Cover Up

I've got another one of my incremental improvements to the master bedroom to share. We got a new duvet cover, thanks to a Crate and Barrel gift card from an aunt and uncle. The pattern is called Lindsey. It's no longer available, because we actually got it quite a while ago. It took me a long time to get it on the bed, because it didn't fit the down comforter. Our comforter is a queen/full size, and the duvet cover was a queen size. There is no standardization for these things, and the cover was way too big, so I needed to do a little work on it before we could use it.

You can see the naked down comforter in this picture from last year.  But mostly I'm showing this picture because I like to compare the before/after pictures. I think it's fun to see the progress we've made in the room since then. :-)

In January, (You know, back when we could use a down comforter, unlike right now with the 100ºF weather we're having.) I re-tailored the duvet to fit our comforter. I am not a particularly experienced or accomplished sewist, so I wanted to make this task as easy for myself as I could. A duvet cover is basically a giant pillow case for your blanket.  Three sides are sewn shut and one end is open with some kind of closure, in this case, buttons. The buttons on mine don't go end to end, but are inset with a placket. I decided to just cut off the end of the duvet cover opposite the buttons, and re-hem it.  I just left the sides a bit wider than my comforter, rather than have to sew any more seams. I liked the additional width it gave the comforter, anyway. Here's a diagram to show what I did. It is not to scale.

The grey box is the comforter. The blue box is the duvet cover, and the dashed line shows where I cut it.  After I cut that part off, all I should have needed to do was sew up a new seam for that end. I wanted it to be well finished so that it would hold up to use and washing, so I decided to do a French seam, which I learned from this tutorial. But just sewing up the seam would have been too easy, right?

I've had duvet covers before, and I know that the comforter has a tendency to slide around inside and get bunched up, especially if the cover's too big. I solved that problem by adding tabs with buttonholes inside each of the four corners of the cover. The cream colored rectangles on the diagram indicate the tabs. It turned out to be easier to do than I expected. I cut four rectangles from some cream colored fabric, folded them in half, and sewed the sides closed. I turned them inside out and then added buttonholes. Here's one of the rectangles and what the tabs looked like before the buttonholes.

I had never done buttonholes with my sewing machine before, but I just followed the directions in the sewing machine manual. It was pretty cool to see how it worked. You can see the buttonhole foot in the picture above. Two of the tabs I just sewed into my seam, like the one below.

The other end of the cover with the buttons had a serged edge. (I don't have a serger, so I couldn't do the same kind of finishing, and I think the French seam is nicer anyway.) I picked apart enough of the serged edge to insert my tabs, and then sewed the edge shut again. That part was kind of a pain, but I didn't want the stitching for the tabs to be visible from the outside.  Here you can see the picked apart serging. I pinned my tabs between the two edges of the fabric I'm holding apart here, and then I sewed them shut again.

I just straight stitched across the tabs, though it's a bit hard to tell that in the picture below. This is one of the tabs inserted into the serged edge. Here it is buttoned to the comforter. The tabs and buttons have worked out really well. The comforter stays put inside the duvet cover, despite the cover being a bit wide

I really like the cover a lot, too. I think it pulls together the greens, blues and browns we have have going on in our room pretty well. It has both the green from the headboard and the darker blue from the wall. One would almost think I had chosen the headboard fabric and wall colors based on the the duvet cover, but I just lucked out in finding one that was a good match.

Printable Letter Art

A new edition of the Pinterest challenge has brought me out of blog hibernation. The Pinterest challenge was dreamed up by Sherry at Young House Love and Katie at Bower Power, and this challenge is also hosted by Erin at the Great Indoors and Cassie at Hi Sugarplum. You can head over to any of their blogs to see all the fun Pinterest inspired projects that people are doing. I had so much fun with the last two challenges, that I was determined to try it again, despite the fact that I haven't had a free weekend in a few weeks. I pulled this together last night. I pinned this two or three months ago, because I thought it was a great idea for affordable, personal art to hang on your walls.

Source: fullofgreatideas.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

The idea came from the blog Full of Great Ideas, but the thing that made this a really fun and easy project was this image collection from Leo Reynolds. He has created collections with 100s of images of each letter of the alphabet (and numbers, too) that you can use for non-commercial purposes. To personalize this even more, you could take your own letter pictures, like Matushka Anna.

