So what to do if you lose power for a few days...

As I sit here there's a powerful storm churning out in the Atlantic Ocean.  And for the past 2 days I've been hearing all about it from the weather guys who love to hype up a weather event.  This time around it's really starting to sound like being in a mid-Atlantic state ha put us in the path of what they're calling the frankenstorm, and while we aren't likely to get major damage or flooding at our house, there's a good chance we might lose power for a while.  If that happens I'll probably freak out a bit because I'm pretty plugged in most of the time, but we'll survive.

Here's my contingency plan for how to beat the boredom -

Batteries & flashlights.  Or a lantern!  We actually got this great LCD lantern thing from my parents at Christmas last year.  It has 4 mini-lanterns that come apart so you can wander off to the bathroom to with a nice light.  A lantern really fills up a room with light better than a directed flashlight does.  And face it, when it gets dark at 6:45 PM, I'm really not ready to just go to bed.

Board Games!  Scrabble, Monopoly, Boggle or old fashioned card games are great for the adults.  Memory, Candyland, Old Maid, and Go Fish are good for the little ones. 

Keep electronic devices charged.  OK, so that's not quite "roughing it", but face it, when your books are on a Kindle, you have games on an iPad, and your only means of communication is a cell phone, it would be a good idea to do what you can to have those things available to you.  Bonus points for a portable DVD player.

Decluttering - after spending 2 days in my grandparents house in June going through closets, drawers, and attics, I know that electricity is a "nice to have" feature of decluttering rather than a necessity.  A lantern and trash bags are the only essentials!

Crafts!  Make sure you stock up on crayons, paper, markers, coloring books, scissors or anything you frequently use for crafting at home for either you or the kids.  Don't count on a glue gun as the power may go out.  I also stock up on new coloring books to break out on rainy days.

Alright folks, that's it for tonight.  I've been working on my indoor prep, tomorrow is outdoor prep - gutters, yard cleanup, un-decorating (no need for Halloween decorations to become projectiles!).  Hopefully this whole shebang amounts to not much more than a few rainy days!
 

 

 

An Un-Glamorous Update

So sometimes the best project/change you make all week is the least exciting.  Well, I'm excited, but you may not be.

As part of the Big Girl Room redo, we have moved the tv she watches (and the DVD player) down to the basement.  It's not a finished space, but one day it will be.  Jason wired up cable, an outlet, and a light switch to make sure stuff was safe and secure (stuff was sorta dangly down there, and that sort of wiring is scary).

Sarah has been watching tv down there occasionally.  She's got a little table & chairs for now - later we'll move the bedroom rug down there so it's a little fuzzier and maybe we'll put her beanbag chair there too.

Anyway, a few friends were down there yesterday watching Power Rangers, and one came out and said it was "cweepy".  I asked why he thought it was creepy and he said the basement was "full of cweepy stuff". Touche.  So I guess we need to do a reorg down there.  We had TONS of stuff, boxes, paint cans, tools, hardware, etc.

Today I was at Ace picking up some ant baits (yeah, I have ants, lucky me).  And I saw this awesome plastic 5-tier shelf on sale for $40!  Regular price was $60 - good savings!  It was exactly the thing I need to help organize our dumping ground basement.  (Actually, I should have bought 4 and done the garage too).

Check it out - made in the USA too.

Here's what it looked like before.  It's almost too embarrassing to share, but this is reality, right?

The shelf was assembled super quickly and without tools.  And I'm not positive, but I think it's made to have multiple shelving units kinda lock together...seriously, I may need a few more of these things.

Once it was up and ready to go, I started filling her up with all the random tools, paint cans, battery chargers, etc. that seem to be generally scattered all around the garage.  And (surprise, surprise), I found more than a few things that would be more useful in a trashbag on the curb than in the basement.  So out they went!

Here's the "reveal", LOL. I know, it's still a pretty grubby basement, but I love how we have all the paint cans low and out of the way, stacked up tools, so they're easy to find.  Oh and battery chargers (I'm positive we have at least 2 more of those), drywall stuff, etc.

