Organization time!

It's been a while since I had a chance to post anything here.  There's been a lot going on - moving to our new house, getting ready to sell the old house, getting ready for the new baby!

But we have made some progress towards improvements in the new house.  We have done a lot of work in the yard.  Our back yard, in particular, in a case study in invasive plants - we have English ivy, Poison ivy, Multiflora rose, and a particularly pervasive species called Japanese Knotweed.  So far I am mostly using mechanical control, waging war against the invaders.  We want to eventually plant some of our favorite perennials and bushes, but most of that will need to wait until at least the fall.  I started taking photos tonight after the major rainstorms hit, so I don't have any photos of the yard to show off.

Instead, I have some photos of rooms that are in relatively good shape.  One of the rooms we are most excited about in this house is the mud room/laundry room.  It was already painted this bright red color, but we have added vertical bike storage (that was quite an operation, trying to figure out which sections of the wall would support the weight of the bikes!).  We are also happy to be using all of this extra storage space for tools and other stuff.

Here you can see my bike and the charging station for my electric lawnmower - another new acquisition, since at the old house I could mow in 5 minutes using a mechanical/non-motorized mower.

 We are also excited about being able to store all of our outdoor gear in a more accessible and temperature-controlled environment.  Everything was in the attic before.  I have converted a closet in the guest bedroom to a gear storage space (the rest of the bedroom is not finished yet, so no photos!)

 We have a large "common room" in the downstairs area.  Mostly it's a play space right now, but it has the potential to be multi-purpose.  Here is a corner with some organized space.

 I also have my desk and files pretty much in order.  Here's a couple of parting shots of that area.  Not exactly pretty - Tatiana has been talking about replacing the desk for years - but it's functional.  Tatiana has an office in one of the bedrooms, and it's functional but needs some work be to "done". 

We also painted all four of the bedrooms.  We have big plans for the main room upstairs, but we are not quite ready to execute yet.  Hopefully it will soon see some built-in bookshelves and other improvements!