Saturday Improvements...

Today I decided to make some improvements to my apartment...

Sauce Day! Improves both the smell of my apartment
and the contents of my fridge.

I decided to take this blank wall in my closet and put it to better use.
(I also feel the need to tell you that the feather boa
is part of a Halloween costume.)

One inexpensive Grundtal rack from Ikea...

...and it's Scarf City and I'm the mayor.
Better storage and the wall looks prettier.

So I applied that formula to my kitchen
and threw a pot rack up on the wall.

Now I'm off to the AFI theater to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, because once was not enough.

Small space living...

The annual Small Cool contest is underway over at Apartment Therapy. Have you ever seen this? They add new entries every day during the contest, and they're in five categories (Small, Little, Tiny, Teeny-Tiny, and International). I love checking it out each year and seeing how people make the most of their space. You can get some great organizing ideas. My favorite is the Teeny-Tiny category because it makes every other place seem huge by comparison.

This comes at a great time for me because there’s no way the DC apartment I find will be anywhere near as spacious as my place in J-town. But hey, if this girl can make it work in 312 square feet, I should be able to survive.

In praise of the unmade bed.

I read lots of articles about organization. I love organization. If I had to the chance to go out to dinner or stay home and organize a closet, I’d really have to think about that choice. So it bothers me that the first thing so many organizers tell you to do is make your bed every morning.

What? Make my bed?

I never make my bed and I am the most organized person I know. Many aspects of my life could easily be made into a visual representation of data because I organize my life by Excel spreadsheet.

So I must disagree that bedmaking is the first step to an organized lifestyle. It’s not even that it’s a waste of time, because really it’s not that much time you waste. It’s that a made bed makes a room look sterile and uninviting. An unmade bed, with its fluffy pillows askew and its soft blankets heaped up like clouds, says to you, “Come closer. I am terribly snuggly. Wouldn’t a nap be a good idea right now?”

Yes. Yes, a nap would be a good idea right now. A nap is rarely a bad idea. If you’re driving a car or watching a Broadway performance, only then a nap is a bad idea. And frankly, I’ve seen many people in theaters disagree with me on that second one. Which is all to say, embrace the unmade bed! Life should be as simple and napful as possible.

Industrious Weekend Round-up

The results are in!

1. Pick one thing from the crafty projects list and make it.
Done: Pretty paper boxes.


2. Go grocery shopping.
Done: And I'm all stocked up.

3. Start going through Real Simples and razoring out pages to keep because it’s ridiculous to hold on to all these magazines for just a few articles.
Done: I got through four years' worth, but I still have about five more years to go.

4. Hang my new bookshelves.
Fail: The place I planned to put them fell through and now I'm just not sure where to hang them.

5. Clean the whole apartment really, really well.
Done: And it looks awesome.

6. Organize bedroom closet.
Done: It's now my favorite spot in the house. I just stand in there and stare.

7. Organize bathroom cupboard.
Done: I also stare at this.

8. Make some embossed stationery and mail it to my prayer partner from church.
Done: I delivered it to her in person this morning.


9. Measure for and order mats for the maps I’m framing.
Done: And I can't wait to hang them.

10. Start making the super-secret awesome homemade gift I’m making for Jules for Christmas.
Done: But I can't show you any photos of it.

11. Make some more Christmas cards.
Done: And I took Aunt Linda's advice and chucked the plan to make no two alike. Because I believe in making life as easy on yourself as possible.


12. Cook something delicious.
Done: Man, it was so good.

13. Go through cookbooks to see if any should be donated to Goodwill.
Done: I donated four.

14. Drop off cookbooks and items from closet at Goodwill.
Done: I love the drive-through drop off point at the Goodwill. Brilliant.

15. Etch something made of glass with my new glass-etching cream.
Fail: Apparently you need vinyl templates as well as the etching cream. Don't have them, so this didn't happen.

16. Hang my new curtains.
Fail: I needed my dad's super-heavy-duty drill to drill through the plaster in my living room, and I didn't get it 'til this afternoon. I'll do this at some point this week.

17. Read at least 100 pages in my book.
Done: I read 115 and I'll probably finish the last 50 tonight.

18. Winterize the window with the AC.
Fail: I didn't have the indoor cover for the AC, but the outside is covered.

19. Go for a walk each day and enjoy the sunshine and mild weather.
Done: What a gorgeous, sunny weekend!

20. Start working on the Cousin Christmas CD.
Done: The info is in the spreadsheet and ready for layout, and the songs are loaded into iTunes.

21. Sleep in on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It is the weekend, after all.
Done: Was there ever any doubt?

Industrious Weekend was fantastic. My list was a little too ambitious, but I think that pushed me to get more done. And I did spend one evening with friends, eating dinner and playing games, but I have no regrets spending some time that way. I'm going to try to do an Industrious Weekend at least once a quarter.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go look at my bedroom closet again.

Read it and weep, James.

For number 12 on my list (cook something delicious) I chose this recipe from Jessica Seinfeld's website. Grandma turned me on to her recipes and I am so glad because this pasta recipe is awesome. I picked this one because it uses lots of fresh ingredients that I love, like tomatoes, basil, and garlic. Yum.

I'm so happy I made enough for lots of leftovers, because this recipe is flippin' delicious! Number 12 is officially crossed off. What do you think about that, James?

I also tackled number 7: organize bathroom cupboard. This is the "before" picture of my cupboard. I feel like you can't really get an idea of how hideous it is, especially that middle shelf. There are layers and layers of crap just tossed in there.

