Day 4: More Kitchen Cleaning

Welcome to Day 4 of the William Morris Challenge! Not sure who William Morris is and what this challenge is all about? Read more here.

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Okay, it’s winter, it’s cold, it recently rained inside my house and I have ants. Really? Don’t those little idiots realize there is plenty of water outside and probably dead bugs to eat? Instead they’re inside finding containers with loose seals and making me mad.

So today I continued the William Morris challenge in the kitchen by going through my utensils. I’ve always kept these out on the counter for a few reasons. a) I only have 4 drawers in my kitchen and that space is valuable. Not going to use it for a bunch of bulky stuff. b) the deeper drawers are for pots and pans so I don’t have to hang them from my ceiling or other nonsense.

Because my utensils stay out, I had to find a better solution than jamming 50 things in one container and I found these cool teal containers at thrift stores over the past year. One is technically a vase but I don’t care.

I’ve kept them on a white Ikea tray so it’s easy to move everything when the ants attack or it starts leaking water in the house.

But now that Christmas is done and I’m moving around all my trays and such I decided to use this red tray from Target:

You can see that I’m grouping like items together so I know where to find a spatcula or whisk.

For the larger containers I use glass jars inside to help the utensils stand up straight (and not end up cross ways on the bottom):

The short container here holds all the stuff that used to clutter up my silverware drawer like a can opener, potato peeler, pizza cutter, etc. This is just the right size:

I found much more here that I could give away. While I like having a variety of tools I had to admit that I don’t use some very often and others are falling apart. Why do spatulas melt and always look like someone has been chewing on them?

Oh well, here are the items which are going out:

As well as some of the office stuff I pulled out to donate on Day 1 of the Challenge:

It’s been good to clear some stuff out, even a little at a time. Yesterday I cleaned up the kitchen hutch/cabinet thingy and put away decorations on the top. See that post here.

Tomorrow is Saturday so I might open up the garage and tackle some of the spaces out there. Of course there’s a twin bed frame, mattress, sink, toilets, lights and couch in the middle of the garage so who knows how much room I’ll have to clean?!

Day 3: Uncluttering Decorations

It’s day 3 of the William Morris Challenge (details and day 1 decluttering here) and I’ve already had that sense that I should burn down my house and run away. You know, become a minimalist who lives in a shed on a beach. But then I remember that I like stuff, it’s just that I want my stuff to be pretty and function and make me happy (ooo pretty!) and not frustrated (dang dust!). So I put down the matches and poured a glass of wine, contemplating a less cluttered existance.

It’s a scary thing to be inside my head.

Anywho… this was the space I tackled today:

This is the top of my cabinet in the dining area with a bunch of decorations and stuff that was leftover from Christmas that I just threw up there. Oh, that did not sound good…. anywho, I moved somethings out, put a few things below in the cabinets and rehung the picture in the corner so it’s level with the other one. Here’s the after:

I found this bread basket at Target and added the place mats to it since I hate french bread. Not that it’s not yummy, but I cannot buy it because it becomes hard as a rock or moldy before I can finish the loaf and thus, I hate it.

The cabinet itself was pretty cluttered looking, probably because I stack snacks in there instead of putting them in the glass containers:

Ignore the angle, once again drunk camera. Or, if you assume the green tin that says HERBS has actual herbs in it, you can assume the camera has a contact high. Not that it does.

I like this cabinet. I even touched up the paint in the fall so it is pretty much “done” although I do need to fix the knobs and make the doors close better. So instead of worrying about that I just emptied the shelves, wiped down with a rag and restocked everything.

The glass jars with shelf stable food is great, definitely keeps my closed door pantry much more organized when there’s less stuff crammed in. And all the canned goods live outside in the pantry shelving Dad built me. Oh, and I can tell I didn’t dust the tops of these very well!

So this space is both useful and pretty, per the William Morris quote. The bottom of the cabinet is pretty full, it holds all of my china, place mats and bowls. Pretty handy piece of furniture for the kitchen and it was only $20 plus paint.

Probably the last “project” I need to finish for this space is labels for the glass containers. Just in case idiots come to dinner and can’t figure out that there are whole and sliced almonds or cannot figure out what a lentil is. But that’s not so much a project for this challenge so I can wait on it.

Still not sure what I’m going to work on tomorrow and honestly, I probably won’t know until I open up a new post and look around the house until something annoys me enough to clean it up. That’s how I roll.

See yesterday’s post here : Decluttering the charging station and a headboard cubby

Day 2: Charging Station and Headboard Cubby

It’s Day 2 of the William Morris Challenge (for details click here) and it took me awhile to determine what I was going to declutter today. Mostly as I laid in bed and tried to get the energy and momentum to get the dogs off me so I could get up.

