for her to know where things go when she needs to put stuff away. I love how the inside of the bins has the same polka dots and colors of her bedding!
And here is her other shelving unit filled with her stuff. I got rid of a lot of stuff so it wouldn’t be totally overloaded. The trash can in the bottom right corner was also from Five Below and matches perfectly!
On the upper shelves she has lots of things that she doesn’t use much {if at all}. Trophies, snowglobes, stuffed toys, etc. …
After we got all the shelves in the closet I painted the WHOLE thing to match the room. Amazing how the color in the closet can already make it look so much better! I didn’t worry about doing a perfect paint job since no one will ever see it closely.
And then we filled it back up with her stuff! The highest shelf has some blankets that are just for extra use. The middle shelf has her instrument, some hats and some bins to hold special things she likes to save. The bottom shelf has 3 green bins {that we already had} and even though they don’t really match her current décor I thought it would be silly not to use them so in the closet they work just fine. I filled them up with her crafts supplies and let me tell you she has A LOT! It was SO nice to have a place to store all that since before it all cluttered up her desk area.
I also put a little hook on the left side wall to hang her necklaces from…
These bins also got labels so she can keep her things organized and put away. Having the closet set up this way has helped a lot! She has so much more storage space and there is a place to put everything away now!
Finally here is one last BEFORE picture of the room ….
Usually every year my family and I have a fancy Valentine dinner at home. We decorate the house, dress up fancy, make a yummy dinner and celebrate! This year however our schedules are just crazy, busy this week and we knew it just wasn't going to happen. So when the blizzard hit here on Friday and Saturday and we all ended up home for several days I knew it was the perfect time to have our little celebration. Instead of dinner though we had a yummy breakfast in our jammies together.
While my family was busy doing other things I got everything all set up in the dining room ... I have a box of Valentine decor that I keep to use year after year. Everything was pretty cheap too. Did you know you can buy a package of 24 paper doilies for only ONE dollar?! :)
candles, confetti, hearts ...
We had pink milk, strawberries and delicious cinnamon rolls!
I didn't take pics of the family, no one really wanted pictures of themselves in their pajamas.
You'll have to take my word for it that everyone LOVED the breakfast!
So while you're here would you like to see the rest of my Valentine decor??
This year I was ADDICTED to making these paper heart garlands! I made 3 and kept looking around the house for more places to make more. I made myself stop at 3 but it was hard not making more!! LOL
This one was by far my favorite one.
Red yarn, painted/glittered clothespins, paper hearts and paper doilies ....
This is my mantle...
I made this a few years ago using scrapbook papers/supplies and a large glittered heart I bought in a package from Walmart or Target {I can't remember!}
My jars are the same ones I had out for January but I took out the white candles and put in red one, tied some red yarn around them with paper doilies and stuck in some small hearts. So simple!
The print was a free one I found on Pinterest! The candy in the jar was from the dollar store and thankfully is NOT a temptation for me cause I don't like the taste of those candy hearts! And the paper flowers were made from cupcake liners.
On this shelf I just added some red tin wall hangings a cute little 'love' sign that I stamped several years ago and a framed photo of my girls when they were little that I absolutely ADORE!!
Is this the cutest picture or what?!
Another paper heart garland, this is our TV cabinet ... I painted and glittered the clothespins and cut out paper hearts - so easy and fun!
Another thing I made with scrapbook papers ...
I took down our snowflakes from January and put up paper hearts!
In the kitchen we have some fun, festive details. I use this cake stand to hold all my sink essentials - but now I just made sure everything was pink or red! Pink handsoap, red candle, red dish soap and scrubber...
And by tying some tulle around hte candle I can clip more cute paper hearts to it!
My coffee/tea/cocoa station also got some festive touches ...
And lastly this is above the sink in the kitchen.
So there ya go ... super simple and cheap, just use things you already have or save them from year to year in a small box.
Yesterday I had the wonderful privilege of speaking at our MOMS group at my church. I have to say I do NOT feel like a gifted speaker, however the topic I got to speak on was something that has been on my heart for almost a year now, so since it was something I felt passionate about I truly felt the Lord blessing it and giving me strength to face my nervousness and fears. A friend asked if I could post what I talked about here on the blog which I think is a fabulous idea! So if you don't mind reading the longest post ever, here we go ... {some of this is slightly tweaked from what I said in person, but this was basically the notes I spoke from.}
*Another quick thing to note, this whole topic was born because of the blog (in)courage and last year the writers at (in)courage hosted what they called the (in)RL {In Real Life} conference where women all over the world met together in each other's homes one day for a virtual conference. I was so impressed with the topic of community and our need for it that I purchased the DVD and Study guide from that conference and began studying more about the topic. (in)courage is hosting ANOTHER (in)RL conference this year on April 27th, so if you'd like more information about it, please click over to their blog here and find out more.*
Good
Morning! My name is Kathy and I have been married to my husband Bob for
16 years, we have two beautiful daughters – Hope is 11 and Joy is about to
turn 10. And I am BLESSED to be here and to be part of this COMMUNITY of MOMS.
