Cup Hooks

Sometimes little things bring me joy.

We installed cup hooks over the kitchen sink.  

Pinterest is full of cute ideas for small kitchens, especially if that small kitchen happens to be in the midst of a generally awesome apartment with either period character or modern styling.  Late sixties/early seventies recovering project apartment housing with bare bones functionality and a self-conscious lack of any luxury whatsoever doesn't really make the "period character" category and tends to defy modern styling.  

I like this look though.  Cup hooks, colorful coffee mugs, and these strictly basic, no-frills cabinets are working for me.  It reminds me of home.  The coffee mugs on the left belonged to my maternal grandmother.  My paternal grandmother has cup hooks in her kitchen in Arkansas, hanging from cabinets my grandfather built himself.  In fact, I found the metal "Blasting Area" sign in my grandfather's work materials after he died.  This sign has come with me everywhere I have ever lived since striking out on my own. 

Of course, functional can be stylish.  I find this particular storage solution to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

If I change my mind or otherwise give up on this kitchen, I can always crank the hippy up to incense levels and hang a bead curtain across the doorway.

Sidebar:  Here's a thought, kitchens are supposed to be the heart of the home but actual hearts are kind of gross.  Why wouldn't you keep them behind closed doors?

Spring Cleaning

I don't have Pinterest insecurity.

If anything, I have Pinterest overconfidence. Why else would I decide that I could make my kitchen look like these in a single day as advertised on multiple home blogs?

Pinterest should come with several reality checks. The first would be that professional home bloggers do this shit because it is their job. I have a job that keeps me out of my own home upwards of 30-40 hours a week.

Second, some home bloggers hire a cleaning service or have help with childcare. They aren't actually doing it all themselves.

Third, a lot of these bloggers are living on a budget that is clearly two or three times what our budget is. Square footage alone can tell that tale.

Fourth, those that do are probably fundamentally different personality types with completely different style than yours truly.

Case in point

We have no need of a pantry because most of the food we eat is perishable so we don't really need to store food.
We have no space for a pantry because we live in a small apartment.
We have very little counter space and it certainly isn't granite.
We have no dishwasher.
We really don't have that many cabinets and we only have three drawers.
We also really do not have room for more than two people at a time in our kitchen.

In other words, our kitchen has issues that renters just can't fix.

Despite knowing all of this, it is that time of year where I Pinterest-stalk images of perfectly laid out and organized homes and think to myself-I can totally do that.

Overconfidence.

Needless to say, I'm a complete liar. Much like those lying misrepresenting heifers ladies on Pinterest with their empty countertops, daily vacuuming, all white living rooms, and "natural" cleaning products all while blogging full-time and homeschooling between five and eight offspring.

Sure you are.

Anyway, challenge accepted.

One Box At a Time

We moved!

I am excited and happy and exhausted and just a little terrified.

Why?  Well, to begin with, our living area looked like a Fed Ex office.  This is actually an improvement--it originally looked like this.

Personal Image

I solved this problem by stuffing our many and generous closets with boxes I won't be dealing with anytime soon.  

It's a start.

Can I just say-I love living in new places but I hatehatehatehate moving.  This is our first time as a couple living in a second floor apartment and by a stroke of fortune/misfortune, I only ended up hauling about four boxes up the stairs.  Wes injured his knee when he brought our box spring up so we ended up calling in movers to unload the truck.  

Movers are awesome.

It took two guys less than an hour to empty our twenty foot truck.  I held the bottom door for them and as box after box after box headed up the stairs I thought to myself-what the fuck is all of this stuff?  Why do we have all of this stuff?  I don't even remember some of these boxes.

We are talking twenty or so boxes of books, ten boxes of dishes, glassware, small kitchen appliances, and cookware, five or so boxes of coats, clothing, and linen, and over ten boxes of files, tech paraphernalia, and paper.  Our stash of power tools and beauty supplies ain't nothing to sneeze at either.  The really sad part is that our storage unit isn't even empty.  There are still quite a few items large furniture items in there that will eventually be donated to the Salvation Army.  The even sadder really sad part is that we donated several boxes of goods to Goodwill before we even left the old place.

Stuff-we are drowning in it.