Last night, I stopped at Michaels, coupon in hand, and bought a frame. Then I had fun taking a look at all the options for the letters in my last name. I tried to keep the first rule of cataloging in mind as I did so. (Do not agonize.) I wanted a somewhat colorful collection with various styles of letters. I really like the results, and it was pretty quick and easy to do. I saved the images in the large size, since I wanted the printouts to be high quality. I cropped them to fit my frame, and then I just pasted them into a Word document to print them out. I printed a test sheet in grayscale fast quality to make sure the images would work with my frame. Once I was sure my images were the right size, I printed them on plain old printer paper, but I used the high quality print setting.

Once they were all printed, I cut them out, taped them to the mat, et voilà! I'm lucky, since it's pretty easy to find a frame with 6 slots. If you have a 3 or 4 letter last name, you'll have lots of options. If you're not so lucky to find a frame with the correct number of slots, you could have a mat custom cut, or design an image that doesn't need a mat. I'm really pleased with the way this turned out, and it's fun to know I can change up the letters any time I want. I plan to hang it in our entryway. I have a few ideas for dressing up that area, and now I'm excited to get going on it, so I can hang my new picture.

Hanging Around

The headboard did get hung up. We've been enjoying it for about a month now. You can see we also hung up some pictures. These are some wedding pictures, and they were hanging on a different wall before. We ended up abandoning the flush mounts to hang the headboard, as the ones we bought were not intended for something this big. Instead, James bought some other brackets with eye holes. He attached two of them to the top board on the back of the headboard. Then he screwed two wood screws into the studs in our wall, and hung the headboard from the wall by hanging the brackets from the screws. I wasn't around for this, so I don't have pictures. I'm not sure what kind of brackets they were or the exact steps of the installation. I'm sure it involved measuring and a level, and if anyone is on the edge of their seat waiting for details I can probably get James to answer questions in the comments.

I did a little tweaking of the headboard by tucking some squares of the fabric into the spots at the corners of the panels. Because of the rounded edges, the corners didn't quite meet, and the boards behind the panels showed through at some angles, as you can see above. I probably should have attached fabric to the boards before we attached the panels since it was a little tricky tucking the fabric into these small gaps. It's a small thing, but it makes the headboard look more finished. Below is the new and improved close-up. I've got some other bedroom decorating projects in the works, but things have slowed down in there a bit while I focus on preparing for Christmas. I do have some projects I've completed that I haven't shared here yet, so I hope to talk about those in the next week or so.

And I'm excited to share this picture sent to me by Laura, who made her own paneled headboard with canvases. I love how the same concept has a totally different look with a different fabric and canvas configuration. I really like the square canvases she used, and how they fit perfectly under her window. I think her headboard turned out great, and it was really fun seeing a project inspired by mine. Thanks so much for sharing, Laura!

Paneled Upholstered Headboard

I was really excited last week when Sherry of Young House Love and Katie of Bower Power are hosting another Pinterest Challenge, along with Ana White and Erin of House of Earnest. The idea is that you stop pinning, step away from your computer and actually make something you've pinned. Then you share what you've made, check out all the fun projects everyone else made, and start the pinning cycle all over. Last time, I had a lot of fun making a painting based on a TV quotation for my brother. The timing of this challenge was the perfect incentive to build a headboard for our bedroom. (Big surprise that I made something for the bedroom, right?)

My Pinspiration was this paneled headboard:

Source: allthingsthrifty.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I pinned it from Brooke at All Things Thrifty.  I combed the web looking at dozens of upholstered headboards before deciding I wanted to make a paneled one. There are instructions on how the inspiration headboard was made here, but mine was actually constructed pretty differently. For the base of my panels, I used canvases. I bought two packs of seven 11 x 14 canvases at Michaels. They are regularly $20, but I bought them with 50 percent off coupons (of course) so I got the two packs for $20 total. I only used 12 for the headboard, so I have 2 more for another project. I loved the giant headboard that Brooke made, but I wasn't going for something that dramatic, since I didn't want it to compete with my stencil wall. Also, although we have no plans to move, I've never lived anywhere longer than 5 years, so I guess it's in my nature to want my furniture to be portable. Canvases made our headboard much more lightweight than making the panels out of any type of boards. I can easily pick up the headboard and move it myself.