And here is how it looks now. Nothing like being able to actually see the stuff in your cabinet. I had no idea, but now I know I'm low on toothpaste, conditioner, and, horrifyingly, Burt's Bees lip balm.

I also went grocery shopping and now I'm off to take my walk before tackling some cleaning and some crafty projects.

So it begins

Today I tackled what was undoubtedly the biggest item on my list: number 6: Organize bedroom closet.

It took most of the day, however, I did sleep in pretty late since I didn't get to bed 'til after 3:00 AM because Game Night with the work friends went until 2:30 and what the crap are we in high school or something? That was nuts. But back the closet. It's done! Also, I read 20 pages of my book, took a lovely walk in the sunshine, went through my cookbooks, and started going through my Real Simples, so I think I'm doing pretty well on my list.

I didn't take a before picture of the closet because it was just too appalling, but just imagine something from that A&E show about hoarders. Here is the after:


My walk-in closet is walkable once more. (Yeah that's a flapper costume and a witch dress on the left.)

And just to give you an idea of how hideous it was before, I pulled out ten bags of stuff to donate and four bags of stuff to trash. I have no idea where it all came from. Probably a hefty portion of it came from the 90s.

Tomorrow: the bathroom cupboard!

Industriousness will abound

Tomorrow is a federal holiday so I‘m taking Friday off and giving myself a long weekend. During this weekend, I am determined to be super industrious. In order to ensure that, I’m posting my To Do list here, so that when I get the urge to sit down and watch an episode of Castle on my DVR, I will be dissuaded from that course of action by the terror of failing publicly on my To Do list. (And Castle is a really good show.) So, you’re keeping me honest just by reading this post. Good for you.

Here’s the list. Yes, it’s long and ambitious, especially considering the effort involved in numbers 5, 6, and 7. And 12! Am I mad? A little, yes, but you know what Norman Bates says about that.*

1. Pick one thing from the crafty projects list and make it.

2. Go grocery shopping.

3. Start going through Real Simples and razoring out pages to keep because it’s ridiculous to hold on to all these magazines for just a few articles.

4. Hang my new bookshelves.

5. Clean the whole apartment really, really well.

6. Organize bedroom closet.

7. Organize bathroom cupboard.

8. Make some embossed stationery and mail it to my prayer partner from church.

9. Measure for and order mats for the maps I’m framing.

10. Start making the super-secret awesome homemade gift I’m making for Jules for Christmas.

11. Make some more Christmas cards.

12. Cook something delicious.

13. Go through cookbooks to see if any should be donated to Goodwill.

14. Drop off cookbooks and items from closet at Goodwill.

15. Etch something made of glass with my new glass-etching cream.

16. Hang my new curtains.

17. Read at least 100 pages in my book.

18. Winterize the window with the AC.

19. Go for a walk each day and enjoy the sunshine and mild weather.

20. Start working on the Cousin Christmas CD.

21. Sleep in on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It is the weekend, after all.

*“We all go a little mad sometimes.”

Evolution of a hallway. My hallway.

So, it all started with this. Beige walls and hideous brown paint on the woodwork. Hideous.

Oh, the horror.

So, I put on a fresh coat of bright white for a nice blank slate.

Then came the shelves of frustration...

...so that this big ol' mess...

...and all this stuff...

...could turn into this. Ah, magnificent organization.

They're alphabetized. It's a thing of beauty.

The shelves of frustration are flimsy and the West Wing DVDs are heavy, so I needed to reinforce the bottom shelf. I think this stack of books does very nicely.

Oh, and there are some actual VHS tapes in this collection. How could I give these up?

I am turning this Allen wrench solely with the strength of my rage.

Miles to go before I sleep.

Vile piece of metal.

You may have heard me talk about Ikea the way people in love talk about their paramours. You may have heard me say that shopping there makes me want to seek out Swedish people and plant a big old kiss on them. It was all true...before.

I do not feel that way this evening.

I took a trip to Ikea yesterday and purchased six Lack wall shelves. The Lack wall shelf is the backbone of my formidable organization system. I have no fewer than 11 Lack shelves already hanging in my apartment. I am a Lack junkie and I accept that.

But alas! The foolish people at Ikea took the brilliant Lack shelf, which was already perfect, and changed it, making it both more difficult to hang and less sturdy. What the crap? It used to be once you got the hardware on the wall, you were mere seconds from filling your shelves with goodies. Now, when you hang the hardware, your saga is only just beginning. You're just at the threshold of Allen Wrench Hell. And you're not getting out without a major time commitment and utter surrender to arthritis.

Then there's the aforementioned lack of sturdiness. That's not what they meant when they named it Lack! I have to wonder if the Ikea shelf designers realize that people will actually be placing items on these shelves. In my case, it's a good thing DVDs are relatively light. No way I'd trust my Tolkien books to these flimsy things. And if my Shield DVDs take a tumble, I am going to go Vic Mackey on these shelves. I am going to rip them off the wall and plant heroin in their cars.

Oh, Ikea. We may have to break up.

A wonderful thing happened at my apartment today.

The craft room wall went from this:


...to this:

...to this!

And the kitchen wall. Oh the kitchen wall! It used to look like this:

Then it looked like this:

And now it looks like this:

Isn't that magnificent? Hooray for organization! Hooray for fabulous Ikea shelving! Hooray for parents who come to your house and hang your fabulous Ikea shelving so you can get organized!

Thanks, Mom and Dad.