I was able to relocate a few items, buy there still things on the future finished side of the basement - electrical stuff, random lumber, more tools (of course), and other stuff. Maybe once I get that cleaned up and over to the "dirty" side, J down the street wont' think the basement is so "cweepy".

Let's hope!

One last look - isn't it nice to have a tidy space:

Here's where I've linked up:

A Big Girl's Bedroom - Getting the ball rolling!

This past weekend was our first weekend at home after vacation and we decided it was time to get started on Sarah's bedroom re-do.

Now for those of you who aren't familiar with our little house, we have 2 upstairs bedrooms and one downstairs bedroom.  When we first moved in, we renovated the 2nd floor and added a bunch of square footage with a shed dormer, but during construction (a lengthy DIY), Jason and I used the first floor bedroom as the master.  Sarah was sleeping in the dining room (aren't we fancy).

So the "back room" as we called it was painted a terrifying turquoise (not a great choice by me, but live & learn, right?).  I put up some roman shades and made them pretty with some brown grosgrain ribbon trim.  And once we moved to our new bedrooms on the 2nd floor, the first floor room became a playroom for Sarah.  Lucky girl!

Here's the room all set up as a guest room with an air bed for some visitors.

A few years later we had a new baby boy and it became clear that eventually separate bedrooms would be best for these 2, so we're moving Sarah into a new big girl bedroom on the first floor.

The first step is clearing out the space and that's what we started doing this weekend.  Unfortunately, it seems that this sort of thing is a cascading process...to clear the room we have to clean parts of the basement (to make room for stuff) and our bedroom (to make room for stuff) and the kids closet (to make room for stuff).  Monday is here and while we haven't emptied the room yet, we have made tons of progress on the peripheral spaces, so much that by the time next weekend rolls around, I'm pretty confident that we'll have a clean slate to begin the REAL work in that room.

Here's a sneak peek at what we need to delve into before Sarah can call it home:

• Patching walls
• Baseboard installation
• Closet repairs
• Door trim
• New doorknob
• Rewiring a few things
• Paint!!!!

I'm tired already!!  Actually I'm super excited to get this room set up for my big girl, and she's excited too!

I FOUND IT!!!

Ok, so about 4 months ago (maybe longer, I don't know), something went missing.  Something important.  It was the wand extension and crevice tool for our vacuum.  Now our vacuum does have on-board storage for all attachments, but because Chris is gross he kept pulling them off and licking them <gag>.  So we had put the parts in another closet with a door he couldn't open.

Then I went to get them and they weren't there.  Where were they?  Did I move them? Did I put them somewhere else last time? OMG, we had just done a big purge, had I thrown them out accidentally?  Did they get put in the black hole of our basement??  I looked and looked.  Jason looked.  High and low, places it should be (the closet) and places it shouldn't be (kids room, bathrooms, in the car, garage).  These things were GONE.

Until today.  I was feeding my addiction at Target (storage containers) and I picked up a few biggish bins from the dollar section (these 2 are $2.50 but still a good deal, in my opinion).  I figured they could replace the cardboard boxes on the floor of the hall closet.  So I went to put them in place and it was when I transferred stuff to the new bins that I found the tubes.

See, it's just like when Obi Wan Kenobi hands Luke Skywalker a lightsaber for the first time.  Look at the majesty.

I was STUNNED!  I called Jason at work.  I posted to FB.  I tweeted.  Yeah, I'm that excited.  I can now clean the crevices!!!!!!!  And all because I found the stupid things in the closet exactly where they were supposed to be and where I had looked probably 6 times.

I suppose this really means I should do more decluttering.

Big boy bed time!

In an unprecedented second trip to Ikea in a month (YAY!) we decided to just go ahead and get a bed for Chris.  The main concern with keeping him in the crib was the potential for injury on an escape attempt.  Just because he has escaped 475 million times without incident, that doesn't mean that he won't land wrong next time, right?  The second benefit of getting him into a bed is that it's on "the list".   So off we went to the epicenter for cool and modern Scandinavian home decor.  A family trip, always fun.

