DIY Dark Wood Spice Rack

While wandering the Crate and Barrel outlet a few weeks ago, I found the perfect little spice jars. They run about $2 each, which is more than I originally wanted to spend, but I love them. They have a tight seal, are easy to access, and look so pretty lined up on the counter.

Source

However, as much as I like them next to the stove for easy access, I quickly realized I needed another way to organize them. It looked messy when I grouped them on the counter.

Stacking them was an option, but they aren’t designed to be stacked…

..so they would often look like this.

Needless to say, I needed another storage option. After playing around with some scrap wood in the garage, I came up with this.

It was incredibly simple to build and I had everything on hand so it didn’t cost a penny. It even provides enough room to add another 4 spice jars under the first level.

The entire rack was made up of 4 pieces. Each side was a piece of wood cut into an ‘L’ shape. I believe it was cut out of a piece of scrap 1 x 6 wood. The shelves are cut from scrap 1 x 3 boards. There is nothing magic about the measurements. I lucked out that the 1 x 3 perfectly fit the spice jars and I knew I wanted 5 jars per shelf. This design is easy enough to adapt to any space/jar size that I plan on building a second spice rack to fit in a kitchen cabinet to hold additional spices that aren’t used everyday.

I used simple brad nails to build the rack and sanded the whole thing lightly to take away sharp edges. I chose to stain the piece very dark to compliment the dark flecks in the granite. I used Rustoleum Kona, layered on a thicker than usual coat and left to dry for 2 days. Usually you would apply stain and wipe it off shortly after application; however, in this case, I just let the stain dry like paint. It ended up being perfectly dark and dried with a slight shine.

The finished product ended up being a huge success and I’ve already had several compliments on it. It’s an added bonus that it was free; although if you did have to buy the supplies, it would still be fairly inexpensive.

DIY: Organizing Printed Photos

Growing up I never thought I’d see the day where printed photos were out of style. While sorting through pictures recently, I realized that I barely have any from the last decade. Why? Everything went digital and I stopped printing them when I could easily save them to disc. I also recently realized that my children will never understand the link between cassette tapes and pencils…oh wait…they won’t know what a cassette tape is. I feel old.

Part of decorating the Spare Bedroom involved cleaning out a few shelves full of random photographs. They were tucked into the pages of photo albums and piled into stacks. They aren’t organized in any way. In an effort to both organize and decorate, I tackled the photos. We’ll leave the records and my grandmother’s vintage Polaroid camera for another post (although it wasn’t vintage to her). I also have her pea green rotary phone, but I digress…

As I was organizing the photos I realized the photo albums just aren’t working for me right now. They take up a lot of space and the full albums were falling apart. I have a lot of picture that mean the world to me and they deserve to be treated better than this.

That little pup was my first love. She passed away in 2005. It still makes me cry to talk about her and it took  me three years to work up the courage to get another dog.

This collage was for my grandmothers funeral. The two largest pictures were from my grandparents wedding day, married about 64 years. She passed away the same year my beloved pup…it was a tough year.

Wow, I wasn’t planning on turning this into a share fest of passed relatives, sorry about that.

While some pictures are framed, most are stuffed into boxes. In reality the boxes didn’t even close.

It took a few hours, but I was able to pull all the pictures out of the old albums and sort them into new white boxes that I picked up for $2 each at Michaels. Simple, Clean, and Stackable!

Unfortunately I underestimated how many old pictures I had and needed one more box. Since it was 10pm and I’m impatient, I didn’t want to wait until Michaels opened the next day.

Enter the SHOEBOX!

It’s ugly and boring, but it’s the perfect size and sturdy. So I grabbed some leftover white duct tape from the photo light box project and some wrapping paper.

I kinda sorta love it.

The duct tape covered up all the blue and has a great texture. The wrapping paper was clearance paper from Target this past Christmas. I loved it because it doesn’t look remotely holiday, just beautiful.

I may need to buy some more shoes instead of photo boxes this weekend!

…like I need another reason to buy shoes…

How To Store Your Favorite Magazine Recipes

I already shared my love for ripping apart magazines to create inspiration books; but I also have a thing for ripping out stacks of recipes from every magazine I can find. It’s a great way to find delicious recipes, but storing those loose pages is a nightmare.

Every month the stack gets bigger and bigger. I can’t find anything in it and there’s not much luck that I’m going to flip through that stack for dinner ideas. Granted some are small enough to cut and file in my Recipe Box, but others are not as convenient. I used to write them up on individual index cards, but let’s face it, that’s just painful and tedious.

So I came up with another way to keep the recipe intact, easy to file, and the pictures gets to remain with the recipe (BONUS!).

Start with a recipe you pulled out of a magazine/newspaper/brochure/newsletter, etc.

Get an X-acto blade (or scissors) and a blank index card.

Using the blade, cut out the recipe and a section of the picture.