I decided to work on an area that gets a lot of use but not a lot of attention, my charging station:

I have this little area right inside the front door and it serves to charge my cell phone and bluetooth, hold the contents of my purse and corral clutter.

First step, as always, was to dump everything out. This was only possible because the dogs were outside and thus unable to steal my chapstick and eat it.

Yeah… I found gift certificates, more business cards, 3-D glasses, eye glass cleaner, more lip gloss, random cords, a button, a rubber band… you get the idea.

Luckily, most of these items have homes. A jar under the sink collects rubber bands, a box in the bathroom has all eye glass related stuff, a jar in the guest room holds random buttons.

I grabbed some generic surface cleaner and a rag to dust the charging station and got that cleaned up. The drawer now holds my gift certificates that need to be redeemed. The 3-D glasses are in with my movies until I decide to recycle them at the movie theater and I’ve added more to the stack o biz cards to enter online.

While I like this little area I started thinking about painting the charging station or labeling the organizer. But it doesn’t really need it, they look fine and I guess I’m just not “that” domestic gal who coordinates everything. I’ve got bigger projects to worry about!

And, because I can’t just do one area, I also tackled this cubby in my master bedroom headboard. Mostly because it also holds chargers and I needed to clean those up.

Ignore the weird angle, apparently my camera is drunk. These corn bags are awesome, a lifesaver for my back when it’s sore or tight and easy to heat in the microwave for 5 minutes. Plus it’s feed corn, not popcorn, so they’re reusable.

The little box with all the pins doesn’t fit in here very well so off I went to find a better container. Here’s what was inside the basket is misfit toy chargers:

As you can tell it’s a huge mess of cables and chargers and I’m so glad to have it sorted! Bonus: I finally found the cords for my old handheld camera so I can download videos from Christmas time. Most of these cords went to the office where I have boxes for each electronic “thing” like my ipod, phone, audio, video camera, ipad… all that jazz.

As a result I was able to get this down to the essentials, a spare phone charger and the iPad/iPod charger, both of which fit in this small basket (which originally held a bath set gift I got for Christmas):

The small blue container has travel stuff like ear phones, a compact charger and iPad converters. Easy to pack too!

Well, that wasn’t as hard as I thought once I got started – what are you working on making useful and beautiful in your home?

To get all the details see the Day 1 post here – office supplies & an Ikea Caddy

Scaffold Enabled Projects

Well, I finally got the much sought after scaffold! This is going to be great, a very useful tool to help me finally finish the ceiling work in the house.

I will need a few supplies such as:

• masks so I don’t inhale all that dust
• boxes to catch the majority of the popcorn texture crap
• plastic sheeting to lay down
• water bottles
• ceiling paint, probably 5 gal to save $ – prefer the kind that goes on pink and dries off white

Here’s the list (you know I like lists, right?):

Hallway (Feb)

• empty hallway (pictures and goodwill donations)
• scrape popcorn texture (2 hour estimate)
• tape and patch any problem areas
• paint ceiling
• touch up wall paint
• rehang pictures

Master Bedroom (Feb)

• empty room (bed, chair, headboard, nightstand, bookshelf, curtains)
• remove all picture frames (use tape to note correct placement of nails to rehang)
• lay down plastic cover on carpet
• scrape popcorn texture (4 hour estimate)
• tape and patch any problem areas
• paint ceiling
• remove baseboards
• prime walls
• paint walls
• paint baseboards
• install new baseboards
• rehang picture frames

Guest Room (Mar)

• remove mattress, rugs, small furniture
• take down quilt, picture frames and memo boards
• cover furniture with sheets/drop cloths
• finish scraping ceiling (90% done, just a bit of touch up)
• tape and patch any problem areas
• paint ceiling
• touch up wall paint and baseboards

Office (Mar)

• remove chairs, electronics, pictures, everything atop bookshelves
• drape furniture and bookshelves with sheets/drop cloths
• finish scraping ceiling (75% done, lots of touch up)
• tape and patch any problem areas
• paint ceiling

And then, if I still have ceiling paint leftover and I haven’t cursed whoever put these textured ceilings in my house:

Living Room/Dining Area (Apr)

• remove all furniture (shift to garage)
• drape plastic sheeting over the carpet and floors
• scrape ceiling in living room and dining area (12′ vaulted ceilings. fun times.)
• tape and patch any problem areas
• paint ceiling
• touch up wall paint
• touch up baseboard paint

Then and only then, when it’s all said and done can I finally finish:

• hanging a new light in the living room
• replacing the guest room fan (poss match office fan)
• replacing the master bedroom fan (poss with fancy light)

Hopefully in the spring I’ll be able to find these lights with good prices and Dad can do the work in the attic before it gets too hot.