We checked out twin beds and beds in the children's section. We hemmed and hawed over pros and cons of one vs. the other.  And we went with a "junior" bed from the children's section.  Here's a few reasons why: 

• Chris is just 2 years old.  We can get 2-3 years out of this junior bed. .
• He's currently sharing a bedroom with a big sister.  For the immediate future, space in the room is an issue, a junior bed will fit better.
• The junior beds from the kid's section are very cute.  The twin beds are geared toward adults/teens and not little kids.

There were a few cons to the junior bed, not the least of which is that due to the fact that it's not a common size, sheets are not available anywhere but Ikea.  I figured this wasn't a huge issue as I can make some.  As soon as I get a new cord for my sewing machine.  (I know, it's been like 2 months.  I should just stop procrastinating and order one.)  For now we picked up 2 jersey knit sheets at Ikea.

The other major con is the fact that this bed will not last Chris until he leaves for college.  We are totally ok with that!  We had actually planned on upgrading Chris' bed regardless in a few years. See, Jason built Sarah's twin bed a few years back and we love it, so we figured he could just do it again (choosing.a different design).  Whenever this is no longer needed, we'll just CL it.

Why not a toddler bed?  A toddler bed is a great idea because they allow you to continue using the crib mattress and linens and many cribs convert into one. Mine didn't so I'd have to buy one.  The annoying thing was that I wasn't able to find one locally (didn't try too hard) and the few people on CraigsList I contacted never wrote me back.  And I wanted one NOW and not in the XYZ business days it would have taken WalMart to get one in.

Back to the story...we picked out the bed, mattress, a few sheets and came home.  Jason disassembled the crib and stowed it away in the basement, I moved the dresser to the opposite side of the room to cover the cable outlet.  Here's a little pic to explain what the heck I'm talking about.

Then Jason assembled the bed.  It was your standard flat-pack Ikea assembly job with cartoon directions and little Allen wrenches.

Chris got a little practice in right before I got the sheets on:

After some additional purging of a few larger items from Sarah's side of the room it was bedtime!

I wish I could say that transitioning Chris to a "big boy bed" has been a painless and smooth process.  Actually it's been pretty much a nightmare scenario where he gets out of bed 300 times before he finally falls asleep after 3 hours. **sigh**

Suggestions on how to do this better would be welcome!

Improved Kitchen Storage

It's Pinterest Challenge time!!!  

A huge thanks to Katie at BowerPowerBlog, Sherry at Young House Love, Jen at Centsational Girl and Michelle at TenJune Blog for organizing the challenge.  The Pinterest Challenge gets all us bloggers off our buns and DOING some of the great stuff we're pinning!  Find something, Pin It!, do it your spin, and LINK UP!  It's mega huge fun to see what these 4 awesome ladies come up with, not to mention the tons of projects that people share in the link party!

Without further ado - here's what I did:

So our kitchen is bad.  It's so bad that if we had to sell tomorrow we would be totally up a creek.  It's on our list for a full-on gut job sometime in the next 12 months, but until then we can definitely do some things to make it more usable.

A while after we moved in, we picked up this free standing island.

 {source}

It's pretty basic - counter space, butcher block top, shelf underneath.  On the shelf we have bins for stuff like onions and potatoes.  And then we just stack our skillets and cookie sheets on the other side.  Now the skillets are not a big problem because there are only 3-4 of them, but the cookie sheets?  A huge pain in the neck. I generally need to get the one on the bottom, which is noisy and annoying.  The solution was a pretty obvious one, as all over Pinterest are vertical solutions for storing baking sheets and/or cutting boards.  Some  were cabinets with vertical dividers and I saw one using tension curtain rods to create vertical dividers within a cabinet.  Someday I'd love to have a nice cabinet for these things, but for now I came up with a solution that will work with what we have.

I was particularly inspired by this pin:

Source: thisoldhouse.com via Ginny on Pinterest

I loved the idea of using shelf brackets as a vertical storage technique and figured that this might work for my cookie sheets.  So on my Ikea trip last week I picked up a few basic shelf brackets.