I bought the fabric ages ago at JoAnn Fabric. I don't remember how much it cost or how much I purchased, but I do know I bought it when decorator fabric was half off. It is the same fabric I used for the rocking chair. In addition to the canvases and the fabric, I used a queen sized foam mattress pad for the padding. I cut out 12 rectangles from the mattress pad, 15x18 inches each. Then I wrapped each canvas with the foam (bumpy side in). I used my staple gun to attach the foam to the inside of the canvas frame, and then I stapled down the corners. I found it was easiset to staple the short sides of the rectangle and then the long sides. Perhaps you could make it easier on youself and staple the foam right into the back of the canvas frame, but I thought it made things smoother to wrap it around, and I also l liked that I had fewer staples to avoid when I stapled my fabric.

After I covered all the canvases with foam, I moved on to the fabric. I cut out the 16x20 rectangles for the fabric. Then I ironed them all, and finally I got to round two of stapling. I centered each foam covered canvas on the fabric, stapled the short ends, stapled the long ends, and then I stapled the corners. I tried several ways of stapling the corners before I settled on the method I used. I liked the smooth, rounded corners, but in retrospect, I would have chosen a method that gave me corners closer to right angles, since the rounded corners don't meet up. Apparently I got really focused on the project during the fabric stage and stopped taking picturss. The only one I took was to demonstrate the corner folding method:

Once I finished covering all the canvases with fabric. I went to bed. It was a tiring project! I turned it over to my husband at that point. He bought four 6 foot 1x3s, and cut them to length (around 54 in.)  They are not quite as wide as the headboard, which is 58 in. It is just about exactly as wide as our queen size bed. Then he laid out the panels and used the 1x3s to attach them together. He screwed them into the frames of the canvases. Obviously, you want to make sure your screws won't protrude through your panels, so he used 1 5/8 inch screws.

And here is the final headboard!

How did we mount it, you might wonder? Confession: It's just leaning up against the wall for this picture. We've got some flush mount brackets to use, but it turns out the screws that came with them aren't long enough to go into the studs. So currently the headboard is leaning up against the bookcases in our bedroom, and we'll have to install it later this week. I'll post an update with daytime pictures once we get it hung. I'm so excited to be finished with the construction, though! This is the first headboard we've had in eight years of marriage. Yay for the Pinterest Challenge to inspire us to get the headboard constructed. And I still have quite a bit more up my sleeve as part of the bedroom overhaul, so I should have some more Pinterest inspired projects to share in the next few weeks.

Edited to add: Click here for a headboard update.

What a corker

After three years of waiting, we finally replaced the floors in the bedrooms. It would have been relatively cheap and easy to just buy new carpeting, but we knew that wasn't what we wanted. One of the reasons it took us so long is that we didn't want to put in more carpeting. We wanted hard surface flooring, since it's more durable, easier to keep clean, and much easier on the respiratory system. We save up for our home improvements so that we can pay cash. (OK, actually we use credit cards because we rack up major rewards points with the big ticket purchases, but we pay the monthly balance in full, so we have to have the cash before we spend.) Floors got pushed back on the priority list for a while, but this summer was finally the time.

Some of the downsides to hard floors (besides that they are usually pricier than carpeting) are that they can be cold and not very acoustically friendly, which aren't great qualities for the bedroom. Our solution to this was to install cork flooring. Thanks to its natural insulating properties, it's warmer, quieter and easier on the legs than most kinds of hard flooring. The flooring we chose was an Apollo Brown floating floor made by APC Cork. We bought it at Menards, which is a Midwestern chain similar to Home Depot or Lowes. (We have those around here, too, but we have Green in addition to Orange and Blue)

This project was pretty much all James, though I did help a bit with the underlayment. He tells me the floating floor was fairly easy to install. It seemed to go quickly and smoothly. First he took out the carpeting, by cutting it into strips with a box knife and rolling them up. Luckily there is a carpet recycler just a couple of miles from our house, so James just loaded up the carpeting and hauled it there. We had to pay $20 bucks per load, but that was well worth it to keep it out of the landfill. James took out the tack strips with a crowbar. Then we had to clean up the floors, scrape away bit of glue and drywall mud and whatnot so we'd have a smooth surface to install over.

