All in the details…

May 30, 2012 6 Comments

Source

Today’s “All in the details” features the office space of one my most admired bloggers – Danielle Moss of Breakfast at Toast and The Everygirl. If you haven’t become a daily reader of The Everygirl, you are selling yourself short. This fairly new blog is FULL of priceless advice, inspiration and resources for women of all ages aching for success. Whether you want to be a successful boutique owner or a world-renowned author, this site just might give you the kick in the pants you need to go for your goals. Definitely give it a shot…

But I digress.

Danielle’s office space is one of those spaces heaped in style, yet manages to make the most of a fairly small nook. Let’s take a closer look:

SHELF STYLING

When decorating empty wall space, you can often go one of two ways – Either the 2D variety (i.e. prints, paintings, drawings, etc.), or go 3D. Here, Danielle chooses to dress up the wall above her computer desk with a set of two thin shelves. The white color and non-obtrusive hanging hardware make them blend seamlessly with the wall, but offer a great landing place for whimsical, personal momentos such as a stack of books, an old camera and a sea urchin figurine. Brass highlights throughout make the collection cohesive without seeming forced.

THE FURNITURE

It seems that every girl ought to have herself a glossy white parsons desk. This beautiful, sleek piece of furniture is, again, non-obtrusive and allows the accessories and decor to really pop. Although a little short on storage (the main reason why I’m not craving one for my own home), the designer of this table managed to squeeze in a couple of long drawers, perfect for dainty office supplies. And the crisp white (I’m sensing a theme here) and chrome desk chair is feminine yet modern.

DESKTOP

Danielle makes the most of the lack of storage space by topping her desk with nick knacks that don’t scream “office” – Instead, she uses a white lacquer tray to coral her papers, a nondescript black box with white trim to hide the clutter (although with such a beautiful space, I can’t even imagine she owns any clutter) and pretty vases to hold fresh flowers and pens. Even her acrylic tape dispenser exudes style. Sure, you might end up spending a bit more upfront for these types of high-end office supplies, but if you want to capture a put-together look it might be time to ditch the Office Max black stapler and metal filing cabinet.

INSPIRATION BOARD

I love inspiration boards because they do double duty as both extra wall art and a place to organize what moves you. The simple cream painted frame of this board and canvas background don’t overpower and let the pinned pieces make the real statement. I love to imagine what made her decide to showcase the individual items – The note cards, the signed box top from Louboutin (although I’m sure that was an easy decision), the Henri Bendel shopping bag, the photos and “I <3 NY” pin. No two inspiration boards will ever be the same – compare it to mine, for example – and I adore that…

So what are your favorite details?

For all of my top inspirational spaces, click here. 

Filed Under: Inspiring, All in the details, Office Tagged With: , , , , ,

“Thrift Store SCORE!”

May 25, 2012 16 Comments

Before I reveal our latest “Thrift Store SCORE!” I need to bring you up to speed on a little swap out we did with our master bedroom bed, specifically with the linens. We L-O-V-E our yellow and grey quilt, but we’ve had it on the bed for about a year now and it was time for a change. Don’t worry if you are “Team Quilt” though – It will definitely make a return as the seasons (and my moods) change.

First, to find a replacement…After getting a soft and luxurious down comforter from our wedding gift registry, we decided to go with a duvet cover. It just so happened that we had scheduled a trip to Ikea right before jetting off to our honeymoon (there was one only minutes away from our airport), so I made sure to make a pit stop in their bedding section. There were so many to choose from, but we ended up going with Ransby, a subtle pattern of grey leaves and vines on a white background. For less than $30 for the set, it was too good (and pretty) a deal to pass up.

Soon after returning from our trip, I dressed the bed and stepped back hoping to be wowed. The pattern and cushy down comforter were perfect, but the rest of the space was a bit lacking. You see, after posting a number of pieces of furniture for sale, I managed to pass my existing nightstand off to a friend. I was happy to give it a new home, but sad to be left with nothing to set my book on.

As you can see to the right of the bed (my side), I was literally living out of a box. So I knew it was time to replace what I had sold.

