Nesting

I'm fairly certain I'm nesting.

I always thought nesting included vacuuming, dusting, and baking. I'm not there.

I'm reorganizing, recycling, donating, and throwing away. And it feels amazing. I'll be stopping at the local thrift store with 7 bags of stuff. Stuff that was taking up precious space in my house. Some stuff that hasn't been used in two years! Three of the bags are filled with clothing that didn't fit before I was pregnant. Why did I feel the need to hang on to it all?

With two months to go, I'd be okay if the reorganizing and de-crap-ifying continued...

Oh, and? We're in a blizzard warning. In Minnesota? Not that surprised...

Office Turned Baby Room

I decided that my weekend project would be painting the baby room. For as long as we've lived here, the second upstairs bedroom has been used as an office slash dog room slash closet. All at once. Since our boy will be here in just about 13 weeks, we figured it time to relocate the office / dog room / closet to another area in the house and really get crackin' on this kid's room.

Oh, the work we cut out for ourselves! While the husband and I have only been married for a year and a half, we have accumulated quite a lot of crap stuff. Very important stuff (can you sense the sarcasm in my typing?).

See all the crap?

We started the adventure by emptying a filing cabinet that weights nearly 1 million pounds, empty. One of the drawers was perfectly organized, with labeled files and everything. The other? The other had become a junk drawer of sorts. The catch-all for everything that didn't have a home somewhere else. Going through that was a killer, but now it is so nicely organized in our new office nook.

Once we got that complete, we realized we couldn't really empty baby's room until the green couches were gone. All of our office stuff was to be moved into a little nook that had been taken up by a big couch and a cozy chair. Two items that we rarely used. When we moved in, we had no furniture. Within a week, we had a sectional and two couch / chair sets. One couch and chair set had to go. We decided to donate the couch and chair, since they were in perfect condition. With help from our brother-in-law, they were gone from our house and the office nook was put together (stay tuned for a post on that soon).

Finally, we got around to painting the baby room. We went with non-traditional colors for a couple of reasons: blue is rather over done and I love the color orange. The stripes will only be on one wall. I hope to have the crib right there, but we will have to see how everything fits. Apparently babies have a lot of stuff, and this is a small room.

Next on the docket for baby projects? Furniture painting (changing table and book shelf).

Stay tuned!

Weddings

Today, as I get ready to attend two weddings, I am constantly reminded about how wonderful my husband is. He really is a gem.

He puts up with my tears (there have been quite a few of those, lately). He puts up with my exhaustion. He puts up with my love/hate relationship with our house.

I dislike the hole in the floor and the unfinished wall from our Wall Demolition. I love the fact that the wall is gone, creating an open floor plan on our main level.

I don't really enjoy the fact that we live in a cookie-cutter neighborhood. It just isn't my style. I love and adore the fact that we're on the outside of said neighborhood, with a large lot and privacy. With room enough for 4 raised garden beds, maple trees to tap and an Earth-friendly compost bin tucked away from the house.

I despised the color of our house, for it reminded me of old parmesan cheese that had gone bad. But the wonderful husband and I tackled that project this summer.

I get irritated with our lack of kitchen storage, but am so thankful that my husband just laughs and shakes his head after I reorganize and he can't find anything. Funny story. He was just out of town with our brother-in-law. He made a comment along the lines of upon his return home, he'll have to learn a new organizational system, because it most likely has been changed (it was).

Do I hate my house? No, not at all. Do I get irritated with it? Of course! But am I so thankful for having these four walls and a roof? I sure am.

And really, I don't love my husband and think he is a gem just because I puts up with me and my thoughts of the house. But, this post would never end if I gave you all of the reasons I love my husband.

Project: Organization #3 The Kitchen

Well, my friends, I've completed the kitchen as part of A bowl full of lemon.'s Home Organization 101. Honestly, it wasn't difficult as I have kept my kitchen rather organized since I moved in with the husband.

I did make a few changes, though. Over the course of the year that I have lived here, I have come to realize that I do not like counter top clutter (especially since my counter space is so limited). When I found the perfect white pot for a buck at Bethesda (the thrift shop!), I knew it needed a home on the counter that was easily accessible. Away with the knife block, hello magnetic strip from IKEA.