The process after that is to put down a strip of underlayment, install the floors over it, and then move to the next strip. James used some special tools to snap the pieces together. There's no glue or anything. He used spacers along the walls to leave a small gap so there's room for the floor to expand and contract. Once the floor was all in, he covered the gap with quarter round, which we bought pre-finished. That's pretty much what I know about it. If you have questions, ask away, and if I don't know, I'll try to get James to come field them.

We love the results. We think they look great, and they are so nice and warm underfoot. We can definitely feel how they have more give than the bamboo in the main rooms. It was a pretty big project, since he installed the new floors in all three bedrooms, and it's fantastic to be done. We've been shuffling the contents of our house around for a few months now! The floors are completely in, and things are mostly back in their places finally. We've been trying to purge and organize as we go. I've taken bags of stuff to Goodwill, and my closets are starting to look pretty good.

A quick comparison--before:

Now:

I've got quite a few more projects planned, but it feels great to be done with the big stuff. Now it's time to start adding the fun details.

Blue on Blue

Since we decided to use two different colors of paint in the bedroom, we had to figure out how to incorporate them both. For a while we considered doing a chair rail and putting the lighter color above and the darker color below. I was thinking about going with a faux board and batten look, but then I decided two colors might make the room look too choppy, since the ceilings in the bedroom aren't very high. And I started seeing all these great wall stencils, so I suggested stenciling an accent wall. James was down with the idea. He gave some input, but he pretty much left the decision of what stencil to choose up to me. Now, my friends and family will tell you that selecting among an array of options is not my strong suit. I dither. One of the great things about being a vegetarian is it makes it much easier for me to order from an menu.

So it took me a few weeks to decide. There are so many gorgeous choices, like this from Cutting Edge Stencils and this from Olive Leaf Stencils. Eventually, after much agonizing, I settled on this damask from Royal Design Studio. Criteria I used to help narrow it down included: not too girly (read floral), not too geometric (I have an upholstered headboard planned that will be very geometric and I wanted contrast), not to much negative space in the design, so as to incorporate a good amount of our darker color into the room, and something more classic than trendy so that we won't quickly tire of something that took hours to do. The 10% off coupon code for this seller from Young House Love (YHL10) didn't hurt, either.

Compared to deciding which stencil to use, actually stenciling was a breeze, despite the fact that it took about eight hours to finish. I did a fair amount of googling about stenciling before I started. I wanted it to be as easy as possible. The most important tip I found was to use repositionable spray adhesive. I bought the adhesive seen above at Michaels. You spray the back of the stencil, and it keeps the paint from bleeding under the stencil. It worked like a charm. The edges came out really crisp. I took the stencil out to the back yard, laid in the grass, and gave the back a couple of thin and even coats with the adhesive.

The stencil I chose was 21 x 24.5 inches, which helped move the process along, so I shudder to think of how long it would have taken with a smaller stencil. I started in the center of the wall at the ceiling, which is recommended if you are doing one wall to make sure it comes out evenly on either side. The process was to position the stencil on the wall using the guide marks and the level. The stencil has extra little floating cut outs outside the main design that you use to match it up. You can see them in the pictures above. I used a level each time I repositioned the stencil just to make sure it didn't get wonky. Then I would roll the paint on in a couple of thin coats using a small roller, like this. I just used regular, full strength latex wall paint. I didn't worry about getting absolutely perfect coverage, since you with a pattern like this you really notice the big whole effect more than the tiny details. We bought a quart of Smoke Screen, which was more than enough for this project. Over time, it did gum up the stencil, so halfway through I washed it off with warm water, and then reapplied the spray adhesive. You could probably avoid the washing step if you thinned the paint, or used craft paint instead of latex. You'd still need to reapply the spray adhesive, because it wore off after a while.

I was able to do the bottom of the wall and the corners by taping the baseboard (or opposite wall, for the corners) and bending the stencil. You can see that above the previous paragraph. That didn't work for the top of the wall, though because gravity worked against me. Even with tape, the stencil wouldn't stay stuck to the ceiling, so after I had finished nearly everything but the top, I cut the stencil. Above you can see the parts I needed to cut the stencil to do. The bottom corners didn't really work that way either, because two folds was too tricky.