The reason I got rid of the original table was because of its traditional style – It was a perfect piece for me several years ago when I embraced the fully eclectic look (i.e. college era hand-me-downs), but now that I am working on a forever home and have the means to be picky with the furniture we add, I wanted to go with something I knew both John and I would love. What might that be? I envisioned something from the 1970′s with spindly legs, one of those two-tiered pieces with a drawer.

So, with renewed motivation, we headed out to our favorite estate shop downtown, which tends to have about 30 of just this type of nightstand to choose from. Of course, there were slim pickin’s the one day we set out for our new-to-us nightstand, but we lucked out after uncovering the perfect one.

Yes, it’s a bit worse for wear between the piece of flapping vinyl off the side and the layers of dust and cobwebs, but the lines were right, the shape was right and even the hardware was right. I adore the simple look of the round drawer pull – A circle of dark wood surrounding a thin metal pin. It even had a drawer! We were made for each other…

After a quick wipe down with furniture polish, it looked good as new. It really is in great shape considering how old it probably is. Other than the dislodged vinyl strip, there are no major dings or scratches and it is sturdy as can be. Oh and the price? Unfortunately, I headed to the check out counter just as the owner of the store (who is notorious for not backing down on price) came up to the register. I was hoping to spend $15 on this bad boy, but instead I was asked to pay $30. Not the BEST deal I’ve ever gotten, but I loved it and didn’t care. Besides, I made $30 on the sale of my old nightstand, so we can just call it even.

After situating it beside the bed (along with another piece of furniture to be discussed in a moment), the room finally started looking more complete. Luna the kitty also decided to grace us with her modeling abilities this morning…

The two tiers gives me plenty of room for my favorite antique lamp, our little family bell, a stack of books and a cup for water. Really, I could fit a whole lot more on the table, but for now I’m enjoying the uncluttered look. And no, I still haven’t fixed the broken vinyl yet…But it’s nothing a little wood glue can’t fix once I have a spare moment.

But about that OTHER new bed-side table…As you can see peeking around the bottom of the bed in the photo below, I also added a bench that my dad built. It used to live in the living room under the front window for the kitties (and sometimes the not-so-little dog) to people watch from, but since rearranging that room, it got displaced. I actually love it at the foot of the bed since it’s a great spot to stack excess pillows or slip on a pair of shoes in the morning.

Isn’t my dad so freaking talented? Such a beautiful, simple, classic piece of furniture…

Both new pieces add a ton of storage and fit our style perfectly. I’m so lucky that we were able to find just the right thing for our home. Have you guys snagged any great thrift store pieces lately?

P.S. You may have noticed a new blog header – Again, after a year with the original one I thought it was time for a change. I decided to go with something short, sweet, to-the-point and streamlined. Hope you like it! Who knows how long it will stick around. I tend to look at my blog design in the same way I do my house – I like change and I like to swap out and tweak things until it’s juuuuuuust right. Keeps life interesting…

Hope you have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Filed Under: Bedroom, Furry kiddos/pets, Our Influences, Product Search, Thrift Store Tell All Tagged With: , , , , ,

Another cord/outlet domination

May 11, 2012 17 Comments

If you are anything like me, you hate cords. Like, REALLY hate them. They clutter the look of a space and turn what could be a quiet, pretty vignette into a tangled mess. But sometimes the placement of outlets makes visible cordage an unavoidable necessity. You’ve seen me tackle one problem area here (back in the early days of DG-DIY and bad photography skills), by taping the cord string along the back of a table’s leg to mask it. That one worked like a charm, but we had one other area that couldn’t be helped without some rewiring and drywall patching.

Until we feel brave enough to do some permanent rearranging with the outlet placements, our current television/cable outlet situation in the living room was giving me a massive headache.

I had managed to hide the mess of cables behind the record shelf, but those outlet plates were still screaming for attention.

My temporary solution for the issue was to stack books in front of them – About 100 pounds of books, to be exact. I took a leisurely stroll through the house one afternoon, rounding up all of the biggest and heaviest art books that I owned. I had a bunch and they stacked up nicely (literally and figuratively), but there was still something about it that didn’t look quite right.