 {source}

Definitely a lot less pretty than the ones in the pin, and why not.  They're about function rather than form and the price was right at $3 apiece.

My plan was to mount these on the lower shelf of the island pointing up creating some vertical separation so that the cookie sheets could be stored vertically.  And that's exactly what I did. Using 1" wood screws and our handy-dandy power drill, I mounted these pointing up on the lower shelf of the island.

I'm going to be totally honest and say that screwing these things in took about a minute and a half.  I almost feel guilty labeling this a "project", but why not.  It's a big improvement, dontcha think?

Ready for the budget breakdown?

• Island - $0 -- already had it
• Brackets - $9 -- $3 each at Ikea
• Screws - $1.20
• GRAND TOTAL - $10.20

So how do you organize your baking sheets?  Vertically?  Have you done any Ikea hacks lately?

Check here for where I've linked up:

Conquering Clutter

For those who don't know me personally, I think one thing I should do is come clean about clutter.  I am a clutterbug.  I come from a loooooong line of packrats.  Actually we were just down at my grandparent's house in WV a few weeks ago trying to sift through decades of junk in search of any treasures before the house is sold.  During that trip I realized that one day when I'm gone, someone (my kids probably) will to have to do that to MY house.  A difficult, weird, dirty, and gross it project was and it could have been a lot easier had my grandparents (and my great-grandparents) had only pared down their possessions to what they needed.

I'm not prepared to go super simple or to eliminate every item that's a "nice to have" or things I'm holding onto for sentimental reasons, but the stack of sweaters in my closet is testament to the fact that I definitely have more stuff than I use or need.  I'm not emotionally attached to everything, but i do seem to have trouble letting go of extra things.  I do know that I will be happier and probably healthier (mentally) if I can reduce the "extra" in my life.

I started off by thinking about WHY we hang onto things...

The Unknown.  Why get rid of a thing if there's a chance it might be useful or needed in the future.  Like the Hawaiian print shirt you bought for that Luau party you went to 6 years ago.  You're keeping it why?  Because you never know when you'll need a Hawaiian print shirt.  There could be a luau tomorrow, and if there is, you'll be all set.


I loved the time when I got it.  Maybe it's a picture from your first apartment or a pair of shoes your wore on your honeymoon, but every time you go to chuck out an item, it reminds you of a time in your life you look back on fondly.  Tossing out is like tossing out is like losing a memory.


It looked fantastic on me.  This is pretty clothes/shoes specific, but sometimes we hang onto jeans or a dress from before we had kids hoping that someday we'll fit into it or something from high-school that does look spectacular, but let's face it, the 90s are over.


But it's in great shape!  You're meticulous about your clothes.  Everything is clean, folded, and without blemishes.  Maybe the item in question is a household item...throw pillows for the living room or maybe a duvet cover.  Something you replaced, upgraded or just doesn't suit your current style. But because it's in great condition, you would feel guilty throwing it away.  So it gets stowed in bins, put in a closet, basement, or attic.  


Decluttering Paralysis.  This is what happens when your clutter problem is so big that you don't know where to start.  And so you just do nothing.


These are all real reasons that I hold onto stuff.  They can ALL be addressed.


Here's questions that I ask myself when decluttering:

• Does it FIT??  
• Would I have occasion to USE it?
• Do I even LIKE it?

If an item isn't useful, if I don't like it, or if it doesn't fit, then out it goes.  I do take some exceptions for extremely sentimental items like a wedding dress, collectible antiques, or gifts.

So what do I do with stuff?  Trash, Donate, Sell.  Things that are in great shape are saleable through ebay, consignment, or craigslist.  Donate gently used stuff to a number of charities.  Trash/recycle anything that is unusable, dangerous, or gross.

There you have it!  A quick and dirty declutter rundown.  So where do I go from here?  Well, I just need to pick a small task and get it done.  Click HERE for an article with some tips on how to declutter in your home.

Next up - the Dining Room.