Flying Years: Under Construction

**UPDATED WITH SOME PICS AT THE BOTTOM**

(beadboard is cut and primed and ready to be painted and hung and it is all I hoped it would be!)

We have turned into our own little HGTV family around here. And as soon as we finish and I remember to take the computer to the Apple store for a little help, I will post pics of it all. But for now, you will have to settle for this riveting verbal account and a few pics.
We have a space in between the eat in portion of our kitchen and the laundry room that has (until now) proven to be decoratively challenging. Is it a niche? Is it a hallway? Is it an office for me? Could it be storage with a buffet? When we first moved in, we had a large black thingy (I know, I know, so technically correct) that matched our kitchen table. First of all, it was too matchy matchy and secondly, it was good for little. Not deep enough to store well, but not just display enough to keep us from collecting stuff that we really didn't need but for whatever lazy or sentimental reason chose not to throw away immediately.

I moved it into Sascha's room (I think) at some point for storage and display and then eventually sold it because it was not serving any real purpose other than collecting dust and junk.

When I moved it out of the area off the kitchen, I replaced it with a desk for me. You know, because of all that desk work I do . . . oh wait, I really do no desk work, so it just became a great place to pile stuff when you came into the house from the garage. And unlike the big black thingy, there were no drawers or doors to hide it all.

Then Granny died and I ~~hoarded~~ brought home as much of her furniture as I liked and thought I could use. Included in that was a beautiful painted buffet that worked with our colors but was a little bit too big for the space and hard to decorate in that area and also attracted clutter. So I moved it to our entryway (duh, why it took me a year to do that is beyond me because it looks muy bueno there and makes the space feel larger) and brought the desk back up because I had been missing having a place to do all my desk work.

Oh. Wait. I forgot AGAIN that I don't do desk work and (all together) it just collected crap, stuff, clutter, junk, and dust.

Meanwhile, my kids were at a loss as to what they should do with their bags and coats and shoes. And in their poor distress, they just dumped them wherever the urge overcame them. (Usually about 8 inches inside the door.) After another semester of tripping over bags and shoes and coats while trying not to curse (outloud), I decided while lying in bed frustrated by my lack of clutter control that it was time to make a mini-mudroom in that space.

So, the morning after we drove back from Georgia, I headed to Home Depot and bought 2 kitchen cabinets. Josh took the doors off and I painted the cabinets and helped him hang them. (I am proud to say I was truly helpful and no one said any bad words.) After we got them up, we bought 2 pieces of molding and a 2x4 . . . I really don't think it's 2 (insert measurements) by 4 (of any measurements), but to me that means it was a piece of wood. We painted them, hung them and added some hooks for back packs and coats. Now I was getting excited, because what I picture in my head rarely looks like what I am able to create, but we were actually taking our time, being smart and knocking it out of the HGTV park. My next step was to find a bench and 4 baskets and decide if I wanted to put beadboard up (I do and it is on the list for this week). The bench was proving to be the biggest challenge and that really surprised me. I could not find one that was long enough, tall enough, and the right style. On line searches were frustrating too because they were beyond my budget or hard to gauge by the small pic and oh-so-expensive to ship and then what if I had to return it?!

Then it happened. That glorious find that is euphoric and amazing and you want to stop strangers and tell them all about your little victory . . . Bo and Sascha and I were running some errands while we waited for the Terminix guy to leave when Sascha (in a very panicky voice) said, "I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM! I AM ABOUT TO PEE PEE IN MY PANTIES!!" She is a girl who means business when it gets to this stage of the potty timeline and I knew our time was short. I decided that my parents' house was the closest and easiest to get too and we sped over and made it just in time. On the way through their garage, however, a little cream piece of furniture I have walked by a thousand times or more caught my eye. Once Sascha was settled in her carseat and the potential crisis had passed, I whipped out my little tape measure and, GLORY HALLELUJAH, it was THE. PERFECT. SIZE. STYLE. COLOR. AND PRICE--FREE!!!!! My bench had been sitting in their garage for a while because they didn't have a place for it and it was tucked in just the right spot that it wasn't in the way either. It was waiting for me.

I am so thrilled with our mini-mudroom. It is semi-functional at this point and will be complete in all it's glory with-in the week. Josh has been an amazingly patient and kind Bob Villa through it all and I have had a blast scoring it under budget. (My cabinets were 20% off. Happy, happy.)

This project has kicked off some others around the house in an effort to reduce the clutter of our lives and simplify things. With 6 of us, it's easy to amass junk and we are trying to be more mindful of that. We cleaned Josh's office out over the weekend and are going to sell his desk and turn that room into a guest room. I am so excited that instead of having a room to store more things, we will have a place to "store" people.

(Oh and the desk that was in the niche is now a sofa table with lamps and pictures on it and it has brought the coziest touch to our family room. Josh and I race to sit down and read or watch tv or talk when the kids are all in bed. I love me some redo's around the house . . . especially when they are relocation redos and virtually free.)