And here you can see the stencil after I cut it. I wish I would have taken a picture of how I marked the stencil to cut it, because it worked well but is hard to describe. I stuck the stencil on the wall, matching it up to one of the designs I had already stenciled.  Then I took my level and lined it up to the tops of the designs on either side and marked the line straight across the stencil with a Sharpie. I peeled the stencil off the wall and cut it with a regular pair of scissors. I had no plans to use the stencil again, so I didn't mind cutting it. It made it far easier to finish the stenciling.

I absolutely love the results. It really adds a lot of interest and gives a whole different feel to the room. I'm pleased with the colors and the pattern. It was well worth the effort.  I was surprised that even though it was fairly time consuming to do, it actually went really smoothly. I didn't really have any trouble. I just turned on some music and cranked it out. Next time I'll talk about installing the new floors, which you can see a bit of here.

Our Bedroom, in the Beginning

I said I would share our DIY adventures in our bedroom, and I thought I'd start by sharing what our bedroom looked like when we started. First of all, above you can see what it looked like just over three years ago when my husband did the walk-through before we bought it. The previous owners used the master bedroom as an office. That explains the bookshelf wallpaper border. There's really no explanation for the amount of stuff in there. It looked marginally better when we came to see it while house hunting, but I'm afraid at least one of the ladies we bought it from had issues with compulsive hoarding. I think you could say at this point the bedroom was dark and without form.

Below is a picture taken from the same angle in April of this year. This is taken from the door of the bedroom.  We had made a few changes, but besides new windows, they're pretty minor. The valance didn't stay with the house. We took down the existing mini-blinds and hung the curtains when we added these. At that point I took down the border on the wall with the windows. Other than that we had put up some pictures, and I purchased a bunch of fabric, some of which I used to make covers for the rocking chair. We also installed the light fixture on the fan. It's not beautiful, but it's functional. You can see we had also tested our new paint colors on the wall.

 
The house was built in 1989, and this was the original carpeting. When we bought the house we had bamboo floors installed in kitchen, great room, and hallway. James steam cleaned the carpeting in the bedrooms before we moved in, and we planned to put in new floors in the bedrooms the next year. But James's job situation was in flux that year, so we waited. Then the next summer we decided it would be better to take advantage of the tax rebates and install new windows. So now here we are three years later, and we are so excited to be getting rid of the grungy 20+ year old carpeting in the bedrooms. It may look unobjectionable in that picture, but trust me, it was in bad shape.  We had decided to wait to paint this room until we put in the new flooring, not realizing it would be such a long wait. Our bedroom has looked pretty much like this most of the time we've lived here.

Here are a few more angles. In the picture below, the doorway is just outside the frame on the right.

  

Around the corner below you can see the edge of door to the closet. Behind the wall with the bookcases is the bathroom.  I'll share pictures of the closet and bathroom and the projects going on in those areas another day.

 

Our bedroom was reasonably tidy in these pictures, but these before pictures also keep it pretty real with the clutter on top of the bookcases and laundry baskets. We've got plans to address those things after we put everything back together. The bedroom is a good size, which is one of the reasons we chose this house. We thought it had a lot of potential. We've made a lot of progress toward realizing that potential now. Next time, I'll talk about the first project I completed, which was taking down the rest of the border. 

8. Plant more bulbs--check

When I added number eight to the list, I envisioned planting more bulbs in our yard. When we moved in there were a few tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils in the yard, if I recall correctly. Our second fall here, when we had lived here a little over a year, we planted a lot of crocuses, and more tulips and daffodils. I had wanted to add some more last fall, but I didn't get around to it. So I feel very blessed this spring to see that they multiplying on their own. The crocuses (croci?) and daffodils are naturalizing beautifully. I do still want to plant more tulips this coming fall. I love bulbs--for one thing because spring is my favorite time of year. I am unfailingly joyful when I see those green tips start to emerge from the ground, sturdily resisting the snow, and then bursting into colorful bloom even when everything else is still brown and gloomy. Also, I am a very lazy gardener (as my weeds will attest). All it takes is a few hours of effort to plant the bulbs, and I get beautiful flowers every spring for years and years.  In fact, I think I need to choose some summer blooming bulbs and plant those, too.

