How to Makeover a Room without Spending a Dime

Posted on April 21, 2016 by justeeni

It’s happened three times. We’ve had moved and had a baby at the same time, and a year later I looked around at our house and realize what a mess it was. Every. Single. Room.

I wanted to clear them out, throw away half the stuff in them, and give them a good makeover. The problem was, we didn’t have money in our budget for a makeover. My solution? Do it without spending any. During the past three months, I’ve been slowly working through each room in our house to clear it out and clean it up. This week I finished the whole house, just in time to get outside with the kids and enjoy the beautiful spring weather. Not that I’m an expert on anything, but I thought it would be fun to share what exactly I do to makeover a room. Maybe someone out there has a room that needs some updating. 🙂

1. Survey the damage

I usually walk into a room days before I touch it and just marvel at how messy it’s gotten. Then I think about how nice and clean it’ll be when I’m done. Then I wait for a good day to move forward with my plans. This is the “get fired up” stage which I totally need to tackle any project with three little ones constantly trying to undo all my hard work. Here’s the girls’ room before I started…

2. Clear it out

The morning I start my room makeover, I first clear everything out of the room. This is usually extremely entertaining to the kids, who then crawl all over the stuff that’s in a new place and is therefore much more fun to play with than it ever was before. They were thrilled when I dumped all the contents of Lydia and Abby’s room into the hallway. (I leave any big or bulky items and pieces of furniture in the room and work around them.)

This is also the time to make a trash pile, a giveaway pile, and a “this doesn’t belong in this room” pile. Items not worth owning (broken toys, ripped up pieces of paper, etc.) get dumped in the trash. Salvageable items I no longer want (books we don’t read, clothing we don’t wear etc.) get put in the giveaway pile, and things that don’t belong (ponytail holders, spare change etc.) get stashed together to be returned to their rightful locations later.

4. Clean up

Depending on how long everything is taking, this is the prime time to dust, sweep the floor, mop, or wash marks off the walls. Usually I don’t spend a lot of time on this because the kids are already getting restless and Paul is already late for his nap. But it is nice to look around at the big, empty room because at this point it’s cleaner than it’ll ever be again.

5. Rearrange

Now I move around any beds, tables, desks, chairs, dressers, or bulky toys to their newly selected location. Sometimes I move a lot. Sometimes I don’t move anything. The more I move, the more made-over the room feels.

6. Put it back together

Next I put all the stuff back in the room. This is the hardest part if you have little Munchkins crawling around because they’ll want to come in the room and play with all the newly-put-away stuff. I happened to have a new toy shelf for the girls when I did their room, so that helped a lot with toy storage. I’m a sorter, so I love sorting through everything and grouping things together in their new storage spots.

7. Admire your hard work

After you’re done admiring, get the kids outside so the room stays looking new for more than a few minutes! When I did the girls’ room, they were so excited to play with their new toys (which were not new at all, just sorted and put in nice, shiny, new bins) that I just let them play for a while. Don’t forget to take your pile of “things that didn’t belong” on your way out and put those items away too.

And now you have a fresh, clean, made-over room without having spent a single dime. 🙂

Bedroom Remodel…Almost

Posted on March 4, 2014 by justeeni

Last Friday I threw my routine out the window and spent the whole day organizing our bedroom. Still a mess from when we moved in, I just haven’t had a good chunk of time to tackle this project, so I’ve left it a mess for far too long. When Dan commented on the mess (for the first time in six months) I decided enough was enough. I’m almost too embarrassed to share the “before” pictures, but this is our real life. And, they make the “after” pictures so much more impressive.

Here’s the view when you walk into our bedroom:

I managed to rearrange our furniture in a way that made the room feel more cozy. And I successfully hid Lydia’s old crib in the back of our closet. It’s not ideal, but it’s practical for the amount of storage space we have right now.

To the left you can see our closet:

I promise I only did a tiny little bit of mess-transferring. And the only messes I transferred were transferred to their rightful locations.

When you turn around you can see Abby’s crib and Dan’s desk:

Now Dan has a relatively spacious place to work away from the rest of the family. And he can actually get to it now that I moved his bike!

So, no, we didn’t actually remodel anything, but the change is just as refreshing. Instead of costing us a small fortune, this project was free. In fact, I found 74 cents in the process! I can’t help but grin when I walk into our room now, and I found myself wandering back there Friday night just to keep looking at it. And our routine-free day was actually not stressful or crazy like I imagined. In fact, I’m thinking of making it a regular practice to occasionally ditch the routine and tackle a project, just to keep things interesting.

Next up: That Elusive Laundry Room!

When Mom Snapped

Posted on February 13, 2014 by justeeni

Sunday afternoon when we were all tired and sick
Mom suddenly snapped when she let out a, “That’s it!”
She was tired, then sniffly, then suddenly mad
And then she would get all frustrated then sad.

She slumped off to the couch and curled up in a ball
Then earnestly, silently for help she did call,
Sincerely she asked, “Oh what shall I do?”
“I know, Lord, I am not being pleasing to You.”

And so patiently, faithfully, the voice from above
Came to her aid with some words full of love,
“Clean the kitchen”, He told her, that well-known voice said
So she made her resolution and lifted her head.

Then off to the kitchen she headed quite quickly
Still flustered, still tired, and still very sickly.
She turned on the faucet, water poured out
And she washed all those dishes stuck under the spout.

Then on to the counter, then on to the ledge
So set in her mission, so set in her pledge
Every crumb, every splatter, she cleaned them all up
She cleaned every platter, she cleaned every cup.

Still flustered and sickly, on to the next room
When she’d straightened that up she brought in the broom
She swept and she vacuumed, she tackled that floor
Then she looked around, ready for more.

Her husband and daughters looked on in alarm
They snatched up their belongings to keep then from harm
“Mom’s lost it!” Dan said. He warned Lydia too,
“Better watch out, she might throw away you!”

“The TRASH!” she remembered was crowding the floor
She hauled it all out to the hall by the door.
She piled the books, she threw away paper
And when all looked neat her frenzy, it started to taper.

And just as she finished her straightening huff
Her husband announced, “I think that’s enough”
Mom stopped her mission and looked at everyone
With a soft happy smile she said, “I’m done.”

Half a week has now passed since Mom got so mean
but clues from her snapping can still be seen.
And the lesson to be learned from Mom’s flustered huff
It that when Mom gets overwhelmed, hang on to your stuff.

MI Taylor Family

We live in Michigan.

Tag Archives: cleaning

How to Makeover a Room without Spending a Dime

Bedroom Remodel…Almost

When Mom Snapped