Sneak Preview

I've been hard at work rehabbing a china cabinet I got at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store for, get this, $101 and change. And that includes the delivery charge! Cha-ching. Truth be told I prefer buffets, but I have next to no space in the dining area and this was nice and shallow and with the cats there are things I'm just not comfortable displaying on open shelves. I'm at the "I hate painting" stage on this but I'm hoping with a few more snow days to finish it up soon.

Pretty ugly isn't it?

But it will hold a 12 pound cat.

 

Or two.

I'm still working on the top part, but while we wait, I'll go ahead and show off the (nearly) finished buffet. I still need to get the right length screws for the handles (they came with two sizes, both too long).

See that blue swirly bowl on the bottom? I have never, ever had a place to put that when it wasn't in the middle of the table. Love! I have put the side doors back on since taking this photo.

That little drawer is perfect for silverware. It was lined in black velvet, kinda yucky, so for now I've put in some burlap I had left over from my framed silverware project and I may get some little dividers or organizers for it.

I'm moving....

Yes that's right, I'm packing up my pixels and moving my blog from Wordpress to Blogspot. I didn't put much research into this last year and Wordpress just turned out to be too complicated for my old brain to figure out, and there were some features I found I couldn't add without "upgrading" to a pro-account with my own host and I'm sure as heck not ready for that. My posts mostly transferred over OK, but I still have a bunch of captions to fix and a few comments are missing, so if anything looks wonky, blame it on the technology, K? Cause it is definitely not the user. Definitely.

A new look

I've finally gotten around to designing and updating my header! No more overly-enlarged, looks awful, doesn't even have the name of the blog printed on it, place-holder header. I'm really liking the burlap texture and bright yellow color. I'd like to maybe round off the corners of the yellow part and add some pictures underneath. I'm not sure about the green type, but it showed up on that bright yellow, and I've never met a green I didn't like, so.... for now we're calling it done.

Organizing Problem Areas

I recently purchased Organize Now! A Week by Week Guide to Simplify Your Space and Your Life by Jennifer Ford Berry and while I haven't started in on it yet (I'm in the middle of a big furniture redo which I hope to share shortly and which IS actually part of my big picture plan to organize my stuff better) I have started a list of my problem areas and possible solutions that I wanted to share. Sorry for the lack of pictures this time around, I promise I'll share my messy spaces and hopefully my newly organized ones as I tackle them.

Entrance
Problem - Shoes everyhere; stacked, closed picnic baskets don't get used because they're not convenient
Possible Solution – Open basket under chair

Kitchen Countertops
Problem - Bills, Junk Mail, Catalogs, Circulars and Coupons Everywhere
Possible Solution – Bills in brown leather tote in bedroom near bill paying box; junk mail in trash; circulars/coupons in basket on top of fridge; catalogs in basket on top of fridge

Laundry/Kitchen
Problem - Recycling always overflowing; no real place for it
Possible Solution – plastic tote on shelf above washer/dryer

Problem - Wet dishtowels, kitchen towels etc everywhere, can’t go in wash basket/hamper with other clothes because they’re wet
Possible Solution – small plastic trashcan in kitchen cabinet

Problem - Laundry overflow into kitchen
Possible Solution - Besides the obvious of doing laundry more often, not sure yet. Some kind of sorting system? Keep in bedroom closet until time to wash?

Problem - Junk drawer overflowing; No drawer for dishtowels/potholders
Possible Solution – Small set of drawers in back of laundry area for tools, junk; current junk drawer can house kitchen linens

So I think those are the main ones; I do actually have a few systems in place (I'll share these as I go) that just need their periodic tidying up and I think once I have things shifted around to make better use of my available storage and do a decent clean-out of things I no longer use (I've pledged to get rid of 365 things this year - one for each day) it will all fall into place.

Make Room for Kitty



Chloe



Quincy

While I certainly don’t believe you should take on a pet you’re not 1001% committed to, I know a lot of people whose only stumbling block for a cat is the issue of where to put the litter box. With a little creativity, this problem can be solved quite easily and quite stylishly.

Currently I’m fortunate to have a second full bath that is not needed for showering, so my solution is very easy: I just put the two litter boxes right in the tub. I know eventually my guys will get too old to jump in there, at which point if we’re still living here I will most likely trade bathrooms with them so they can get in and out of the lower shower stall, but for now they are hidden away behind the shower curtain where no one can see and all the litter they scratch out is contained within the tub instead of all over the carpet. I keep a stopper in the tub and use the vacuum cleaner to suck up the stray litter when I do a full box cleaning so it doesn’t harm the plumbing.



Now you see it...

Now you don't.

In addition to the litter boxes, I’ve placed a pole across the built in niches in the shower wall and use this to suspend their carriers. The scoop goes in another niche and I’ve hung some volcanic rocks from the shower head that are supposed to absorb smells (jury is still out on this, they don’t work instantaneously). I should probably hang this with some sort of cute ribbon or something a little more classy than an old dry cleaner's hanger, but I just got it and haven't had time to really think about it much.

De-Stinkifier.

I’ve decorated the space with random cat-themed tchotchkes, plus a few cute little birdies (this is “their” room after all and they’re not really big fans of random cats, they barely tolerate one another), and their pictures (well, I only have Mia’s picture up currently, still need to get the frames painted for the other two).