I also moved the coffee maker to the other side of the sink. Because of where the bottom of our upper cabinets sit, the coffee maker cannot be directly underneath any of the cabinets. Which means it needs to be right. next. to. the. sink. It's kind of annoying, but that's where it has to be. It now sits next to the canister of coffee beans and the grinder. Makes sense, right?

I also found this dish at Bethesda and couldn't find it's home for the longest time. It has now become the harvest bin. Any veggies that we pull from the garden will sit there until used (except tomatoes...too many for the harvest bin!).

Although there weren't huge changes to the kitchen (husband will be happy!), I feel refreshed and energized to organize other parts of my home. The contents of the fridge and pantry have been cleaned out. Expired items discarded, Shelf stable items I know I won't use have been unloaded at the food shelf. The drawer of utensils has been cleaned out (I just wish I had enough room to get the more frequently used utensils off the counter).

I've linked up at A bowl full of lemons.

Thrifty!

I had a few errands to run today, including REI (favorite store!) and the fabric store. I also had a few things that needed to be donated to the local Goodwill. I've found that I have frequented the donation line, but haven't taken the time to peruse the shelves.

As of late, my mom has been talking up this thrift store that opened a few months ago near her work. She was at work today, so I called to see if she wanted to meet me at Bethesda to wander the aisles. Mom has a new thing for dishes and she finds beautiful ones at random thrift stores all the time. I was pumped.

I've seen super DIY projects involving trays that have been spiffed up and I wanted to try it for myself. I just needed a tray (or two). Mom said that I would "for certainly" find one at Bethesda.

We walked into the thrift store and saw the sign that saved me even more money: 60% off housewares. Woo-hoo! Mom brought me right to the aisle with all of the dishes. She pointed out the sets she had her eye on. She also pointed out the things that I had dropped off at her house to donate (super cool to see, by the way!). I saw my old frying pan, a casserole dish and a soup bowl that I had dropped at her house a week ago.

Mom and I did a quick swoop down each aisle, then started over walking more slowly, actually picking through the items.

We soon realized  that we needed a cart. It was that good.

Here's my loot:

This cute green mail sorter was $1.49 (and then 60% off!). It had some black and gold labels that I peeled off before I took a picture. I promise I'll get better at this blog with pictures thing soon! I plan to put it on the wall at the top of our stairs because the hubs and I are terrible with mail. It'll be nice to have a place for it to rest.

This white pot with a lid... My dear friend has a red ceramic pot that sits on her counter for the food scraps to be taken out to the compost bin. I immediately wanted one for myself! Her mom picked hers up at a thrift store, and all I could think of was Nordic Ware Dutch Oven (um, expensive). But! I found this one at Bethesda for 99 cents! AND THEN! 60% off! I am already in love with this store.

And the I found what I went to the thrift store for in the first place. The trays! The price was a bit surprising to me, but, it did come with three trays. And, it was on sale for...you guessed it, 60% off. 6 dollars and some odd cents for three trays? Yes, please! (I still haven't gotten around to taking a picture of them. In fact, they're still in my car.)

I had a few tips from some blogging friends that Lowe's may have a better spray paint selection than my local Home Depot, so I plan on heading that way in the next few days to get to work. I may also stop by the brand new Fleet Farm (one of my favorite stores). My mom used to say: If you can't find it at Fleet Farm, you probably don't need it.

Project: Organize #2 ~ The Kitchen Sink

When I read about this project idea on The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking my plan was to do one organization project each week. That didn't go exactly as planned, as I started a week or so late. I finished Project #1 last weekend, and finished the kitchen sink an hour or so later. I just haven't had time to post until now!

Ahh, the kitchen sink. You can read about organizing underneath the sink at a lot of blogs and on a lot of other websites, which is great. Most of them portray similar ideas: that cabinet can become a catch-all of stuff that doesn't otherwise have a home. It can also be a place where items get lost: think "Land of the Misfit Toys." Only we aren't dealing with toys here.

Like all kitchen sink cabinets, most of mine is hard to access because of the plumbing and the garbage disposal. Not many things can get beyond the sink's drainage system. I attempted to organize away anyway. This time, I gave myself a rule:

Do not spend any money.

I found that the change in the kitchen sink cabinet wasn't that crazy (unlike the pantry organization!). It just became a bit more "tidy" if you will. It is definitely more appealing to the eye, and only a couple of items were removed from the cabinet all together. Those items were removed to the laundry room, which I thought was a better fit (I don't need the CLR in my kitchen!).

