It’s Saturday evening and I am parked on the couch…too exhausted to go to bed.

Today was the Mendota Heritage Festival, and while I planned to make a Barbie doll cake, I did not get it done. While I planned to be present at 10 am to help with the Health Fair, I did not get there until 11 am. While I planned to help with hotdogs from noon until 2 pm, I was told I wasn’t needed and I gratefully went home.

I worked very hard yesterday on multiple things. I cleaned house,spent time  reorganizing and refreshing my laundry room, doing laundry and worked on organizing our master bath. I also sat down and glanced at an article on the internet  entitled “Ten Tips for an ADD/ADHD Person To Keep A Clean House.” How did they know?

I do get the house clean, but I admit to doing it differently. I drag everything out and then I put everything away. I move along 3 or 4 things…and once in a while, they all get done!!

I took a good look at my laundry room this week. It’s very dull and boring. I haven’t paid any attention to this room. Ever.

After a good hard look, I made a list in my head of what would help this room. Here’s the result: (1) The paint is called “Celery”. With the white window treatment, white cabinets, and white washer and dryer, it looks institutional, yet I do not want to repaint the room. (2) I think red and black accents might help the room. (3) I have not been using the cabinet space well. The cabinet was full of lightbulbs instead of laundry supplies which were sitting on the dryer, etc.  I know..it’s crazy but it just happened…we did not intend to buy a gazillion different bulbs.  But we did. 

The first thing I went to is my Little Debbie Box inspiration.   While we do need to keep lightbulbs within easy reach, we don’t have to keep them all within easy reach. All but the minimum amount of lightbulbs will go in boxes above the cabinets.   By painting and embellishing the boxes, it will also  introduce black and red into the room.

Here’s the Little Debbie box in the before picture…

As I mentioned in prior posts, Mike picked up the Little Debbie boxes at Sam’s Club. I send him in to buy one thing but also to get a box or two to accompany the purchase! Feelin’ sooo smart!  The boxes are the perfect size….here they are..

The black and white polka dot ribbon on the boxes is an interesting story. I purchased my first ribbon in a three-yard spool at Hobby Lobby for $3.99. I didn’t have a set plan so I only bought one spool. I love ribbon and keep it on hand. Never know when a ribbon emergency might come up. Once I got moving on this idea, I needed more ribbon, and I found a comparable ribbon at Walmart for $2.99–same size and quality. The difference was price and, more importantly–the ribbon from Walmart was made in Pennsylvania while the ribbon from Hobby Lobby was made in China. Gasp! Walmart became my New Best Friend. It took two spools to do all four boxes. Because I don’t have a lot of money right now, I returned to what I had on hand to label the boxes which was wide-mouth canning jar lids and scrapbook paper.

Here’s another photo…there are actually four boxes but to capture all four in a photograph, I would have to climb out the window!

 

I got totally inspired while doing this project…so much so that I willingly washed the windows yesterday while doing everything else!! Mike did the outside but I did the inside at the same time. Normally, I would have found an excuse NOT to wash windows but my laundry room redo was making me so happy that I didn’t mind doing the windows. Color in a room is so important to the way you feel when you’re in the room. At least for me.  

I’ve made a curtain for the window and added a few other touches.

Another picture…

Finally, we had the Mendota Heritage Festival today. If cakewalks, quilts, baskets, original artwork, hotdogs, soup beans, baked bread and learning about the Mendota hawk count is more important than Fashion Week, the price of gasoline, or who had the best political speech, then this might be the place for you. It sure is the place for me.