Unfortunately most won’t fit perfectly on the card. Luckily, it’s easy to fix.

Find a convenient place in the recipe and cut it in half and secure to the card using a glue stick or tape. I usually use tape, they seem to hold up better.

On the back of the card, I tape the picture. I try to do this with every recipe so I can easily flip through the pictures instead of the reading through the recipe. We eat with our eyes first anyway, right?

Now would be a good time to make a note on the card about where the recipe came from. This is especially helpful if you are a blogger and want to properly source the recipe in a future post.

Now, my magazine recipes are the same format as all my other recipes and can be easily filed in my recipe box. Where I’m now much more likely to flip through them instead of just leaving them in a file or cabinet somewhere.

Introducing – The Garage!

Now that we got that cleaning post out of the way yesterday, let me show you a mess.

Welcome to my Garage!

This is one side of a two car garage.

The other side has my car and trash cans and will remain unchanged. Since I only have one car, I would like to turn the other side of the garage in a workshop of sorts. Right now it’s just a mish mash of random crap.

Let’s take a little tour of randomness, shall we?

Highlights:

• I’ve been using the cardboard box from my BBQ as my workbench for the past 6 months.
• The dog food container is front and center since ants invaded the indoor stash and with my back I wasn’t able to reach the spot on the floor where I normally keep it.
• The dresser is a hand me down that has been through my parents, then to my brother, then over to me. It’s currently holding a whole bunch of smaller stuff, like towels, drill bits, and paint trays.
• I don’t know why I have a rug in my garage right now. It’s really too dirty to stand on, I’d rather stand on the garage floor.
• I had such hope for that tomato cage…

The shelving unit holds a little bit of everything:

• Paint, Grass Seed, Extra Water/Ice Tea, etc.

I spy one of my Christmas presents!

[Ok, I didn’t notice the pizza box until after I took the picture. It’s now in the trash.]

One of my Christmas presents was a Ryobi Tool set that includes a Drill, Charger, Flashlight, and Circular Saw. I didn’t actually put it on my Christmas list because they are expensive, but I ask my dad questions about them every time we walk into Lowes.

I can’t imagine where Santa got the idea.

I spy my other Christmas Present!

I think my dad took pity on my poor little BBQ box workbench. So I got a very cool workbench that actually folds up and flips over into scaffolding. Very Cool!

Another shameful angle of the hot mess Garage.

Ok, it’s grossing me out now.

I expect the garage to be a work in progress, probably all year long. Each thing in the garage is pretty expensive so I’ll be working on it bit by bit. However, I do plan on doing a lot of organization this month. I want to set up the workbench, clear out the unnecessary items, sweep up all the dog hair (I swear I could make a second dog out of all the hair Bubba sheds).

Here’s a little eye candy to get my pictures out of your brain…

My favorite!!

Via

Great storage options.

Via

Via

Via

Developing A Whole House Cleaning Plan

It’s that time of year again. The time when we decide that our houses are far too messy to be considered a home and we get the overwhelming urge to throw everything away and start fresh.

Just me? Oh, okay.

I am not a ‘neat freak’, not even close. I like my home to look lived in, but clutter overwhelms me and stresses me out. On the flip side, I don’t like cleaning in general…so the concept of having to constantly clean the entire house stresses me out. It’s a no win situation. So to improve my stress level and keep me sane, one of my goals this year to keep things clutter free and develop a cleaning strategy. (You’ll eventually pick up on the fact that by day I work in project management if I continue to refer to strategies in cleaning. Sounds about as exciting as budgets, business plans, and proposals). 

Yes, I could probably hire a maid. But I would be embarrassed to have them come over to a dirty house, which defeats the point when I feel the need to clean for the maid. I also don’t want to pay someone else to do something that I’m completely capable of doing myself.

As a 2012 Goal, I’m launching…

Maybe that should read, Operation ‘Maintain’ Clean House since that is actually the hardest part. Either way this is a big one on this years goal list. As usual I have several steps to the process that should make it as painless as possible.

• Create Attack Plan
• Deep Clean each room
• Purge unwanted/unnecessary things
• Yard Sale
• Donation additional items
• Maintenance

(You see the whole project management thing now, don’t you?)

So here we go…

Making big goals achievable is all about breaking them into smaller tasks, so in this case, I’ll break everying down by room. I have broken my house into 15 areas, so that each area can be repeated twice a month.

To make the plan even easier, I start from bottom top. I have a three level condo and by going bottom to top means I don’t have to drag the vacuum or supplies up and down the stairs as much.

