creative little daisy

Riding the wave

Recently, out of nowhere, I was hit by a purge and organize wave. Slapped right in the face. And I like it.

I continually have an inner struggle going on. You know, good vs. evil kind of struggle. In my case it's the part of me that wants to be all OCD and and have a spotlessly clean house that is at odds with the part of me who just wants to look at pinterest all day.  The pinterst Autum has been winning for a while and the OCD Autum has been out of sorts and grumpy. Even though she pouted and begged for attention, I managed to ignore her most days. It had reached a point where she seemed but only a distant memory, just someone that I used to know.

Then without calling first, without warning, OCD Autum was back. Wohoo! Welcome home girl. My house has missed you. Terribly.

All joking aside, I've never been truely OCD about cleaning, I'm much too lazy. But I do prefer to live in an orderly house. I like things to be easy to find, I don't like to look at clutter covering every surface. But for the past year or even two, my standards had lowered for what I could live with. I was living with it, but not content. My house was not a pigsty, but definitely more cluttered than I preferred. It didn't bother me enough that the floor needed sweeping to prevent me from reading blogs or watching tv. I let it go, but din't feel good about it, about myself.

Back in May, Mitch and I rented a house at Ocean Isle Beach for our Anniversary. It was so nice to be able to relax and just hang out in such a clean and uncluttered house. I was stuck by the fact that I cleaned while I was there, I did our laundry, and I cooked, but I never felt like it was a chore or that I had to make myself do it. I think the difference was that number one, it never took long, and number two, there was a sence of accomplishment when I was done. Why, because the house just had what we needed. It didn't have all the extra piles of stuff everywhere. A lighbulb went off. Yes, it should have been a duh moment not an aha moment, but for me something clicked. I have not wanted to clean, because there is no feeling of accomplishment when I'm finished, because I have let too much stuff acumulate. I'm by no means a hoarder, but when the bathroom cabinet is full of half empty bottles of lotion and shampoo, the once clean counters are now cluttered with brushes and bottles.  When it's a fight to get a clean shirt to fit in the drawer, laundry is more likely to pile up because it's just so darn annoying to put things away. A domino effect that can be traced back to too much stuff.

Goodness gracious, this is turning into a wordy post, isn't it? I'm getting all philosophical about cleaning out my drawers.

Really, why did I put it off so long. I love purging, but even more that that, the results. I cleaned out my underwear drawer a couplle weeks ago, and for days, I would open it just to look at how nice it looked.

The day before yesterday, I got brutal with the bathroom cabinets and drawers. I tossed so much stuff and it felt so good. Ten year old bottles of perfume, yes it may have been expensive perfume, but if I haven't used it in five plus years, I'm probably not going to start using it next week. I feel like a weight is falling off my shoulders. It's not gone yet, but the eviction notice has been delivered.

Yesterday I tackled the utensil drawers in the kitchen. I have a box to take to goodwill of knives and gadgets that never get used. Besides steak knives,  I use the same two or three knives for all my cooking, why do I need ten different knives? I don't, they're outa here.

I hot glued a strip of magnet to the inside of the drawer to keep the knives from sliding around. I'm pretty sure I saw that on pinterest. 

I used little dollar store baskets too keep the gadgets corralled, I washed those and edited out what wasn't being used.

Much better, but then I remembered some poplar strips I had in the garage. I knew I could kick it up a notch by adding some custom dividers.

Bam!

This is one of the quickest, easiest most satisfying projects you will ever do.

I first saw this done at Under The Table and Dreaming and I organized my junk drawer. I was amazed by how easy it was to get  customized drawer dividers. Thank you Stephanie Lynn.

The wood is easy to cut, I used a miter saw, but I have cut it using a miter box and hand saw. I just cut the lengths I wanted and glued them in place with wood glue. Easy as that.

Next up is the dreaded space beneath the kitchen sink. I want to add some shelving, not sure how, just going to fly by the seat of my pants. I'm going to take on one closet and cabinet at a time, like eating and elephant, you have to do it one bite at a time. Although, I don't know why you would want to eat an elephant.

Please don't laugh at my goal, it sounds silly, but what I aspire to achieve is a state of orderliness so that if I were ever in an accident and had to send someone to my house to get something for me, I would not be mortified. Silly right? Kind of like when your mom tells you to always wear clean underwear in case you are ever in an accident. I don't foresee being in the hospital and sending someone to go through my drawers, but I want to feel like if I had to, it would not be a traumatic even. It's good to have aspirations, right?

Sewing room makeover take... three?

I've lost count to be honest. You have to live with a room a while to learn what works and what doesn't. Especially so for a working room.

While Casey was away becoming one of the few and the proud, I took over his room. I figured the Marines owned him for at least four years, he wouldn't be needing it. At the time it seemed like the perfect arrangement, but it wasn't.