I'm not giving myself a check mark for the natural multiplication of the bulbs in my yard, however. I planted some in the house, so I'm going to count that.  I was given a few paperwhite bulbs at Christmas, and while I didn't plant those, I did tend them. They had only sprouted when I received them, and they all successfully went on to bloom. Given my deplorable track record with houseplants, that's significant. And the one pictured below I did, in fact, plant.  I have loved having these beauties around over the winter. I would definitely plant some again next year, but we found that James doesn't really care for the smell. Paperwhites have a very strong scent. I do plan to try my hand at some other forced bulbs.

13. Make cushions for rocking chair--check

Sometime last fall or winter James bought a gliding rocker off Craigslist for our bedroom . The cushions were in sorry shape, and we didn't even bring those into the house. We shopped around for some, but didn't find quite what we wanted, so I decided to make some. I don't really know what I was thinking, because I'm an inexperienced sewer. I find it kind of daunting, so I really procrastinate projects that involve sewing. Case in point, we bought the materials for the cushions about a year ago. At some point I cut the foam into the appropriate shapes and put it on the chair. We have been using it that way ever since. Just imagine the foam seen above used as cushions--very comfortable and elegant.

But no longer! Last weekend we had no plans, and I finally decided to tackle those cushions. It's a good thing I chose to do it on a free weekend, because it probably took me about 12 hours total to get it done. Part of that includes having to fix one of the zippers, which I managed to break just when I was inserting the second cushion into its cover. But I did it! It's the most complicated sewing I've ever done. They both have covered zippers, thanks to Erin of House on Hill Road.  I could not have done it without her helpful tutorials. I watched the video and then used the written tutorial to guide me step by step both times.

Both cushions are made of two inch foam. For the seat I doubled it over and made a box cushion cover. The back is just one layer of the foam, so I just did a simple case with front and back for that one. I also made ties to attach both cushions to the chair.  Neither of the covers turned out perfectly, but I'm very satisfied with my novice efforts. It really was a good learning experience, too. I feel more confident with my sewing machine now. The chair certainly looks worlds better than it did with the raw foam. I still need to recover the ottoman, because I need more foam for that, and I'm excited to make some more progress on our master bedroom. We have big plans for it this year. We're hoping to say goodbye to the dingy wall color and carpeting.

Getting My House in Order: Refrigerator

So, as I mentioned, the ice storm last week gave me plenty of time to get some projects done around the house. The biggest accomplishment was cleaning out the refrigerator, which probably hadn't been done since some time in the summer. It was sorely in need of cleaning and organization, as you can see:

It was a pretty straight-forward project, but it took me a whole afternoon to get it done.  I pulled everything out of the refrigerator one shelf at a time, sorting things as I went.  Then I cleaned off each shelf in the sink before pulling out the next shelf.  Once I had cleaned all the shelves and drawers, I wiped out the interior, dried and reinstalled the shelves, and returned the keepers.  Then I repeated the whole process with the door. My dish washer was about 2/3rds full, and I filled it with the newly emptied containers and ran it immediately. That was handy for banishing odors from a few things which were spoiled.
 
As I was sorting, I paid a lot of attention to the things that I had let go to waste. I wanted to better organize things and establish a system to make sure we eat what we buy and don't let things turn into science experiments. The main trouble spots I identified were: leftover odds and ends, an insane number of lemon and lime slices, a surplus of homemade salad dressings, and fresh herbs.

The solutions I've come up with for these problem areas are:

1. I designated the top shelf for leftover odds and ends that need to be used up.  We don't usually have a problem with leftover meals going to waste. It's things like half a can of re-fried beans, leftover toppings and sauces, and way too many slices of lemons and limes in tiny containers that make their way to the back of the fridge to die. Hopefully having all these things corralled in one place will help us use things up, and will prevent us from slicing a new lemon when there's half of one already cut.  I'm trying to monitor the shelf and utilize the contents in meals or put things in the freezer before they've been hanging around too long.

2. I'm trying to make only enough dressing for the salad I've made that night. I realized that when I make too much, we just don't end up using it.

3.When I buy fresh herbs, I'm going to try freezing half the bunch in ice cube trays immediately after I've bought it. I almost never use a whole bunch of cilantro or parsley, so it turns to green goo in the produce drawer. Yuck.

So here is the after, almost one week later. The contents have rotated a fair amount. So far the new system is working well, although a week isn't really enough to know if it's standing the test of time.

