It's Never as it Seems - Great Gift Project

I thought my holiday was going to be a traditional hang out with the family and then return home and put away Christmas. As we were packing to head home, my sister asked if I was going home. I shared that my kids had plans. 
 
She then joked that she wanted some help organizing her storage room. I was in such a hurry that it wasn't until I was half way home that I realized she wasn't kidding.

My sister rarely asks for help. I called her and asked if I could come back up after I dropped off my girls and help her. She said that she would LOVE that. It just happened that it is her Birthday week as well. I mentioned paint and asked if I could pick up some paint if they had some mismatched paint at our Ace hardware.

As you can see from this past post here, I have used mis-matched paint several times in the past.  Here is the post where I used mis-matched paint for the wedding last December. I was in luck when I went to Ace, and they had a 5 gallon drum that was a light, light pink color for $40. I asked if they would be able to add tint and make it a tan/cream color. I was able to get it to the exact color I picked. 

Then, I looked at the gallon sizes of mis-matched paints. I found 6 gallons of a mustard colored paint. They were five dollars each and I asked if I could re-tint them to a dark tan and they were able to do it. 

My sister only wanted four gallons so I loaded them into the car. I had a bit of an accident when 1 gallon dropped when I was loading the car at home and splattered paint all over the sidewalk and my boot and pants. However, I didn't know that it got onto my pants and boot and walked it into the kitchen.

Poor Princess number three ended up spending at least an hour out there scooping up paint as it froze to the ground and surrounding ice and snow. I hurried to wash out my pants and boots.We spent about an hour and a half cleaning up frozen paint using hot water and a scrub brush after scraping all we could using a shovel. 

I was ready to start painting today but it was my sister's birthday and she wasn't home much. Every time I started to do anything I kept thinking I needed to get a few other things organized so we didn't move things around several times. I said a quick prayer for help and approached my brother-in-law with several suggestions about how to move things around in the house. I am very good with organization and since they moved, they have worked so hard on the outside and replacing flooring and other maintenance or upgrade projects that they still haven't unpacked everything. 

In then end, I didn't spend any time on the storage room. We ended up unpacking the family room with all the video's, DVDs, the surround sound speakers, games and electronic stuff. I didn't think it would take us so long but we were up all night organizing, sorting and making "get rid of" piles etc. 

Just after "New Years" when my brother-in-law brought the kids home from a party, he told us to look outside. There on his hood were all these beautiful snowflakes. I tried to get close up but my camera kept freezing and I couldn't focus up close. My sisters camera phone took the best close up, the top snowflake photo. 

I will post more about organizing her house tomorrow and asked my kids for a few more days so we could get the main living part organized and then work on the storage room. 

My sister is THRILLED with her birthday present. I gave her a physical gift but I know my helping her get unpacked and organized is better than the gift I gave. I think her family will enjoy it as well, they can feel like they have finally moved in!