But it wasn’t always that way for me. I moved here when my husband and I got
married, 16 years ago. But I was coming from a place of wonderful Christian
community since I had been attending Bible College for the previous few years.
In Bible College I lived in the dorms with a hundred other like-minded
Christian girlfriends and we bonded day and night and built amazing friendships
and connections. But then I married and we moved here, where my
husband had lived all his life and had built his own community of family and
friends – but I had no one. Well, not exactly no one, I had my in laws and I
had a job where I met people and made friends – but it was NOTHING like the
Christian community that I had come from just the year before and at first it was very
lonely.
Now don’t
get me wrong, my husband is my best friend and we certainly enjoyed our
marriage and our time together and like I said, I DID make some great friends at my
job. But when it came to Christian girlfriends I was struggling. We came here
to this church, but as you can tell it’s a big church. It was hard to find my place and
make connections in those early years of marriage!
When I got
pregnant with my first daughter, about 4 years into our marriage, I finally connected
with a couple of other Moms who were also pregnant and due around the same time
as me. After my daughter was born, I quit working to be home with her and I
began to attend Ladies Bible study and MOMS and have playdates with other Moms
and their babies and I FINALLY began to feel that sense of Christian community
that had been lacking for several years. Does that mean I’ve never been lonely
again? No way, in fact I find that even in this season of life, where I am
blessed with MANY wonderful Christian friends, I STILL go through seasons of loneliness.
So this
morning I want to talk about this concept of community and how we as
Christians, as Moms, as women can find the connections and community that our
hearts so often desire. {We watched a portion of the video from the (in)RL conference.}
Let’s talk
about your thoughts on community – what’s the first thing you think of when you
hear the word ‘community’? {the women shared some ideas}
The
dictionary defines community as: a group of people who reside in a specific
locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical
heritage; a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common
characteristics or interests.
So what are
some of the communities you are a part of?? {several women shared}
Sometimes
even though we may be ‘connected’ with several different types of communities,
we can still feel overwhelmingly lonely, right?
How often
have you felt like the Mom who is just stuck in the house, raising your kids,
cleaning your house, doing the daily things you need to do – yet so desperately
thinking ‘gosh, if I could just go grab a coffee with a girlfriend today, with
NO KIDS, how wonderful that would be, how refreshed I would feel as a mom!’ I
just want to encourage you that we’ve ALL been there! I know we all adore our
children and see them as a blessing from God, but it’s OK to want a break and
to desire a little time away every once in a while!
So what
holds us back? What are the obstacles that get in the way of us having deep,
meaningful friendships and not just having the friendships but making the time
to foster those relationships?? {again, the women shared their thoughts}
1 Corinthians
12:12 says ‘The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though
all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.’
This verse illustrates the unity of believers,
though we are all very diverse and have different backgrounds or Spiritual
gifts – we are created to work together as one body, just as an arm is
incomplete without the rest of the body. The Lord created us
for community; His desire is to see us work together as one body. He didn’t
create us to be alone; He created us to need each other!
When was the
last time you joined another group of women {or just one other woman} to do
something together? What was it? How did you feel afterwards? {several ladies shared}
IT FEELS
GOOD! I LOVE the time I get to spend with my girlfriends and I come away from
those times feeling refreshed and happy and full of joy.
Have you
ever thought about reaching out and seeing if a few other women would like to
join you in doing something you all enjoy? It could be as simple as grabbing a
cup of coffee, or doing some exercise together, or cooking together or doing a
hobby like scrapbooking … You might be surprised if you took the initial step
to reach out, that you might just find a couple or even a LOT of other women
who would love to join you!
If this is
something you’ve had on your heart but were always too afraid to step out in
faith and do, start praying about it today! Pray that the Lord will bring that
friend into your life. Pray that YOU can be the kind of friend someone else
might need today. Holley Gerth says, ‘Prayer connects us, it’s the shortest
distance between two or more hearts.’ Pray for friends and pray for the friends
you DO have. Some days I get a text from one of my friends with just a quick
‘would you please pray for me today?!’ plea and I always try to reply right
away so she knows I’ve got her covered – then stop what I’m doing and pray for
her right away. And I love that I have a few friends who will do the same for
me. It’s so important to lift one another up before the Lord!
Let’s
talk for a bit about the excuses, the reasons why it won’t or doesn’t work out
for us.
