Disaster Zone - suggestions needed

In the spring, if you'd have asked, I would have said our office space was a disaster zone: a mess of random papers and other junk that made the desk unusable (which was fine because no one needed to use it anyway). It wasn't for lack of trying. We have had a decent file cabinet and workable filing system for a while, plus we try to print and save as little as possible. But sentimental knick knacks, a cardboard box of baby photos from our parents, old cables and hard drives that aren't quite trash (or needs to be destroyed/wiped first), well, it takes up space:

With Herculean effort, we cleared the desk in anticipation of giving it to someone else who needed it more. We mostly found homes for everything (or stacked things in the corner) and gave some of it away (seriously how did we have at least 5 packages of lined paper?? do people even take hard copy notes anymore). And we did give the desk away. At least, we tried. It got halfway out the door and then gave up the ghost for good. It was a Craigslist Ikea find that had already moved from our old apartment, so one more move was apparently too much. So we moved it to the curb for trash pick-up then, instead of to its intended recipient.

So did our disaster zone improve? Not one bit. It just transformed. During the work on the breezeway (a room we have now taken to calling the "sun room" since it's beautifully sunny in there), we had to move all of the toddler's toys out of the living room. And so they migrated to the office, where they promptly become "out of sight, out of mind." It's quite nice having no toys (ok, who am I kidding, let's says *fewer* toys) in the living room. But now the office is a mess!

The small things that can be categorized are more or less "away." There's a train box, a puzzle box, a lego box, etc.

We could use perhaps a little more space for boxes like these, but the real problem is there are also tons of big toys. Toys that don't fit into cabinets. Multiple strolls around Ikea have failed to provide inspiration. Pinterest searches haven't helped. And so my question o you is how do we organize the toys so that this room is not a giant mess. We have one almost empty wall and would love to hide these toys in or behind some kind of furniture to pretend like grownups are still making the decorating decisions around here.

So put your ideas in a comment and help us out! And yes, while "throw the toys away/donate them/hide them in her bedroom" might seem like good options, they're not in the plans right now. So let's assume we are keeping them and just need a way to store them more efficiently in the office. Bonus points if whatever organizational system you suggest is also toddler accessible, to avoid having a constant stream of "mommy, can you get me my X?" "daddy, I want Y." and also lets us make *her* put them away.

New beds everywhere

We have some new beds around here! First, in an effort to make the guest bed less of a literal climb to get into at night, we got a 4'' low-profile boxspring. It was build it yourself but we're getting pretty used to that these days (seriously, building that Ikea Friheten sofa was pretty awful). It was straightforward and much cheaper than buying a pre-built one. We actually struggled to find a wood-slat boxspring. Ikea doesn't sell them (yes, we pretty much just start out there by default) because their mattress are all designed for their own beds, which don't need boxsprings. And most mattress stores charge a fortune.

We also bought a new mattress, the medium firm Myrbacka latex (Ikea of course). It was an equally awkward drive home as last time, but fortunately this time we enlisted the help of friends with a bigger vehicle, roof rack, and more skill at tying knots. The new one is much firmer than the one we tried out at the store, which I guess isn't surprising given all the use the in-store one gets. Because of that, and also just to protect it, we bought a plush topper for it.

In the end, the bed is over 6'' lower than it was before, meaning that guests don't need to hop or use a stool to get in or out. And toddler spills from climbing are a bit less dangerous (yup, those have happened).

And speaking of the toddler, this one graduated from a crib with dropped sides to her very own bed! More building...yay...I honestly was willing to consider buying from somewhere other than Ikea, but the little one asked for a blue bed and lo and behold, they actually had one (yes, she is spoiled and usually gets what she wants). And while it was a bit pricy for Ikea, it was still in line with or even cheaper than most other options. And so we got her the Busing extendable bed, which sadly necessitated buying the mattress that goes with it, the Vyssa Vinka, because it's Ikea so of course that means proprietary sizing. At its fullest position, it will be a twin bed. But for now and in its middle of three positions, the size is proprietary. Right now it is actually shorter than her crib bed, though it is wider. She's tiny and keeping it at its smallest setting means less space for her to accidentally roll out or lose her toys. She's pretty pleased with it, though I think her favorite part may have been picking out sheets.