I still don’t know how West Elm makes their stacks of art books look so unintentional and home-y…

Not only was the look a bit off, but you could still catch a glimpse of the outlets behind the spines, making the purpose of the arrangement painfully obvious. So I redistributed the stack back into the bookshelves throughout the house and started back at square one. My dream was to find some kind of vintage laundry basket, something tall but relatively thin, to put in front of the outlets. Something like that would serve double duty, covering the nasty imperfection and also acting as throw blanket storage.

As a back up, I also kept my eye out for things like large vessels or a vintage speaker with a woven front ala the ’60s or ’70s – I figured both could work in the event that my laundry basket idea (a) took too long to come to fruition, or (2) failed completely.

Fast forward about a month and a half and a miracle occurred. A family friend (who also happens to have been our fabulous wedding planner) hosted a yard sale at her house – As an event planner, and this being only a few weeks before our wedding, I decided we’d go check out what she was offering in case any of it could be useful at our event. Not only did we find tons of fun stuff for the reception, but we also stumbled upon the perfect solution for my “ugly outlet situation.”

Is that hamper not exactly what I had described in my vision??? In fact, I think it’s even better than perfect – I couldn’t have hoped for a vintage style laundry basket with more style and character. Check out that neat cross weave in the wicker and the buckled belt closure! And just as I’d longed for, it has a great big opening for blankets galore!!

I try to limit my use of exclamation points on this blog, but this find definitely deserves a few…It’s one of those times when patience and waiting for just the right piece really does pay off.

Cbeck out the new yard-saled hamper below taking care of our ugly outlet situation in style. You may also notice a furniture shift…I decided to switch things up in the living room, turning the sofa at an angle and pulling our new yellow chair out into the open edge of the space. I think it opens the room to more flow and certainly better conversation. Seems far more welcoming to me.

Here’s the photo of it again before rearranging, so that you don’t need to scroll back up to the top for reference/comparison.

…And now again with the new arrangement:

So what do you think? Do you guys have any other creative solutions for hiding ugly cords and outlets? I could still use all the help I can get…

Have a great weekend!

Filed Under: Living Room, Simple Fixes, Thrift Store Tell All Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Guest Post: Keep things balanced

May 2, 2012 Leave a Comment

Good morning! Hope you are enjoying a wonderful week. Who knows what we are up to at this moment…Could be lounging on beach chairs by the pool, or maybe even floating over to the swim-up bar for a drink. Heck, we MIGHT even be sprawled out on one of the canopy beds on our private beach, ordering margaritas! Whatever the case, I am missing you guys and the blog…Luckily, I know you are in capable hands. Today, Lisa of SpareFoot Storage Finder is spilling the beans on keeping your home organized and beautiful this season.

Top Three Ways to De-Clutter Your Home

You can own a lot of attractive things, but those things won’t look good if you’re home is cluttered. De-cluttering isn’t always incredibly simple, though, especially if you’ve let things pile up in your home for a while. If your clutter situation is a little out of control, don’t worry. There are things you can do to salvage your home from disorganization and chaos. Here are some tips to help you organize your living space and minimize what you own:

Let Go

You don’t need two blenders in case one of them breaks, and you don’t need a pirate costume you wore on Halloween when you were a senior in college. If you’re holding on to things you simply don’t need or won’t use in the near future, consider letting those things go. Go through each of the rooms of your home and make piles of everything you want to keep and everything you don’t need. Donate what you won’t need any time soon to a good cause, give it to your sister, or find a way to recycle it.

Stow Away

Your living space simply may not be big enough for you to showcase all of your favorite paintings, furniture and decorations. However, you may not want to get rid of these things. If this is the case, turn to your closets and garage and try to store what you can there. If you have a bunch of antique furniture you don’t want to part with, consider storing the furniture in a self-storage unit until you move into a bigger place. There’s no reason for everything you own to be on display, especially if the space in your home is limited. So, stow what you can away and out of sight.

Keep Things Balanced

Having four coffee tables and one sofa in your living room doesn’t quite create the kind of balance you probably want in your home. Assess each of your rooms and look for things that disrupt the balance of the rooms. We’re talking about extra things that just don’t quite “fit.” Once you identify the things that do disrupt the balance of the rooms in your home (such as the three extra coffee tables in your living room), take those things out. Put them in another room of your home, store them in your closets or garage or get rid of them.