Here's the before:

And here's the after:

You see, it isn't a huge change by any means. But, having it this way makes me feel a little better (even if the only real change was putting the sponges, never-been-opened rubber gloves, and microfiber towels in a bucket). Eventually, I will let myself spend a few dollars on this cabinet, because I really like the way this looks at The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking.

Project: Organize #1 ~ The Pantry

Because our kitchen is so tiny, our pantry isn't actually in the kitchen. It's in the hallway. I know it sounds weird, but our kitchen is weird (and I kind of really don't like it). But, I love everything else about this house so I can put up with the kitchen (remodel plans are in the works!).

Anyway. The pantry is in the hallway, and it's a pretty good space. And today was the day to make it organized. I had a few places I needed to stop before I could actually start organizing (any excuse to go to The Container Store, right?). My first stop was at Crate & Barrel in search of freezer safe opaque storage, but that's an entirely different project.

Crate & Barrel wasn't that impressive today, so I headed down the road to The Container Store. My oh my, that store is beautiful. I could lose myself there for hours, and I could spend thousands. I found what I was looking for cabinet shelves and under-shelf baskets.

Pretty, oh so pretty. I'm extremely happy with these two products, and cannot wait to go back to The Container Store to show my husband the amazing elfa storage system. And the elfa stuff isn't just for the kitchen! It can be anywhere. Ahh, I'm in love with the entire store.


Back to the pantry project. Husband and I shop at Costco and stock up on our canned goods there. Which means we have a lot of the same item at times. Being that my pantry is in the hallway, taking one picture of the entire thing was..well, not good. The picture doesn't look that great, see:

Here's what I'll do: give you the before picture (on the left) AND the after picture (on the right) at the same time.  Ooh, special.

This first pictures are of the top, left side of the pantry. You can see that it originally was the cereal storage. Not ideal, because there are chips and stuff behind the cereal and if you know me at all, you know I'm short. And unable to reach things at the back of that shelf. So now, it is the lesser needed items: napkins, paper towels and the "back-up" toilet paper rolls.

Below that shelf now the Kitchenaid attachments, extra Ziploc baggies and some cough drops are found. It used to be ALL of the canned items--the only other shelf that used to hold food items in the pantry.

The bottom two shelves on the left side used to hold appliances that didn't otherwise have a home in the kitchen (and the rice). These ones stayed the same because everything fit so nicely:

The liquor cabinet also stayed the same. Again, everything fit so nicely and it is up high. Mr. Husband and I don't have any kids, but we will someday. It's important to keep naughty things out of reach.

Next, the napkins, paper towels, Pledge, and paper bags were kicked out and some food (cereal, chips, pancake mix) found their new home.

Then, we had the paper plates, table clothes and other random stuff that didn't really have a home otherwise. It was one of those shelves that was the catch-all. Now, it has most of the canned goods (which are mostly tomatoes and a few other random things). Hopefully next year, the canned tomato items will be homegrown, but that's another post for the future.

Then came the shelf with the pointless dividers. I took those right out with Mr. Husband's drill, hung the under-shelf basket and packed in the cream soups, oils, noodles and popcorn kernels. Popcorn on the stove is the only way to go. We always have popcorn kernels on hand for a quick snack (and, it's just plain fun to make). I'm glad I ended up taking the shelves out, though. It was difficult to store anything there in the first place.

And finally, the bottom shelf, that used to house some cleaning supplies. It now has boxed items (instant potatoes, stuffing mix), some sauces, seasoning packets and a few packages of noodles. The cleaning supplies that started there are now hanging out in the front hall closet, near the Swiffer mop, steam mop and broom. It seemed like a much better place.

Now, after that crazy-long post, I've already started organizing some other aspects of my house. The front hall closet, cabinets in the kitchen (under the sink!) and under the bathroom sink.

I love long, productive weekends!

Pretty House? Pretty Blog?

I was reading this blog the other night and decided that I wanted to do what she did.

Back in October, she did a little project. Well, a HUGE project. A 31 day (to be exact) project.

She organized her home. And she blogged about it. I loved her ideas, especially this post from day 30. It makes me envious. What's nice is that my husband and I have set aside an entire room for my craft stuff, but it is not nearly as organized as the closet from this post. Her closet is beautiful. I want one.