Random cat decor.

Birdies for the kitties.

The space under the sink holds bags of litter, dry cat food (for some reason they prefer to eat their dry food in here rather than in the pantry where they get their wet food and where we also keep bowls of dry food and water), paper bags for the litter box scoopings, and old towels and pillow cases for in their carrier and for cleaning up after them.



Supplies store neatly under the sink.

By the way, I can’t recommend “The World’s Best Cat Litter” enough. It really is. It is made from corn and it clumps, but not into a hard little cement ball (remember, your cat is going to breath in and most likely consume some of their litter in cleaning themselves – I personally don’t want anything turning to cement inside of them); it doesn’t get gummy; and it is chemical free. It is not the cheapest litter but I can go a month without doing a full change out.

A cute milkglass planter in the medicine cabinet holds their nail clippers, brush, collars they won't wear and some of their other small items.



Even the hand soap has a cat on the label.

Before moving here, we lived in a one bed, one bath apartment so my solution for the litter box was a bit different. I removed the doors from the bathroom vanity and put one of the litter boxes in there and then covered it with a tension rod and a small curtain I’d made to coordinate with the shower curtain. As for all the junk one normally stores under the vanity, I moved most of it to the linen closet where I hung a shoe bag over the door and used the pockets for spare shampoo, toothpaste and the like (hint: if you do this, get a shoe bag with CLEAR pockets – may not be as attractive, but makes finding things MUCH easier, trust me, I learned this the hard way). For things like spare toilet paper that had to be kept in the bathroom, I just got a few cute baskets and boxes and stored them in those on the floor and on the back of the toilet tank.

The beauty of this idea is that it can be adapted to other spaces. If you don’t want to give up the space in your bathroom vanity or need space for a second litter box, you can remove the door on a linen closet, tv cabinet, buffet or anything like this and make a private little space with a curtain. Just make sure you remove any low shelves so kitty has some headroom and of course you will need to devote the entire cabinet to kitty and kitty’s supplies (no storing dishes in the buffet along with the litter box!)

If you don't want to DIY it, you can also purchase ready-made furniture with a built-in litter box space like this stylish bench from Drs. Foster and Smith.

Specialty cat furniture from Drs. Foster and Smith

Organize Now! (dammit)

I am convinced that if I could organize my environment I’d be able to get the rest of my life in order too. I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions but every year I think I really need to get my sh!t together and get some of this stuff out of here. But I like my stuff. And I sell on eBay so I’m forever bringing in more stuff to sell. And not purging my own things I think I can sell. It's overwhelming sometimes and I spend a lot of time being unproductive, looking for things, and just in general not knowing where to start.

I recently came across Jennifer Ford Berry’s book Organize Now! A Week-by-Week Guide to Simplify Your Space and Your Life. Hmmm, this seems more approachable than the typical organize yourself in 7 days with 7 easy steps kind of book. It has 56 weeks of organizing tips and checklists. It includes chapters on things like email, which I confess I’m like a year behind in and scared to even open at this point, and chapters I know I can skip like the garden shed and the garage, since I have neither. I realize taking it a week at a time I will run the risk of never truly being finished, as I complete week 10 but week 1 has already gone all to h@ll, but I went ahead and ordered it on Amazon today with the hope that I can at least try to develop a few more organized habits and techniques. Kind of like not going on a diet, but resolving to eat better most of the time. We'll see.

While I’m waiting for it to arrive I’d like to share one organizing technique that I actually employ to pretty good use for the volumes of tax paperwork that I have. Since
I’m a packrat I sell online I need to keep a lot of receipts and statements that most people would just toss. Previously I had a typical 2-drawer filing cabinet with folders for credit card statements, the electric bill etc. and after I paid my bills the rest of the statement would lay around the house for awhile, eventually end up in a bag waiting to be sorted out and filed, and then every once in awhile when the drawers were looking a little full I’d dig through the files and toss anything older than the requisite 7 years. Not a great system for me.



So, I went out and bought 8 of those cute little photo shoe boxes they sell at craft stores across America – one for each of the 7 years of back files and one for the current year. In the current year file I keep a small folder (a regular size folder I cut down to fit the box) with return address labels, my checkbook, coupon booklet for my HOA fees, envelopes, a pen, and stamps in it. When it is time to pay bills, I pull out the box, use the items in the folder for their intended purpose and then just dump all of the statements that need to be saved right in the box and put the folder in on top. I don't triage or try to figure out what needs to be saved and what doesn't - it all fits and the box takes up the same amount of space whether I'm saving unneccessary things or not so in it all goes. Sure they’re all mixed up and I might need to organize them a little come tax time, but even though I am still in the dark ages of writing checks, I do enter it all in my Palm Pilot and synch to the Money program on the computer so I can run the reports I need for business expenses and in general just keep my jumbled box of backup paperwork as it is.

At the beginning of each year I take the oldest box off the shelf, shred the contents, and relabel the box for the new year. So that is at least one system that is working for me. I will try to share more as I spend the next 56 weeks simplifying my life and my space. And trying not to crap it up again.