Clearing out clutter requires physical effort and time, and it also requires mental and emotional effort. For a de-cluttering project to be successful, you have to get rid of things that might have sentimental value, and you have to commit to living a more simplistic, minimalistic lifestyle (if you want things to stay de-cluttered). Change isn’t always easy, but you’ll be surprised by how much the energy of your home is affected when you clear out the clutter. Chances are, you won’t ever want to go back to having a disorganized, cluttered home again.

Lisa is a guest blogger who writes about getting the most out of a small living space, home organization, and storage units, including storage units in Colorado Springs and storage units in McAllen.

Check back on Friday for our final guest poster, Jessi of Bee Rooted (gushed about here for her invaluable help with my own diet routine) – She’ll be sharing her top three tips for incorporating healthy eating into your busy lifestyle. 

(Photo credit for “Just let it go”: here; garage storage: here; balanced living room: here)

Filed Under: Bathroom, Bedroom, DIY Projects, How-To, Inspiring, Kitchen, Living Room, Simple Fixes Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday: Wooden hangers

April 23, 2012 16 Comments

I have really been into fashion lately…Not sure when my focus shifted from home style to clothing and accessories, but I can’t deny my love of a great outfit any longer. Now, I wake up every morning motivated to craft a colorful, cohesive ensemble down to the bracelet. It’s fun to mix and match patterns, colors and metals to make a balanced and sophisticated look – In fact, it’s really not much different than styling a shelf or arranging fabrics in a living space. The same principles still count here, just in clothes.

Obviously, a new love and longing for style means a little shopping was in order. I’ve bought a good amount of new clothes in the last month, but to keep myself on track I kept a list of must-have essentials with me and have kept to it like it was the law. So now I am rewarded with a closet of thought out pieces – Here’s my latest (and, as promised to my bank account, my LAST) big haul, this time from Target and T.J. Maxx.

One of the most affordable ways I’ve been able to feed my new need for fashion and style in my closet (beyond sticking to a list when shopping) is to work on making the most of what I already have. In the past month I have spent long periods of time in my closet getting rid of things I no longer fit into or that no longer fit into my style. Shout out to our local consignment shop though (Salvaged), I don’t donate clothes anymore – I bag them up and take them straight to consignment. So far, I’ve made over $100 – Pretty fabulous when I think about how I was just going to take everything to Goodwill for zero profit…

Another thing I decided to do was find ways to amp up the display in my closet, right on down to the hangers…After seeing these two Pinterest images of clothing hung on natural wood hangers and how it gave it a high-end boutique look, I knew I had to upgrade.

Source: The Everygirl

 

Source: barefoot contessa

My closet as it was, came dominated by plastic hangers. Now, I do think that plastic is a big upgrade from plain wire hangers, which tend to bend…But I could envision just how much better and more cohesive the space would look with matching wooden hangers.

Have you guys seen on Pinterest or heard this tip from a friend? Essentially, to make the most of your clothing, you turn all of the hangers backwards and then, as you wear something, you turn the hanger right-ways. That way at the end of the season, you’ll know what clothes you didn’t utilize by seeing their hangers still turned backwards – Time to get rid of them. I attempted this at one point (as you can see in the photo above and below), but eventually gave up. I have a pretty good handle on what piece make me feel good and what don’t. It was just about finding the motivation to actually get rid of things that I’d been holding onto for years.

My motivation? Upgrading the hangers. I eventually found my collection on Ebay for about $50 shipped for 80 wooden hangers (with pant bar in the middle). I knew that 80 wouldn’t be enough for the amount of clothes I had, but figured it would be that motivator for purging that I was looking for – Only the best and most important pieces would get hung back up in the closet, while the rest would get consigned.

First things to get lovingly hung on their new boutique hangers? The three pieces I bought for myself at T.J. Maxx. I could already get the sense that the new wooden hangers made them feel straight out of a fancy designer clothing store – In my own home, no less! Exciting news for a girl like me…

I spent about two hours in my closet that afternoon, making sure to choose wisely as to what stayed and what would be bagged up for consignment. With each new hanger put into place on the bar, the whole feel of the wardrobe started to shift from cheap to luxurious. It really is amazing how wooden hangers can do that to your clothes. As I purged and rehung, I started a new pile of plastic hangers – They eventually made their way into the box that the wooden hangers came in. SO MANY HANGERS!! I plan on donating them to a thrift store soon.

