Around the House in 80 Hours: Hallway/ Office

This week we were going to focus on the Living/ Dining room, but really we needed to get the hall and office organised in order to find a place to organise the mess of the living area into (if you see what I mean).  I really struggle to keep my office area clutter free, mainly because it seems to be the place the children tidy everything from the other rooms into 🙂  This was a big job, and it has been really hot and I just haven’t been in the mood for organising (or anything much, to be honest…..too hot for movement!).  Fortunately the children’s hours built up over the week, as they were socialising far too much to be cleaning anything, so I wrote a long list of all I wanted to achieve Saturday and we simply spent the day working our way through it.

We clocked up 40 hours between us and managed to do the following:

• Cleaned down the pantry
• Organised the books and tidied them up a bit
• Gary hung some hooks for aprons to hang out of the way
• He also hung some of Lillie’s art on the walls
• Lillie beat the rug and hoovered and bleached the hallway floor and washed the frames of all the doors.  She touched up the green paint in the hallway
• Charlotte organised the books in the downstairs and upstairs hallways and cleared space for more books to fit in 🙂  I cleared the used books in my office to the extra space and moved the Victorian books onto the office shelves.
• Gary fixed the door handle which has been broken for forever, as well as the door to the upstairs loo
• I cleared and organised my office, making sure I had shelves for all of my resources for the next term.
• Thomas brought in my Granny’s antique bench which was at the far end of the table, into my office area.  As we only have one living area, when friends come round I often take then into my office (through-way) to chat.  It is the only place bar bedrooms that we have peace to talk.  I’m really pleased by how it looks and how practical it will be 🙂

We also did some extra work in the previous rooms with Gary putting up the shower curtain to hide our laundry area  and shoes in our bathroom, and my Be-You-tiful picture Lillie gave me as a present.

Again apologies for the number of photos, I have, once again, gone a bit mad….

The hallway looking towards the kitchen from my office:

Looking down the hallway from the kitchen:

Showing my Granny’s bench:

And a close up:

The bench from a different view:

Made even more beautiful by the presence of my bundle of gorgeousness:

The top end of the hallway, where Gary put some hooks for aprons (on the right):

And a close up:

Decorating the doorway to the kitchen:

And the other side:

Lillie’s beautiful art, reminding us we are all made in the image of God:

My almost tidy desk 🙂

Looking into my office to the bottom of the stairs from the hallway door:

Close up:

Finally, the picture Lillie made me in the kitchen:

And then into the bathroom where we have crammed shoe storage, a washing machine and tumble dryer under the eves:

Pretty unsightly, but doors are out of the question as the walls are not strong enough to hold them (they are made of 200 year old crumbly brick!), plus the radiator is in the way.  So I came up with the idea to hang a shower curtain.  I chose a shower curtain over a material curtain because of the shoe and boot storage – a material curtain would get grubby waaaay too quickly:

By no means perfect, but it will do 🙂

I just wanted to say a huge thank you for everyone who has been reading and especially those of you who have been commenting on my Around the World posts.  Apart from posting each day, I have been completely absent from the world wide web.  I have needed to take some time away from the computer to pray about improving my time management next term.  I decided for the month of August not to spend any un-necessary time on the computer, but to spend it instead making my home more homey for those who live here and relaxing a little bit away from my usual every day routine.  Thank you for taking the time to comment.  I have thoroughly enjoyed reading all your thoughts, even though I have not replied.  And thank you to both Lucinda and Phyllis for offering to send me some additional items to make our Around the World studies even more special.  I will be emailing you on Friday with my address 🙂

I will be returning to normal on the 2nd and promise I will be replying to some of your messages and visiting your blogs and leaving lots of messages to make up for my complete absence.  Again, thank you for being so unselfish with your comment love.  I have so enjoyed reading them <3