I'm really pleased with the result. I haven't decided the best use for the top right hand section of the door, though. It has a really flimsy shelf, so I need to make sure I don't put anything heavy there. Right now it has essential oil and ginger for sushi. Also, I can't believe how soon I'll be finding a new use for the eggs/dairy section! Lent is quickly approaching. I'll probably put packed lunches there then. Right now I have that with the breads, just to distinguish it from other leftovers. 

What do methods do you find helpful for managing the refrigerator?

Getting My House in Order:Bathroom Drawer

We have lived in our house almost two and half years now, and so, of course, we're facing the classic American problem: too much stuff. Right now we're embarking on a mission to amp up the storage around here and to pare down on the over-abundance. I plan to go through every drawer and closet in the house, and leave it looking like something out of a Martha Stewart magazine. Okay, probably not nearly that prettified, but hopefully by the end of the year (or sooner) we will have a place for everything and everything in its place.  I'd like our home to be as pleasant as we can make it, and I want to make sure clutter and confusion are not wasting our time and draining our energy.

So, last week I attacked my bathroom drawer. There is only the one in the master bathroom, and I'm the one who uses it. (James gets the medicine cabinet.) Here's the scary before--I know how inspirational a good before and after is. This is what my drawer actually looked like. It really was organized at some point, but clearly that system had long since stopped working for me.

Before:

Hopefully, everyone knows what comes next. I pulled everything out of the drawer and sorted it.

Most of the empty containers were recycled. I saved a couple for re-use with a project I have planned. I put the things that don't belong in the bathroom in their proper places. I got rid of old make-up items. I stowed extra stuff that I don't use on a day-to-day basis under the sink. I'm going to overhaul that cabinet soon, too. Then I cleaned every single item that was going back in the drawer: removed the general make-up gunk, cleaned the lint out of the vents in the hair-dryer, washed the make-up brushes, and cleaned out the hairbrush. I also wiped out the drawer, though that may have been after I took the next picture.

When I told James about this project, he suggested I might like to use this extra utensil organizer we had from a former kitchen. I was skeptical, but he was right. It works great! I'm thrilled with how it turned out.

After:

I put the make-up that I most frequently use in a small make-up bag that I also already had. I don't generally wear it, so I put it in the back of the drawer, but it's handy when I want it and conveniently corralled so I can grab it for trips. I put the soaps in the back of the drawer, since they fit neatly there, but they may not stay once I reorganize under the sink. I love how all my day-to-day stuff is neatly stowed in the utensil holder, with plenty of room for the hair-dryer. It's amazing what a joy it is to bring order to small areas of chaos in my life.  I feel a little giddy every time I open the drawer and see everything neatly arrayed.

Lightening things up

I mentioned a little over a year ago that my parents were getting their house ready to sell and had been foisting their unwanted stuff generously giving of their bountiful surplus to my brother and me. Well, they have sold their house and are now getting settled into their new condo. They seriously downsized, and the purging of excess household goods continues. Shortly before they moved, James and I spent a weekend at their house helping to pack. James and my brother took a couple truckloads of stuff to Goodwill, and to further lighten the load of things my parents would have to move into their new house, they sent us home with a carload as well. The above picture shows most of the haul on my guest bedroom floor. I'm still working on integrating some of these items into our home and off the floor, but a number of them are already earning their keep. Although, not the ones below.

This picture shows my dollhouse (obviously) and my set of encyclopedias (in the box). Yeah, those are still sitting exactly as pictured, and they are the flagship items for the things still sitting around. Most of them are books or toys. I don't have any children, so the toys are not really going to be actively used at this time. I need to get those boxed up and stored. And our bookcases are full right now. I won't mention how many we have, but suffice it to say, more bookcases aren't really an option. So we need to do some weeding of our books, which James has scheduled for when school lets out.

In the meantime, one of the items we are really enjoying is the lampshade. You may remember it as one of the few items from the first picture not packed in a canvas tote bag. (I love canvas tote bags. I use them constantly. My mom had a million at least a score of these, so I nabbed several.) I'd been wanting a lamp for our living room for quite a while, so I stopped at my favorite thrift store shortly after I brought the lampshade home and picked up this lamp for $2.99. I love it, and it's much cozier than the overhead light. I've found that lampshades with warm earth tones really help warm up the light from those energy-saving compact florescent light bulbs. I'm pretty keen on the retro vibe of the wooden lamp, too.