And now to show off the new look – Again, I just love how things look more high-end after the hanger upgrade. No more light “click click” of plastic hangers when I go to pick out an outfit. I’m loving the more substantial wooden ones.

Unfortunately, despite letting go of what felt like a TON of clothes and half of my wardrobe, I still ran out of wooden hangers. I just couldn’t muster the will to get rid of the last bit of dresses to make it even. I resolved to get some more hangers later on to remedy the mismatched situation.

UPDATE:  I went out to Target over the weekend for wooden hanger supplements hoping to buy no more than 10, but left with a value pack of 24 hangers for only $14. They don’t match the Ebay hangers perfectly, but they certainly do the trick, and I doubt anyone would notice the inconsistency other than me.

So what tricks do you all have up your sleeves (pun intended) for making the most of your closet space and wardrobe? How do you “dress things up”?

Filed Under: Simple Fixes, Product Search, Product Review, Inspiring, Weekly Pinspiration, Bedroom Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Kitchen drawer reorganization

March 28, 2012 8 Comments

Is there anything more annoying than trying and failing to get your cake spatula to fit into the utensil drawer? Well, yeah…there probably is. Like having to wait more than THREE WEEKS for your sizable tax return (::grumble grumble::) – But that pesky over-filled drawer is still up there on my list of pet peeves.

Our kitchen is, for whatever reason, cursed with the skinniest drawers in the world. They are full-depth, but the width is only about a splayed-hand’s-worth (as you’ll see, literally, in a moment). We couldn’t even fit a standard size silverware organizer in the drawer to nicely separate our knives from forks and forks from spoons. To compensate, we’ve had to put them into plastic boxes meant for pens and pencils – Not ideal, if you ask me. The rest of the kitchen utensil drawers (think garlic press,  spatulas, measuring spoons, etc.) were stuffed willy nilly into the only other two available drawers right next to the oven.

Oh, and would you like to see what I mean by a “splayed-hand’s-worth” of room? Behold the proof:

We needed to come up with a solution and fast. With our wedding right around the corner and the possibility of an influx of kitchen supplies, we needed to be sure that our space could handle it – And as it was, it couldn’t. I had no clue what we could do, though, besides heavily purging. Maybe we could live without the cake spatula? ::dejected sigh::

But then John came to the rescue with another of his brilliant ideas.

You see, we have two massive drawers inside our kitchen island. Like probably THREE-splayed-hand’s-worth. Each. At the moment, they were being used for our laughably large supply of junk – Anything from a label maker and rolls of assorted tape, to an address book and batteries.

I suppose it hadn’t occurred to us to use these drawers for kitchen utensils because they are about three whole steps away from the oven/fridge work area. I’ll sacrifice a tiny bit of convenience in order to have some semblance of order though…Thus, John and I decided to switch the contents of the two big junk drawers with that of the three skinny utensil drawers.

The first step of the transfer was to take everything out of the drawers. While they were empty, I went ahead and brushed out all of the crumbs (P.S. how is it that drawers get so crumby? It’s not as though we eat over them!). I also took the opportunity to lay down some fresh cabinet liner paper – I use a vinyl patterned version that I’ve used and reused throughout three different homes.

We decided to use one of the big drawers for the small utensils and the silverware (still in their pencil cases, but hope to replace those after the wedding with something a little classier), and the other big drawer was filled up with the larger, long-handled utensils. It has actually worked out really well to have the utensils in the island drawers – Apparently I do a lot more prep work on that counter top than I realized, and it’s nice to be able to grab something quickly when I need it. And the big square footage means that I don’t have to paw through everything to find what I need or practically empty out the drawer to get to something on the bottom.

They might not look super organized and beautiful, but for practicality’s sake, it’s awesome.