Wes and I agreed that at least half of this crap needs to go elsewhere.  Ideally, we will sort, donate, and toss as we unpack.  If there isn't a place for something-it will have to go.  Hopefully by the time we move again we won't have 8,000 boxes.  We missed our things desperately and grieved the pieces we had to leave behind.  Despite that, we don't want to sacrifice living space, or living ease, or freedom for things that we don't really need, things that don't really work, or things we do not absolutely love.

Um Yeah I Was Doing the Most. . .THC Bathroom Edition Part the First

I decided to organize my hair products and . . . this is kind of major.  No wonder this apartment feels like it's bursting at the seams.

Problem . . .

A city skyline of hair products

The Closeup

The aerial view . . .

If I could also draw your attention to all that crap in the back . . .

And the saddest part?  That's not even all of it.  I had two more boxes of rollers and end papers and hot curlers and flat irons, etc., etc. on the sofa behind me when I took these pictures.  I didn't take pictures of them because . . .  well, I'm ashamed.  This is excessive to say the least. 

Meet Solution . . .

Before I started the sorting and editing process I decided that I needed to make all this stuff more accessible so that I could even begin to accurately assess what was most useful to me.  Hence, the shoe organizer, gangster-customized so it would fit on our bathroom door. 

Yup, I cut a hole in it so we could still hang our towels there.

Here's what it looked like after I got through tossing empty bottles, re-homing nail polish and chickening out on giving up my flat iron, curlers and rollers to Goodwill.  I stuffed them in another box in my closet because I just can't let go.  Sigh.

Nice and useable.  Still a lot a lot of product.  A lot!

I did some more finagling in the bathroom, but that's for another day.

The Tiny House Conundrum (THC): The One and Only Closet

I don’t have a before picture but the after still has plenty packed in so you get the idea.

All photos by Moi

I got that massive file cabinet for 39 bucks believe it or not.  It contains all of my art and crafting supplies, academic files, paper, and sewing projects.  You will also notice boxes, our luggage, the ironing board and that big brown and duct-taped thing is a dress form Wes and I made on one of our endless snow days.

What you don’t see is clothing.  I did manage to carve out a little space for coats and jackets but the rest of our clothes had to find other homes.  You’ll see that solution when we get to the bedroom.

SEXY!

How to Organize Sewing Patterns

Last summer I met a new love.  The pattern sale.

Just look at all my beauties . . . .

All Images By Moi

I never bought patterns in bulk before but when they are $.99 to $1.99 . . . well, what's a girl to do?  Since I suddenly had so many patterns I decided that the best way to make them functional would be to pre-prep them and organize them in a space saving manner.

You know how once you unfold that pattern tissue the mass of the whole thing quadruples?  Well, here is my solution to that problem.  Three ring binders, paper, and sheet protectors.  When one has been a student for as long as I have, one has all of these things in abundance.

Ahh . . . . visual bliss

How do you do it? Well, first prepare yourself for tedium.

Place a sheet of paper in the sheet protector.

Put the pattern envelope on one side and the instructions on the other.

 

 

Cut out all the pieces and group them together in subsequent sheet protectors.  I do groups of five.

Place in binder.

Repeat.

It is initially time consuming and tedious but I have to say, there is nothing like just pulling out the pieces you need when you are ready to use them.  Some people prefer filing their patterns but I really like my binder method.  It makes it easier to keep track of the various pieces, especially the smaller ones that might slip out of a file folder.  I also find it convenient as I can toss the whole thing in a shoulder bag and haul it to the fabric store if necessary.  The added benefit there is that no one would question whether or not the pattern you're holding had already been purchased.

 

Plus, I store fabric in the file cabinet.

Resolution Organization. . The Big Box O Paper is No More!

Remember this?  AKA our personal filing system?

Well I finally got around to sorting and filing it.  I gave up a precious day off to the tedious task of opening mail. . .  because I don't know if I mentioned this the first time around. . . but Wes and I have developed the unfortunate habit of just not opening our mail.

Mission Organization-The Tiny House Conundrum

Remember this?

That's how I'm living yo. At least, that's how it feels.

Are Christmas Cards like Thank You Notes?

Source

In that it's never too late to send them?

Resolution Organization

Today, in a bid to both waste time and give myself a break from bill paying and number crunching, I began working on my first resolution project. This idea is courtesy of Sara from 2000 Dollar Wedding.