School has begun

School has begun.  I know that seems crazy, but our district is moving towards a year round school calendar.  I must admit, I am a big fan.  Our family does best with routines and structure.  The summer is fun, but the last 2 weeks have been a little crazy.  Not crazy busy...but stir crazy.  It was time for routines.

Here is a flash back...5 years ago, I snapped this picture.

And now, I have a 1st grader and a kindergartner.  Wow.  Here they are on the first day of school.

Tomorrow is Abby's first full day of school.  She was a little disappointed that the kindergartners only had 1/2 days in the beginning.  I think she just wanted to experience the real deal.









A new school year brings new backpacks and more clutter.  I wanted to create a place for backpacks and all of those lovely papers that come home from school.  When the kids walk home from school, we go up the garage stairs.  Just behind the door is a little nook that serves no real purpose.  Until now.


























I was tired of the backpacks laying on the kid's floors.  I found a few pieces of wood in the discount section at Home Depot.  I love that barrel.  It is always full of goodies.  I decided to try spray paint this time.  It actually worked really well for this project.

 I didn't like the selection of hooks at Home Depot so I went to Lowes as well.  I personally prefer the orange box store because of their better selection of building supplies and employee knowledge.  But if I need something more in the "design" department (lamp shades, shelves, hooks, etc), the big blue box store is my choice.

Now, I couldn't do this project with out a few mistakes.  The board and hooks on the left wall went surprisingly well.  The studs were in the perfect spot and I was able to hide where I screwed the board into the studs behind my hooks.  The right wall was a different story.

As soon as I tried to drill my screw into the board, the wood split.  Ugh.  I could have avoided this by taking the time to drill a hole with a drill bit and then putting my screw in the pre-drilled hole.  But I was going too fast, as usual.

My next frustration was not caused by my hand, but by my old house.  When I put my board on the wall, I realized that my wall is not plumb.  Not even close.  Not only were there NO STUDS in the whole length of this wall, the drywall buckled in the middle.  I tried to take a picture, but it might be hard to see.  There should not be a shadow behind my board.

I had to drill drywall screws through the board and into the wall.  Then I took spackle and covered my nails, and I plan to paint the spackle with the same white paint as my boards.

So now my little nook looks like this.  And I am happy to report that the hooks are pretty strong.  I have a spot for Mark and for Nate.  I have a plan for a basket for all of those lovely papers that come home from school, and for Mark's mail.  Maybe this week I can get to the finishing touches on this project.

 I think I am just as excited as the kids are about school starting again.  I am ready for routines.