As for the other drawers, we did our best to purge or redistribute things from our junk drawers (which always seem to exponentially grow over time). What was left got separated into the three skinny drawers – One for office things (stamps, batteries, notepads, address book, label maker, etc.), one for random honest-to-goodness junk (gum, tape, chalk, sewing kit, spare change, etc.) and the last one is all John (iPod cables and earbuds, checkbook, old Blackberry phone, business cards, CDs, etc.).

It’s taking us a bit of time to get used to things. I probably reach for the old silverware drawer about five times a day only to remember that it has moved…But, once we get the hang of things, I’m sure the practicality will be a huge stress-relief.

So tell me, what sorts of random things do you have in your junk drawer? We’ve all got ‘em – What do you hide in there? Pet stuff? Flashlights? Photos? Hidden stash of candy? Spill the beans!

Filed Under: Kitchen, Simple Fixes Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Top three spring cleaning tips

March 21, 2012 8 Comments

With the new season happily underway, let’s chat about spring cleaning. I’ll readily admit that I winter, fall, quarter-fall, summer and mid-summer clean in addition to the requisite purge session in March/April. My OCD tenancies often get the very best of me and I clean and organize as I go.

But for you sane normal people who are able to stave off the harried need to clean 365 days a year, here are my top 3 tips for getting your home in ship shape after winter’s hibernation:

  • Piles: When starting any organization project, I pull everything out of a storage space and sort – One pile for trash, one for donate and one for somewhere else in the house. Anything that goes back as it was can be carefully situated in the now-empty space, free of distraction. And be liberal with your “donate pile” – Purging is tough but it is SO satisfying when your home isn’t weighed down by stuff.
  • Baskets: We have baskets on our entry-way table for holding things like car keys and gloves. We’ve got baskets by the television to hold playing cards and CDs, and baskets in the kitchen to corral coffee supplies. I’ve even screwed a basket to the wall in our bathroom as a towel holder! Not a fan of wicker? Check out Bed Bath & Beyond’s selection of decorative boxes instead.
 
  • Wipe down: Come spring, it’s probably safe to say that things could use a good swipe with a rag. I use a clean microfiber rag (Crate & Barrel has some great options) to wipe down mirrors, baseboards and shelves. There’s nothing like a spotless, dust-free baseboard, even if it is just for a couple of weeks out of the year…
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Now it’s your turn! What are your top 3 tips for spring-time cleaning?
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Filed Under: DIY Projects, Product Search, Product Review, How-To, Bathroom, Studio, Kitchen, Living Room, Bedroom Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday: Counter top styling

March 19, 2012 4 Comments

Time for another installment of “Pinspiration Monday” – This time we are talking about the kitchen counter and a couple of quick ways to dress up those every-day things that we need to have on hand that aren’t exactly the most stylish of kitchen accessories.

The first is a “pretty” way to corral the usual won’t-ft-in-the-cabinet-because-they’re-too-tall suspects – For us that includes a coffee French press, an assortment of bottled vinegar and oil, a jar of napkins and my owl measuring cups (although that last one isn’t an eye-sore at all – You know me and my hoot obsession…). To remedy the situation, I took a cue from this pin:

Source: Better Homes and Gardens

The idea is to put all of the random pieces inside a simple wicker basket. Having a special spot for these seemingly-unrelated pieces would allegedly bring a sense of order to the counter top. SPOILER ALERT: It worked.

Here’s a quick peek at those kitchen essentials in question (oh, and please ignore the open upper cabinet doors – I did some paint touchups and they were drying):

They aren’t the most unsightly pieces in the world (again, isn’t that little owl just adorable?? – Thanks to my bff, Beth, for that sweet addition to your kitchen!), but I’m the kind of homemaker that likes “a place for everything and everything in its place.” For whatever reason, putting it all inside a basket would alleviate my stress just a touch and that’s good enough reason for me. Anyone else out there just as crazy and agree??

First, I needed a basket.

When I went out-of-town two weekends ago to visit friends and my sister for my bachelorette party, I ended up getting my first chance to check out a Hobby Lobby. I had a blast curling around each and every aisle looking for fun things to decorate and/or organize the house. One thing I came home with was this pretty rectangular basket – At only $5.99, I couldn’t say “no.” I thought the angled weave was a tad unique and modern – At least as far as baskets go…

Taking yet another cue from my Pinterest image, I tucked a patterned linen napkin inside the basket, a gift from John’s mom at my bridal shower last month.

