Time for a Bit of Non-Consumer Home Organization
I picked up four free shelf organizer grid thingies from last week's garage sale after party. My first thought was to give them to my youngest, but they turned out not to work with the design of their closet.
I'd already already fashioned a system from curb picked grid cube pieces which worked just fine, but the new pieces would allow me to customize the width and create one extra slot.
I'll always looking to level up!
The project forced me to winnow down our sheets, which is always a positive. The two areas to the right are the scrappy clothes my husband wears while working on projects around the house. Apparently this requires ten paint spattered T-shirts.
I switched us over to skinny velvet hangers awhile back, which created a lot more space for our shared closet. Luckily they're easily available on the secondhand market, so it took no time to source enough from area Goodwills.
My second organizing project was to deal with the drawers in this entryway dresser. It holds decades of my old day planners, plus framed pictures -- which I switch out every now and then. Everything was higgledy-piggledy and needed a focused reshuffle.
This project didn't require any organizing products, only attention to detail.
Bottom drawer is now for old planners, (going all the way back to 1981!) and the top drawer is for framed pictures and a couple random items.
I got rid of fewer things that I'd anticipated, but that's okay. I'm not trying to be an extreme minimalist, I just want to be deliberate about the Stuff my home contains. The things we need and the things we value.
In the name of not burdening our loved ones after we're gone.
Katy, I noticed your closet rod looked to be sagging. When I moved into my house, the closet rods were not wood; they were galvanized pipe in the same diameter a wooden rod would be. I was told the former owners had owned a clothing store and had tons of garments hanging up all over the house. Anyway, my closet poles to not sag at all and are really heavy. The pipes fit into the regular rod holders you'd use with wooden rods. If you run across any galvanized pipes in a free pile, might want to give that a try.
I remember having a galvanized pipe in some closet or other, years ago. They certainly don't sag!!
It must feel so satisfying to get those shelves and drawers emptied, with the contents sorted and put away! When my daughter and I did two of the 'junk' drawers they ended up much more usable.
1. Every time I manage to clear out the entry part of my living room, someone walks in with 'stuff' – and puts it down in the convenient open space! ARGH. Same with my kitchen table, which I was so pleased to get cleaned off again. OOO, people say, a convenient flat surface upon which I can place all this STUFF I have brought you....
#2 son spent the whole day, with his very loving girlfriend, cleaning up the loft he had been living in. I don't know if he ever vacuumed it while he was there (eek).
She scrubbed the stovetop, the fridge, the bathroom – and did SO MANY dishes (washing things that were cleanish, essentially everything that came out of his kitchen cupboards and drawers.)
Many boxes of 'stuff' has been schlepped back over to my house.
I was re-gifted two liquor store boxes full of canning jars and lids (so THAT is where all my widemouth jars have gone?) and we did a big 'Tupperware drawer' sort to ensure the glass containers he had over there had lids. I gifted them a lot of those glass (lunch and fridge storage) containers, because, tbh, if he gave them all back to me I would need another cupboard (so THAT is where all the glass storage containers were!).
2. I currently have a very nice vacuum (miele) in the living room - #2 son ended up with a different canister vacuum when I closed down my office, and he decided that he preferred the second one, although he didn't give me the Miele until he moved out.
I am thinking that I will store this one upstairs, to save me hauling my existing vacuum up and down. It is a very good vacuum and I don't think I would make much trying to sell it on Marketplace.
3. I've ended up with a new tenant (without any advertising, just a conversation with a friend who's step daughter really wanted to move back here, which is a huge YAY! I rent well under market price to help folk out).
The loft will be empty for a whole month before she and her husband move in – so I am planning to get some electrical work done, and I'll be taking a good look at the walls to see if they need painting.
#2 Son and his GF were exhausted, and in no shape to finish up; the gift of a whole month takes a bit of pressure off - there is still a need to do a good mop of floors and walls and the windows are really in need of a scrub, so they will be back down next weekend.
4. I got my grandson last week for two different days – on the second one he started to have the world's runniest nose. Sigh, I now have his cold, and am feeling rotten. Third cold this year and I think I have only had a couple of weeks of feeling ok since the last one. #1 Son and family were going to go camping so I really hope that my GS is feeling better!
I've had to cancel a visit from my Mom and Sister (Sis has come out from the East Coast to see mom, and is doing a lot of the little projects, electrician and cleaning lady and...) Nobody wants what I have! I feel badly about not seeing my sister as she is only out here once a year.
5. I've been harvesting peas, fava beans, lettuce, kale, garlic scapes and chard from the garden. My GS really loves to take peas out of the pod, a great dexterity challenge, and any way I can get a kid to eat vegetables is a win for me! I've really enjoyed having a delicious crunch-fest with the sugar snap peas – one of the best snacks I know, and so healthy and filling!
The volunteer sunflowers that I started transplanting into the field from whereever they were growing have begun to bloom, which is so wonderful. I have more sunflowers from seed that will bloom a bit later so I might acutally have sunflowers all summer.
We've been getting creative with the hangers in our Airbnb that is only available for long stays, 28 days and up. We have a total of 22 hangers for a place that sleeps four guests.... I've been hanging up our laundry so that it's in layers wherever possible, t-shirt over a tank top or bottom down over an undershirt. This is a very underwhelming bnb.
To cool off the kids today we put them in their swim suits and let them play in the shower with the water set nice and low. Thankfully it was cooler today then it has been for the last several days and we caught a decent cross breeze downstairs until about 9:30am! I'm hoping we'll finally have a break from the heat soon so I can do some baking, we're out of the snacks I baked when we first got here and I have two very ripe bananas in the fridge that are begging to be turned into muffins.