28 You Asked: An Excellent Expedit Makeover!

One of the fun parts of running the blog is the opportunity to meet so many wonderful blog friends.  I am so lucky to receive the number of kind and encouraging and inspiring emails that I do on a daily basis {and please forgive me if I fall behind at times, I honestly do my best to get back to as many of the emails as I can in my allowed "blog" time!}

Many of you write in asking for some ideas or solutions to specific areas and dilemmas, and I push out tons of replies, but it's rare I get to see the actually outcome {hint hint!}.  But one of my long time readers was kind enough to share with me the outcome of a question I had offered some guidance with, and I thought it would be fun to share it with you!!

Jill wrote:

Hi Jen

My name  is Jill and I live in Australia and I have become totally addicted to your blog, actually it has inspired me to start blogging about getting myself more organised. I look forward to every Tuesday when I can check out your latest blog post. Seen we are close to a day a head I have to wait till Tuesday.

Anyway the reason for my email is I have an ikea 4 x 4 expidit of which needs a big make over, we have it our back lounge room, it houses kids toys {little people, duplo and extra I don’t keep in their rooms}.  It also holds my scrapbooks, some of the kids books, and all their homework. I have 8 cane boxes.

Anyway it is currently a total disaster, you know like everyone has just closed their eyes and ran for cover. What I want form this space is to have it look nice, but it be very functional, still keep the toys, scrapbooks , but most of all I want it to be a liitle hub for the girls homework supplies, eg homework sheets, readers, and their supplies they need to get there home work done. I would like they toys to stay on the bottom shelves, and home work stuff to be up the top some how, As we have a 2 year old.

I love how neat and tidy your playroom looks. I love the ikea vases and with the kids crayons {of which I just got one of my sister inlaw as I think Ikea might not sell the smaller ones any more}.  I do have some more of the other white vases too.

Anyway I was wondering if you have any suggestion of how to make  this area of our home more functional and looking better. I have ideas rolling around in my head but just can’t seem to get them out {copying you with pencil tins mad out of cans, using my one white vase, and maybe one of my other bigger white vases. Oh I also love document boxes. The girls home home work comes home in a manila envelope  bigger than and A4 sheet if this helps

I hope you might have some great ideas for me

Thanks heaps Jill

http://followmeonmyjourney.blogspot.com/

Here is a photo of Jill's Expedit that she mentioned in her email:

And here was my response for Jill:

Hi Jill!

I adore what you already have going on with all those baskets, they add a nice texture to the bookshelf!

I whipped up a quick diagram of my vision for your bookshelves, based on what you had mentioned you had wanted.  I am attaching it to this email.

I would completely stick with keeping all the toys corralled in those great baskets.  I thought that adding some decorative labels would help your little ones identify the contents, since they aren't see through.

Above the two rows of toys, I would assign a whole row to holding all of your scrapbooks and accessories.  You could also add book storage for the kiddos.

You mentioned the top shelf was for your girls and their homework.  I thought that using these letter files would be great as in and out boxes for their folders/papers.  One slot could be for "To Do", another for "Complete" and another for all those other school correspondence with important information.
I also thought that a couple of these media boxes would be just the perfect thing to give each girl a place to corral all their school supplies to get their homework completed.  Each box could contain a glue stick, pens, markers, crayons, scissors, drawing tools, calculator, etc... that way, when your girls need to do their homework, they can grab their "homework box" and have everything they would ever need, right at their finger tips.

You mentioned you also wanted to use some white vases to corral goods, so I tossed some of them on there for you as well!

Best wishes, I hope that helps a little.  If I missed anything or if you have any additional questions, just let me know!

xoxo,

Jen

She totally took off with the ideas and ran with them and created greatness!  Ready to see the awesome after?!

Totally incredible right?  Can I tell you the amazing feeling I had when I saw the vision become reality?  Seriously, nothing more fun than that.  Jill did an INCREDIBLE job!  Love love love the organizing that took place the how streamlined her area has become for her and her family!

So this is my call out to anyone else I have given advice to {hopefully it was useful!}, that had run with the idea and completed the project, and not shared it with me.  Now is your time.  I would heart to see!  And I think it would be great fun to feature those stories right here on the blog next week!  The success of that post is in your hands, help a gal out!

What do you think?  Do you like to see the process of the transformation, from question to completion?  Would you like to see more?  Didn't Jill do an incredible job with the Expedit?  Who is sending me some more "You Asked" before and after love?