Anyway, back to my main thought: I'm going to organize my house. I can't promise that I am going to do something every day. There are a couple of reasons:

1. I work full time outside of my home. I have one of those jobs that isn't done when the clock says it's "go home time." I bring work home. I love it, I wouldn't trade it, but it means that I don't have my evenings free all the time.

2. Another job "excuse." I am unable to access my personal email/personal blog websites at my workplace. Having that access would make it a lot easier to update this little blog more frequently...

3. My husband and I are just married, recently out of college, working on our masters, going to re-do our deck, thinking about painting our house, and buying a dog. Needless to say, our money is well budgeted. And there isn't a budget for blogging projects. Wouldn't that be fun, though!?

My plan is to do a modified home organization series. Modified in that it won't be every day (I'm going to shoot for once a week...).

Thanks to Lindsay for sharing a link to Kelly's The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking blog!

The Wall

Mr. Husband and I took the first step in finding out about our wonderful wall with the lame "pantry." We have successfully cleared the pantry (it is only two cans deep) and found new places for each and every item. We were even able to get a few appliances off the counter to clear up some counter space. A few appliances on the counter are okay, but counter space is even better!

Our purpose for cleaning out the pantry was to open up the floor plan of our main level. Our kitchen is small and extremely enclosed, making it hard for two people to be in there at once. Slightly irriating! We made places for everything in the container, proving to us that we would not miss the "pantry" on the lame wall.

So we went right ahead and called a family friend that works in construction. He'll be over tomorrow morning to check on the wall. He will let us know if we can tear it down without having the roof cave in on us. Hooray!

The Organized Life

Organization is something I very much enjoy. I love bins with crisp white labels. Drawer organizers bring a smile to my face.

Mr. Husband and I moved into our house and are not yet living the organized life (sad day). I know that eventually we will get there. Just not quite yet.

Today, though, was a big step toward the organized life. Our home has three bedrooms. Two are on the main living level. Being that we are in a split-level home, the two bedrooms are upstairs. The third bedroom is in the basement. From the beginning, upstairs bedroom number two was to be the office. We completed it with a computer and desk, filing cabinet and three bookshelves. Will all that space for storage, Mr. Husband and I still managed to keep a pretty cluttered and pretty messy office. The culprit you ask?

My craft stuff.

It was everywhere! Now, before I get ahead of myself, I need to talk about bedroom number hree. My husband and I love just about every outdoor summer activity and are slowly getting into quite a few outdoor winter activities. That being said, we have a lot of stuff. The easiest thing for us to do was to out all that "stuff" in the basement bedroom. Man, did it every get full! Golf clubs, snowboards, tents, sleeping bags, luggage, backpacking backpacks, snowshoes. The list continues with more stuff that was taking up way too much space and was not stored properly. Only one of the bedrooms in our house was functioning properly, and that's only because the only thing we do there is sleep.

Back to the craft stuff. I have a lot of that, too. I finally bit the bullet and bought those clear and stackable shoebox sized storage containers. I used some extra white return address labels and a Sharpie to get to work. Before I do anything, I have a habit of writing a list. I jotted down ideas for the buckets I would create: things that stick (glue, tape, etc.), things that cut, paper, stamps, block carving, paint, paint brushes, ribbon, sewing stuff, markers and crayons, stencils, ink pads, and a bin for miscellaneous stuff. I filled up ten bins! Ten bins of stuff that had previously been in bags on the floor. It felt SO good.

When we bought our house, the downstairs bedroom had a lovely white desk and hutch. With the hutch removed, I knew it would be the perfect sewing table. And here my sewing machine sat since I got it, untouched. I couldn't even fit a chair in that bedroom.

In an attempt to make a long post as short as possible, I spend the day in the downstairs bedroom. I made my way through piles and piles of things. I gored our backpacking packs and day packs properly. Our snowboards are within reach (we better get more snow!). The snowshoes were moved to the garage, along with the golf clubs and tennis rackets.

My lovely labeled clear stackable bins were moved downstairs. My bin of leftover fabric is actually near my sewing machine. I have paint, paintbrushes and canvas all in the same room. And, My chair fits in the room (pictures soon).

I'd venture out and say that today was definitely a success.