Yeah, it’s going to be a fun couple of months! Let’s not mention that I bought the new sink, light and toilet for the master bath and need to pick out a faucet, flooring and baseboards or possibly bead board….

January Uncluttering

Like everyone else in the world I find January a very motivating time to declutter some old stuff and clean house. Especially after getting some great new things for Christmas it’s time to make room.

I recently came across the William Morris challenge and thought I’d give it a try. It’s all about creating the home you want based on this quote:

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

–William Morris.

So, with that in mind the goal is to clean, declutter and donate items every day. At least one thing per day in one area. I can’t promise to blog every day or even to track what I’m working on but as long as I’m making progress it’s all good. Let’s start with today, shall we?

By process of eeny, meeny, miney, mo I chose this organizer in my office closet that I got from Ikea years ago:

It’s not particularly beautiful, but it is useful. And the labels mean I don’t have to take it down every time I need something.

I was able to clean out an entire drawer of  coupons that I don’t use, many of which expired 18 months ago.

There was a drawer for BART cards… well this one was interesting. I have $6.45 in metro cards from trips to Washington D.C. and $8.83 in BART cards (across 6 different cards). So I’ll use the BART tickets for my next trip to the airport, a one way is about $10.

I do have a lot of calendar stickers, stars, price stickers and such which are fine – the container keeps them organized and the drawers are labeled well.

Business cards also came out and I replace that drawer with label refills and a drawer for Post-its. Still going through the huge stack of biz cards and tossing the old ones, entering the relevant ones and finding myself amused at the items I’ve kept. Like a Borders reward card. Organ donor card. Rebate cards and even more BART cards.

Since I was going through the office supplies I decided to empty and refill the bottom drawer in my desk. Here’s what it looked like before I moved the post-it’s, label maker refills and paper to the closet:

I filled the drawer here with items I use all the time but don’t need right at hand. You know, glue, tape, paper clips. All that jazz. I didn’t throw much away, just cleaned it up so everything is visible (no stacking):

While I was working at the desk I decided to go ahead and do the second drawer which has pens, pencils, highlighters and sharpies. Also a slot for my 3-hole punch.

There were only a few things I actually threw away/donated, most went back into the desk.  Does that count for 3 areas? I know, I should spread it out over a few days but once I get on a roll I need to keep going.

I purposefully am not creating a list, a process or a system around this project. Just keep working on one space at a time and only keep items that are useful or beautiful, preferably both.

Guest Room Makeover

Since we moved my Grandpa to a new room, including a hospital bed to help him get up and out in the morning, his old furniture set needed a new home. My brother was interested in the dresser but I ended up with the queen bed and headboard.

The room used to look like this (on a good day):

And now with the new bed here’s the corner by the closet:

The Nancy Drew books were a present from my parents when I was a kid. The rug is from Ikea and covers up my yoga mat (it’s easier to keep it out this way).

And then the bed itself:

 You can see some of the headboard here with the mirror. I’m going to take down the quilt hanging behind the bed once I find my screwdriver. More books in the far corner and my balance ball. You can’t see but there’s a gap between the bookshelf and wall and I used a command hook to hang my exercise bands which I use for physical therapy (still 4 years after my car accident!).

Finally, the corner with the mini tv (i.e. what you see when you open the door and look straight ahead:

Tiny tv and such along that wall. The white squares  are for pictures when I get my act together and print them. The quilt will go on this wall when I move it. You can see the bed takes up 60% of the room but it’s still easy to walk around.

The closet also got a mini makeover with cleaning out some old stuff and reorganizing:

Top right: with tivo, boxes of presents and such.
Bottom right is the mirror from my bathroom renovation, there’s the cheapo curtain rods with ribbon and wrapping paper. The blue boxes have projects I’m working on (easy to move), the dresser has  sheets and my luggage fits underneath:
Top left has puzzles and games (some are new and gifts), then the boxes have craft crap which is labeled and organized:
Bottom left I added a lamp that no longer fits in the room, the cart has more craft stuff (mostly fabric) and yes, that’s Darth Vader because I have a collection of Star Wars characters from the 70s. Because I am a nerd.:

And there you go, my finished guest room! I’ll have a more detailed post on the artwork when I get it moved, I’ve done a few project that are nearly done and ready to share!

January Projects

I’ve been working on new projects at home but this one is for Grandpa! When my grandparents moved to assisted living in 2007 I created this board to help my Grandma recognize family members (with her Alzheimer’s a visual clue was helpful to her memory). In the fall I removed the board in order to update the photos now that we’ve added spouses, great grandkids & everyone is older.

In addition to this large picture frame I have several more to add to the new room Grandpa is getting this weekend.

At my house, I have a few random projects going on, like finally growing some of my tulips and daffodil bulbs. Indoors of course.

