Domestic Praise & Raise

This whole stay-at-home-mom-without-kids gig I'm holding down right now is preeetttyyy awesome. All except getting our house organized and making it look less like my college apartment and more like a legit house. Let me tell you - being a stay at home wife/mom is no joke. My mom stayed at home with my brother and I; I always saw her working hard and doing tons of projects and making our house look awesome, only to have a great dinner ready by 6:00, but actually trying to replicate that on my own is one heck of a task (and let's keep in mind I don't even have kids). By the end of the night, I'm ridiculously tired - my feet and back ache and I can't wait to slip in bed! (And those are on the days when I get to meet friends for coffee. Yikes.) I can only imagine what having little nuggets running around while you're trying to paint a coffee table is like.

Anyways. I digress.

Here are the projects I've been working on as of late (aka documentation that I'm not sitting around eating bon bons all day, erry day):

Kitchen before:

Let's just say this is the good side of the kitchen. What's not pictured is approximately 87 boxes which remain to be unpacked and pots and pans scattered all across the floor. Also not pictured is me having a nervous break down.

We snagged this vintage ironing board from our pastor & his wife. I absolutely love how old and awesome it is and how much extra counter space it provides us!

I found a similar one at a thrift shop but it was $40 and I didn't get it - only to get this one fo free a couple months later!

I snagged these cute coffee prints on sale for $9 at Homegoods. I have the most trouble in the world finding artwork I like but I love every print about coffee ever. Can our whole house just have coffee prints?

Kitchen after: ahhh. Look what two little prints did! Partial sanity: restored. (Plus the massive kitchen rack to store all our appliance/larger bake+cookware helped a.ton.!)

Now onto the bathroom...

#1 housekeeping pet peeve: CLUTTER ON COUNTERS. It drives me insanneeee. I don't even like those little toothbrush holders because they take up space.

Here's the before:

I almost needed to take a Zanax before walking in to brush my teeth. (Just kidding. Kind of.)

And here's some after shots:

Balance of the universe has been restoreeedddd!

 

I'll be the first to admit that the over-the-toilet racks are not my fave, but getting one of those is a heck of a lot cheaper than seeing a psychiatrist for the next five months. 

I did my best to make it look pretty since I wasn't thrilled with the actual piece itself. And I think it ended up not half bad!

My sweet and super talented friend, Katie, made this for me as a wedding gift. I absolutely love it and it fits perfectly on the rack! 

I was going to stuff all my nail polish under the sink but decided to use it for color to bring the red in the shower curtain into the color scheme for the rack.

These nifty little boxes were used throughout our wedding reception for decoration and storage (you can't see it but the one on the left has a little "12" in the corner). They work great for holding all our (uhh okay, my) toiletries. 

This box was also from the wedding. My mom and I went on a rampage staining and stamping lots of boxes and it was totally worth it because now they're all over our house :) This one is perfect for storing extra towels!

 Overall: better, much better (read in a Julie Andrews' accent a la Princess Diaries).