Here is the newly arranged basket, full of our favorite kitchen accessories! I really do feel like they look a bit better grouped together in an orderly way – I know…My OCD is clearly out of control in this moment…

The next Pinterest counter-related project I worked on was pretty easy and not mind-blowingly creative, but I love it nonetheless. I wanted to join the bandwagon of folks who keep their dry pasta in pretty glass jars on the counter. It looks good, keeps noodles fresh and empties out a little extra room in the pantry – All good enough reasons for me to give it a shot.

Source: beach bungalow 8

 Source: Better Homes and Gardens

These three glass jars below, complete with brushed nickel metal screw tops, also came from my maiden adventure to Hobby Lobby. I walked out with one tall jar for only $4.99 and two medium, shorter jars for $4.79 apiece. Definitely didn’t break the bank on this project.

Here’s a quick look at our pantry, one I’m embarrassed to show you since it’s not very organized. Hopefully someday soon I can tackle it, armed with Tupperware and my label maker. But that’s another day…As you can see, we have a pretty good collection of pastas going (to the right of the photo).

Once I got all of it onto the counter, I was able to take stock – We’ve got an assortment of long pastas (is there a technical term for this?) such as spaghetti, fettuccine and angel hair, and then we’ve got the bite-size options like rotini and penne. We are trying to weed out our plain pastas to make way for whole wheat options (read up on our new dietary goals in this post from last week), and you’ll even see some gluten-free options from that phase of our eating habits.

The penne and rotini got their own jars (to be revealed in full in a moment), and the tall jar was saved for the long pastas. Now to decide who to put in there…So many varieties to choose from!

In the end, I decided to dump all of the boxes except for the gluten-free option into the jar. With the exception of the rice, gluten-free pasta, the rest were too similar to segregate. Our pasta dishes might look a little wonky until we run out of our multi-shaped supply, but I’m happy to get rid of all of those boxes. The jar had more than enough room to fit the four boxes-worth.

Here they are all filled up:

And they are now happily gracing the corner of our counter top. I love the balanced symmetry and there’s something really organic and natural about seeing plain dry pasta outside of those brightly colored and labeled boxes. I feel like Giada would approve.

All together now!!

All in a good day’s work…

What have you guys been organizing lately?

Filed Under: Our Influences, Simple Fixes, Product Search, Inspiring, Weekly Pinspiration, Yummmm, Kitchen Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Bathroom appliance storage

January 25, 2012 12 Comments

Ahh, the forever-issue women contend with when it comes to beauty products and appliances (i.e. hairdryers, straighteners, etc.) – Maybe I can’t speak for all women, but I know that I have quite a bit of trouble keeping everything in good working order. Add my obsessive compulsion for organization on top of my debilitating tendencies to worry and we’ve got a fairly large issue on our hands. You see, I am always a bit hesitant to put my still-hot straightener and hairdryer away thinking they will start a fire. Yes…I know that’s a long shot, but I have been known to turn the car around on my way to work to make sure I set the hair dryer just so and away from anything flammable.

For the longest time, I had just been setting my hair appliances on the bathroom counter as it was not going to catch fire – While this helps me avoid anxiety, it doesn’t really look good. You may remember my ultimate solution for this conundrum:

I had a light bulb moment and decided to hang a metal (read “not flammable”) desktop file box on the wall to store my cooling hairdryer and straightener. It worked GREAT and I lived with it for about four months until I finally fessed up to myself what I had been thinking ever since I hung the thing: It really looked like a hanging file basket screwed into the wall.

::sigh::

So I finally took it down during my recent master bathroom overhaul and replaced it with a pretty framed piece of art – Soooooo much better:

But where did my box of hair tools go? Well, it ended up on the floor over by the toilet (sorry for the bird’s-eye-view into our bathroom trash can – Unfortunately, you’re going to see that a lot in this post…)

I still think that the file box is the perfect solution to hold the appliances because, again, it’s not flammable and it keeps things within easy reach. So I decided to compromise in the “looks” department by hanging it in a less conspicuous location. After living with it on the floor by at the end of the vanity for a couple of weeks, I realized that was a decent spot – Now to figure out how to hang it instead of leaving it looking sad and lonely on the bathroom floor…

Enter these guys:

I picked up a package of 3M Command hooks, figuring I could slip the metal loop through the criss-cross caging on my file box. Unfortunately once I got down to business on this project, I found out that the hooks were a bit too large…

Nothing a pair of wire cutters couldn’t fix! I simply sniped a few of the wires and made a larger hole for the hooks to slip through.