About a year later, I moved things around again. It was better, but over time, it just wasn't working either and eventually became a junk hole. Not at all conducive to creativity. I just wanted to close the door and pretend it wasn't there. Except it was. It was there, and I may have had a bad dream or two about it. 

Think I'm exaggerating? Brace yourselves folks, what you are about to see isn't pretty.

Are you ready?

Now you know why I haven't posted any sewing projects. I'm not sure I could even find the sewing machine.

Yea, bad. Real bad.

Let me say one tiny thing in my defense, I had already started some of the reorganization when I took these photos. You know, things get worse before they get better.  I had pulled things from under the table and piled them on top. The other stuff, like mount lampshade over there, that was there already.

Then it got even worse. You see, to implement my plan, most of the furniture in the room had to come out. There was a lot of stuff hanging out on that furniture

Enough ugliness, it's giving me the heebie-jeebies.Lets get on with the afters.

Wall to wall work table and all it cost me was the price of the legs. It's the same hollow core door I'd been using as a cutting table, only now it's fourteen feet long instead of seven

No new furniture was purchased. Almost everything was reused and repurposed. I did purchase a new plywood top for my cutting table and legs for the work table. I also purchased tissue paper for the pom poms and a small amount of molding. It was a use-what-you-have makeover for sure.

I reused the computer desk by taking the top off, turning it upside down and putting wheels on the new bottom.

All the closetmaid components that were below the cutting table were reused in various ways. The book shelves were placed under the work table.

This one was turned on its side to hold storage boxes and the printer. I made the little shelf to hold my silhouette with a scrap of plywood from the new cutting table. Did you catch that? I said I made that shelf. Yep, me and my kreg jig. It ain't much, but I did it, start to finish, all by my lonesome.

That's not all folks. I also made this thread rack. Alone. Just me.

These shelves? I hung 'em.

I recovered the chairs with fabric I bought a while back and never used. (Hancock Fabric)

I also pimped the closetmaid cabinets that serve as bases for the new cutting table.

I added beadboard backs, beadboard wall paper to the sides and baseboard around the bottom. Oh, and some corner trim on all the corners too. 

You're looking at my stool aren't you? I know you are. It was free. Yep, free. Don't hate.

I was at my cousin's, next door,  he was finishing the edge of my plywood table top with his router and I spied that stool in the corner, dusty, stuff piled on top, and I shamelessly begged him for it. Not really begged, but I let him know if he didn't love it to pieces, I'd give it a happy home. And he said OK.

I spent hours, no joke hours, trying to get the placement of those two cabinets right this morning. I measured and moved, measured and moved. I just knew the first thing Mitch would say when he walked in the room would be,  the table isn't straight. He has one of those eyes. He picks up the slightest offness and it drives him crazy, and when he points it out to me, after I've slaved over some project, it drives me crazy. Like I want to beat him to death with a level or something. I kid.

So, in an effort to keep him from pointing out my nonsquareness, I measured. A lot. I even got the laser level out. Not that I knew what to do with it, but it was there. Moral support, I guess.

One of the bases has drawers and holds my patterns.

The other one has doors to hide crafting necessities.

My books were in the closetmaid book shelves under the cutting table before. Now I can see them all.

I made the cover of this one. Well, not me, but one of my projects.

I was already storing yarn in this bushel basket. I just stained it gray and recovered the little top.

The pegboard was just moved from one wall to another.

Same plastic jars for ribbon storage.

I think I am going to paint the doors on this cabinet with chalkboard paint and I have an art piece planned for the wall above the work table, so it's not 100%, but I couldn't wait any longer to share.

I'm thrilled that I got a new room without going out and buying a bunch of new stuff. I forced myself to used what I had and I couldn't be happier.

Found the camera!

The day I decided to organize my spices, Alyssa had my camera, so I used my old point and shoot to capture the mess- hence the grainy photos. 

Any good organization project begins has to start out with a big ol' mess right?

I had been keeping spices in several different cabinets, none of which was very well organized.

Over the years I've tried and failed at coming up with a well organized workable system.

This lazy susan was ok, but didn't hold much.

I had a unit that attached to the cabinet door once, but bottles would fall out and onto my head about every third time I opened  the cabinet.

Somehow over time I ended up using four different cabinets to hold what should have been together in one cabinet. Definitely not an efficient use of space.

Pinterest came to my rescue. I do love pinterest. I googled spice stack to check the reviews and they were almost all positive, so I bought one.

Now what was taking up parts of four different cabinets is tucked away neatly in just one.

Even though it's up high, I can still access all the spices without needing a stool. Each drawer pulls out and pivots downward. Cool huh? 

What doesn't fit in the spice stack, I have on a tiered shelf so everything is visable.

Diane, if you're reading this, see the steak seasoning? I love it!

All my spices, oils and even cooking wines are in one cabinet and nothing is hidden from view to be lost and forgotten.

It isn't flashy and beautiful, but it's efficient and doesn't fall on my head. I'm a happy girl.