Day of the Month	Room to be cleaned
Day 1/Day 16	Foyer
Day 2/Day 17	Den/Cardio Room
Day 3/Day 18	1st Floor Bathroom
Day 4/Day 19	Backyard/Porch
Day 5/Day 20	Garage
Day 6/Day 21	Dining Room
Day 7/Day 22	Powder Room
Day 8/Day 23	Living Room
Day 9/Day 24	Kitchen
Day 10/Day 25	Office
Day 11/Day 26	Spare Bedroom/Hallway
Day 12/Day 27	Spare Bathroom
Day 13/Day 28	Laundry
Day 14/Day 29	Master Bedroom
Day 15/Day 30	Master Bathroom

 

For the fist 15 days, each room gets deep cleaned. Meaning in about 2 weeks my house should be completely deep cleaned from top to bottom (or in my case, bottom to top).

What is involved with Deep Cleaning?

The first time around it may take a while to finish the room. My trick is to set a timer for no more than an hour and push to finish in the allotted time. It will force you to make quick decisions. Ask yourself if you really love something or really need it, otherwise trash it or donate it. Start the general sweep, and get all the things off the floor. Continue by wiping down all surfaces, vacuum, dust (don’t forget fan blades and tops of tall furniture), sort through drawers/closest/cabinets, and clean mirrors/windows. (Tip: Speed cleaning burns crazy calories which will benefit that ‘Get In Shape’ resolution nearly everyone has on their list).

What happens to the room on the assigned day?

After the first 15 days, the house should be in maintenance mode. Now each day I should have to spend only 20 minutes or less to dust, vacuum, straighten and clean the mirrors/windows. The cycle will continue each month in the maintenance phase unless I have the extra time to dedicate to a space (like when I need to purge the fridge/pantry periodically, etc).

 

It seems complicated when I type it out, but it really is quite easy. Aside from some light straightening in the evenings, each day focus on only one room and the whole house should stay in order. Hopefully this will help me maintain my sanity, and stop the constant stress cycle of walking into a messy house.

 

What tricks/tips do you have for keeping your home organized/clean on a daily basis?

An Organized Life – It’s all about Planning

I’ve been struggling a bit with lately with organization and time management. I find myself waking up late every morning, skipping breakfast, feeding my dog and running to my work computer where I will sit until 2pm before I even begin to think about lunch. Some people think that telecommuters would have a better work/life balance, and one hand I do agree. I’m able to take care of personal or blog issues during breaks at work, and that alone is awesome. However, it also means that I need to be more diligent about starting and stopping work. When you work from home, it’s always there and it can be VERY hard to separate the two.

So in an effort to begin finding a better work/life balance while working full-time from home, I going to be trying a new system this week.

Plan out a week of meals, and stick to it.

I usually plan out my dinners so that I can go grocery shopping once a week. However, I have a tendency to wing it on breakfast and lunch. I need to get back into a system of eating three main meals a day (along with several snacks) and it’s easier to eat healthy and ‘on schedule’ if I have a plan.

Stick to a regular bedtime

I need my beauty sleep to be the best me. When I’m tired, random naps happen, and they can suck the fun out of the day. For example, today I sat on the bed after work to play with my dog and woke up after the sun had gone down. I lost several hours because I haven’t been getting enough sleep at night. It’s amazing how much sleep can affect you all day long.

Baxter has the right idea!

 

Use a Planner

I am a fanatic about using my Outlook/Cellphone Calendar for work related meetings, functions, deadlines, etc. However, I try to use my memory for all my personal engagements. With the addition of the blog and more house/education/freelance projects, my brain is beyond full. I just can’t remember everything and I feel overwhelmed.

I don’t know about you, but being overwhelmed, feel to me like I’m suffocating.

For the next week, everything goes in the planner. Once I make it a habit, I can look at other options, such as electronic calendars (Outlook/Google Calendar). Although, I really love the act of writing my to do list down so I may stick with the old skool paper version.

To Do Lists

This next week is all about to do lists. However, the key to work/life balance is to have separate lists. One list/notebook for work, and one for personal. Meaning I can walk away from the work list at 5pm and call it a day. It creates a clear division between work and personal, which helps separate the two in my brain.

Source: organizing.yourway.net via David on Pinterest

Track the Day

Ok, this is going to seem a little odd to most, but I’ve done this before and it worked out as a great way to get me back on track. For the next few days I’ll keep a notepad with me and track everything I do each hour. It’s tedious, but so worth the effort. After a few days I have an idea of when I’m most productive, tired, lazy, busy, etc. With this information I’ll then take the next few days and schedule each hour of the day. Even the simple tasks are written down; such as…

7am-8am [Wake Up, Feed Bax, Wash Face, Brush Teeth]

8am-9am [Walk Baxter, Eat Breakfast]

9am-11am [Start Work, Check Email, Deal with Emergencies, Prep Next Call]

…and so on…

It’s not something I do everyday, but having a strict plan just for a few days is usually enough to get me back on track and my brain gets a chance to de-fog.

I’ll check in next week and provide an update. In the meantime…

How do you keep focused during the day? Any tricks?