For the first time in a long time, we were missing a piece of hardware from the kit. It wasn't critical to the construction but it was an important component to keeping the side piece near her head stable (the pieces designed to keep her from tumbling out of bed). And of course because of the way it was constructed, it had to be added during the building process and not afterwards. So we followed the (new?) process of requesting the missing piece from Ikea's website. I'm pretty sure that stores used to just stock some extra pieces at the customer service desk, but that does not appear to be the case anymore.

The process was going to take 2-3 weeks. We couldn't wait. Fortunately, it's a common-enough piece and we borrowed one from our bookshelves:

And then, just about when we'd forgotten we'd even ordered a replacement, this arrived in the mail:

Yes, apparently spare Ikea parts travel all the way from Sweden...I find this both delightful and very very strange.

For the Birds

This spring, our toddler decorated a bird house and we set it up on a shepherd's hook outside our picture window. To our surprise and delight, a mama bird took up residence pretty quickly. We saw her flying back and forth with twigs and things and built herself a nest. And then, abruptly, she was gone.

We thought that maybe there was too much foot traffic in the front yard. Otherwise we're not sure why she abandoned her home after about a week. The house was vacant the rest of the season (not surprising).

Then this fall with the new room slowly becoming our favorite place to hang out, we decided to take advantage of the good view of the backyard out the french doors and we hung up a bird feeder (same shepherd's hook, since we removed the house in the front).

Originally this post was going to be a call for help - after several days, we had no visitors. But suddenly yesterday:

The birds seem to have gotten the memo. We've seen blue jays and robins and whatever these little fellows are. We have a bird book by the door now to help identify them and we've put a little bowl of water out as well. The best part is we can enjoy these guys from inside our new room from the comfort of our sofa. Time to buy a better telephoto camera lens I guess.

Speaking of sofa and new room, we finally unfurled our new rug and LOVE IT. This is the ombre teal rug by CB2. We went with the smaller size (5'x8') after realizing the larger one (8'x10') would cover up almost all our new wood floor. And it fits beautifully. I love the way the shading follows the south-facing window, so it's like the sunlight on the floor (we tried it the other way but this direction was the clear winner). It perfectly matches one of our living room throw pillows, so it's more in line with the blues in the other room than I thought it would be.

Love love love.

Breezeway 15: done! and swanky closet

Finished finished finished! Final check is in the mail and the decorating has begun!

We have the rug but can't lay it down for another week or so while the floors totally finish curing. It's held up the rest of the minor purchases because I want to make sure I match the blue tone well. We're sticking mostly to the same reds and turquoises as the living room, but I think this rug will be a bit greener than some of the blues in the next room. The blinds should be arriving today too. I know it will take time to accumulate just the right things to hang on the walls and don't want to rush it. Still, it's frustrating to have empty walls now just begging to be filled.

Another small project we did this summer was adding the ceiling medallion to our swanky closet chandelier. It covers up the orange insulation though it does make us realize how dingy the closet ceiling is. Not that painting the ceiling in the closet is much of a priority.

While totally unnecessary, this fancy addition makes me smile whenever I go in the closet. A fun little update.

Wood to Burn

Continuing with some posts of other things we've been doing the last few months during the breezeway build - a well-organized log rack. Last October, our rotting oak tree gave us one last gift (well, I guess technically the tree removal service did this part for us, but you get the idea):

We moved it to the backyard to age for a while (and to get away from the house - can anyone say "termites"?). D realized that splitting logs is quite a physical challenge, but made great headway, splitting about half of them before we moved them to the back.

And they sat - on the edge of our patio in messy piles since November. We committed a blog faux pas and forgot to take a picture of that mess, but trust me, they were everywhere.

In the meantime, D excavated an old log rack from the back of our yard where the previous owners had left it dented, broken, and half buried in debris, dirt, and leaves. After several unsuccessful guesses at the size bolts needed to repair it, he finally came home with the right hardware and reassembled it a few weeks ago. Then it was a job of careful stacking:

I love it and am so excited to have all this beautiful wood to burn this winter. We got our chimney cleaned too, so we are ready to go.

One odd point of the chimney cleaning - the chimney sweep said that we needed some concrete repairs at the top. We aren't sure we believe him and definitely would want a second option and some pictures, given that we had the top of the chimney totally rebuilt in 2011 after our raccoon visitor. Either way, it didn't sound like something we have to do this year, so we'll file that one away for later.