It started with the tall glasses I bought over the past few months. I added a bunch of small river rocks and then the bulbs:

It’s a little hard to tell but the bulbs need to sit on the rocks with the roots touching the water. If the bulb is submerged in the water it can rot.

So adding the water is tricky. Especially when you’re also taking pictures.

Once the bulbs are done they’re ready for a cool, dark place for a couple of weeks. Mine are on top of the extra fridge outside. Already the roots are growing down and the bulbs are starting to sprout!

Another unexpected project was getting a new to me bed! Grandpa just moved to a new room with a hospital bed (easier for him to help himself up) and we had to move the family queen bed and headboard. After some discussion I decided to take it and replace my guest room twin bed.

Last night was busy with moving furniture in and out, rearranging bookshelves and I still have a lot of cleaning and organizing to do! I’ll have pictures to share soon!

p.s. If you haven’t seen my new photography project check it out here. Pretty simple: one pic per day, one word to describe the image. Just for funsies.

Favorite Finds

Let’s just be honest. I’m OCD and just a bit quirky.

One of the ways that manifests is in organizing my files and photos. I love going back through my folders and seeing what things I’ve done, places I’ve been and people I’ve seen and January is an especially good time for this.

In 2011 for example I traveled to Colorado, D.C., New Jersey and New York, Tahoe, Miami and the Florida Keys, Connecticut and Boston. For me that’s a lot of travel and I took a lot of pictures!

While I’m collecting all of my favorite photos on my full wall gallery I’m also finding one photo to post every day on my new photography blog! Check it out here:

One-Thousand Photos

And, for fun, I thought I’d look back at the favorite things I’ve bought in 2011 and where I’m using the items.

This cute mug came from the charity consignment shop in town for $2 and it was great for hot apple cider at night. I probably should have put it away in the Christmas boxes but I’m low on mugs. This cup was $2.50 and I used it primarily for the Christmas mantle with a tea light candle.

Also used for Christmas decor was this silver plated platter:

This was $3 and didn’t need to be polished at all before I used it to reflect the candle light:

I found a lot of fun things for my garden this year, I spray painted this watering can with a bright yellow:

this little lantern was already bright yellow and I picked it up for $1:

This long tray was $1 and a bright pink:

All together I set it up on the $5 open wood shelf outside:

Here it is all set up:

 I love this great glass dome for $3:

I used it for Christmas ornaments and decorations:

I stocked up on glass Christmas ornaments – each box was $1-2 – and this represents about 1/4th of the collection I bought:

 In addition to decorating the tree I made this ornament wreath:

I also picked up some new milk glass vases for $1 ea:

and this great hand puppet:

Doesn’t it make you want to watch Jurassic Park? I also bought this green purse because I have a smallish purse obsession:

And this great glass vase/decorating thingy (anyone know the proper name?) for about $3:

Well there you go, lots of fabulous, fun, thrifty finds of 2011!

First Saturday

Well, it’s the first weekend of the new year and I’m working at home. After some errands around town and a concert tonight, I decided to get some of my on-going chores done. You probably have some of those things that never feel “done” – for me it’s laundry.

So while I catch up on Bones I am doing laundry, sweeping the hallway, adding books to the donation pile, scanning magazine tear outs, archiving 2011 receipts, balancing my checkbook, paying bills and working on my photography portfolio.

How are you spending the first weekend of the new year?

Happy Holidays!

For some reason I’ve been thinking lately of my first Christmas home during college and then my second semester of school.

When I got back to the dorm, unpacking my new presents hauled from California to Virginia, a friend of mine from the debate team burst into my room in tears.

“Don’t you miss your Mommy?” she finally asked, swiping the tears from her cheeks.

Uh, not that much? It was hard to answer because yes, I missed my family who I did not see mid semester unless they came to the East Coast but also I was excited to be on my own, to experience college and debate and travel.

So we talked about our siblings instead and I recalled how my brother woke me up at six in the morning shouting “Santa came! Santa came!” and then, when I didn’t get out of bed (hey, college student habits!) he threw me my stocking which contained something solid and left a bruise.

“Hey,” my friend protested, “it’s cute he’s so excited! Little brothers are cute!”

“Little? No, my brother is 19…”

Just another Christmas at home.

This year was my first time having the parents at my house for Christmas Eve – we picked up Grandpa and made a stir fry for dinner before opening presents.

 It was a wonderful, relaxing night and really feels full circle. From flying home for a few weeks, living out of a suitcase, to hosting in my home of three years.

I even shot a few videos in front of the tree for my colleagues and clients. It’s definitely “me” with the candles lit, thrift decor and a batch of 6 dozen cinnamon rolls ready to go in the oven.

Merry Christmas everyone!