I showed this photo on the screen {it's from a couple weeks ago at a local Starbucks and is my friend Pamela's picture}
I want you
to see this photo of these lovely ladies … you will recognize many of them from
our MOMS group and a few may be unfamiliar … I didn’t get to go to this
gathering because I had something else going on that day – but this was just an
informal thing that Pamela put together where she basically made an
open invitation for anyone to join them at Starbucks this day. I just LOVE the
diversity of this group – we have young moms, older moms, single ladies, women
with little children, women with adult children, women who homeschool, women
who send their kids to public school and on and on it goes! But what I love
most, is the fact that each of these ladies got up that morning and didn’t make
excuses for why they couldn’t go … perhaps they didn’t know any of the other
women that would be there, perhaps Shirley or Jane may have thought, ‘aw, my
kids are grown, how will I fit in this group?’ or Maria may have thought ‘well
I’m not married and I don’t have kids so surely I won’t fit in’ … or maybe
Jessica thought about backing out because she was the only one who had to bring
her little one along – but guess what? Not one of these ladies used those
excuses! They showed up and were blessed! And I know I said I wasn’t there, so
how could I possibly know they were blessed? Because Matthew 18:20 says ‘For
where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.’ When we
show up, when we reach out, when we build a community of Christian women, we
are BLESSED! The Lord delights in these kinds of gatherings! We find
connections with women we might never have thought we’d be friends with! All it
takes is a small step of faith!!
A
few years ago I had to take one of these huge leaps of faith. I was supposed to
go to a Christian Camp for a women’s retreat with some of my friends from church – but
as the week of the retreat rolled around my daughter Hope was VERY sick {and
turned out to have pneumonia} so I had to cancel and stay home. This came at a
time when I desperately needed the connections and time with other women and
just a chance to ‘get away’ for a weekend and I was sorely disappointed when I
couldn’t go. But my Mom ended up offering to pay my way so that I could go to a
different ladies retreat which was a month later at another Christian camp. The
only hitch
was I’d be going alone. My mom would be there on property, but she’d be working
in the kitchen and staying in the staff housing and I would go as a regular
conference attendee and share a room with women I didn’t know. I’ll be honest,
I almost said no. And the week leading up to the retreat I was filled with
anxious thoughts and thinking I might just back out! But I made myself go and
it was hard. I felt silly and uncomfortable at first because I didn’t know who
to talk to or what to say. I didn’t know who to sit with at dinner or in chapel
or how I would feel sharing a room with 6 strangers. But that night as the ladies
and I settled ourselves in our room we found out that we had ALL come by
ourselves. The camp had wisely placed us all together since we had all come as
‘singles’. And what a relief to know we were all feeling just a bit out of
sorts for the same reasons. We ended up sitting together at every meal,
worshipping together at every chapel session, playing late night board games in
our room and forming a great bond over the course of the weekend. It didn’t
matter that we had come from all different walks of life, it only mattered that
God had brought us together and by stepping out of our comfort zone we had
opened ourselves up to community.
Jen Schmidt
says ‘Sometimes we use our busyness and our crazy schedules to say we don’t
have time for community.’ I feel like this is where I’m at in this season of
life. My kids have many activities in addition to school and church, we have
family obligations and church or ministry obligations and quite honestly it
just feels like life is BUSY most of the time. Sometimes it IS hard to schedule
‘girl time’ with my friends. Sometimes it takes many, many emails or texts
going back and forth in order to find a date that works for everyone. But I
also know that even little emails or phone calls or encouraging texts from my
friends can really boost me up when I’m feeling lonely. One of the ways I
connect with my friends during busy sports seasons is by chatting during the
girl’s practices. During soccer season my daughter would have a an hour and a
half practice so since my friend’s daughter was on the same team my friend and
I would walk laps around the fields and talk while the kids practiced. It was a
great way to get exercise AND fellowship time! {or while the kids are at Awana
night we might go out to grab a bite to eat while they are at Awana for 2 hours} Sometimes you just have to get creative with ways to get together and
make time for your friendships!
So … I want
to encourage you to step out of your comfort zone, open up your suitcase, as the woman shared in the video, be
willing to share your ‘stuff’ – the good, the bad and the ugly! We all have
tough things, we all have baggage, we all have struggles. By opening yourself
up and allowing yourself to be vulnerable you just never know what can happen
and it could be the start of a very beautiful friendship!
Also, I want
to let you know about a few ways you can connect before you leave this room
today. Pamela has planned another ladies get together for NEXT Friday
– if you would like to come and join us PLEASE be sure you
stop and talk to her at the end and get the information. Also, in April, the
makers of the blog (in)courage are having another (in)RL meet up day and I am
going to host it in my home. That day they will be showing more videos on live
streaming and we plan to have food and fellowship time. If you are interested
in this please come see me after and I will take your email information so I
can get you connected with this. We’ve also placed some papers and pens on the
tables today because we want you ladies to take down each other’s phone numbers
or email addresses – we want you to connect outside of this room when you go
out from here today. We LOVE this community of MOMS here, but if you leave here today and still feel lonely and disconnected then we have failed in our mission of building community.
Now here is the video for the (in)RL conference for this year ... if you live locally to me you are MORE than welcome to join us, please contact me!