Next, I measured the distance between the two holes and put pencil marks on the side of the vanity. Using those marks, I exposed the 3M tape on the back of the hooks and got those suckers good and stuck to the surface. The last step was to slip the file box in place over the hooks and fill ‘er up.

After getting used to the new set up (I did this project pre-kitchen-overhaul), I now know I should have done it from the beginning. It’s out-of-the-way so the room is still stylish, but convenient enough for me to grab what I need in the morning. From the doorway, you can’t even tell that it’s there.

How do you guy store your hair appliances? I know there are so many other (more creative) ideas out there and I’d love to hear about it! Does anyone else have bad OCD like me? I’m such a worry wart…

Have a great day!

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Bathroom Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday: Shoe rack turned cleaning supply storage

January 23, 2012 4 Comments

We are back this week with another Pinterest-inspired project! Last week’s Monday feature was interrupted in the spirit of more kitchen cabinet painting how-to’s, but things were finally calm at our house by the weekend and I was able to take care of a little something I originally spotted on Pinterest three weeks ago…

Behold the latest genius pin idea:

What could possibly be more simple than a shoe rack used to hold cleaning supplies? This project cost me under $10 and took about five minutes to complete. It’s fast, it’s easy, it’s definitely handy and it makes for a much more organized collection of cleaners and rags.

So this was what our under-the-sink area looked like before:

A mess of assorted cleaning products – From upholstery and carpet cleaners, oven cleaner spray and air fresheners, to Clorox wipes and empty spray bottles. Those moments when we needed a certain cleaning product and we needed it fast (like when Rocky’s tail spilled red wine on the white rug) had, up until this point, been fraught with anxiety and the tossing of other cleaners out of the way to get at the one we really needed. It was not a good system. But I didn’t know of any other way to do it.

Until I saw that little pin…

Off to Target we went, where I picked up this plastic shoe rack with over-the-door hardware for $8.99.

There was a nicer, more stylish version made from a tan colored canvas, but it cost about twice as much and I just didn’t think it was worth it. The white plastic of the one I picked up blends in with the back of the white door, which is a good thing – I don’t really want to draw attention to my cleaning products. Speaking of doors, where did we put it? The back of the laundry room door, of course. The laundry room is a mere five steps from the sink area in the kitchen and already houses other major household supplies, like everyday hardware and tools, trash can, camping/gardening supplies, etc. It seemed fitting.

Two minutes later, we were ready to fill ‘er up!

I thought about organizing everything by type (i.e. all the air fresheners together, all the extra soaps together, etc.), but decided to just see how we live with it. We’ll see! Who knows, it could be labeled and sorted in a matter of weeks. For now, I’m just happy to have everything in a convenient, reachable location. I was even able to stow away a few cleaning rags with plenty of extra “pouches” to spare should we stock up on more products in the future.

I ran into only two issues in the course of this project:

  1. Big Windex spray bottles don’t really fit in the pouches…They had to be relegated back to the sink area, but I figured having just a few bottles under there would be okay.
  2. The hanging plastic, once filled and weighed down with bottles, now tends to bang against the back of the door when I close it too hard. I THINK I can fix this by putting some heavy-duty 3M tape on the bottom corners thereby sticking the rack to the door, but we’ll see…

Here’s what the under-the-sink area looks like today:

Much less chaotic. I actually relish the idea of a spill now because our system for executing clean up it will be done with military precision. Bring it on spills!!!

Before I leave you to the rest of your Monday, I wanted to give you a sneak peak at our Ikea haul from the weekend – We had a great adventure and I can’t wait to spill the beans on our many purchases. I am already dreaming about what I’ll get the next time we go.

Hope you have a great start to your week!

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Simple Fixes, Product Search, Weekly Pinspiration Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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