Kitchen Organization

My counter has always been a dumping station for anything and everything that we have in our hands when we walk in the door....keys, mail, bills, notepads, chargers, etc.  It was getting out of hand and slowly driving me crazy, so I found this little guy at a yard sale recently....

It was only $2, so naturally I grabbed it and held on for dear life while glaring at everyone else browsing (even though they were no where near this table....or even interested in this particular item).  You can never be too careful.

I brought him home and checked my shelves for some leftover spray paint.  These two cans were it, so I put them to good use....after a quick sand to rough up the surface for better adhesion.

I'd say it took about 4 coats in all.  I tried to do very light ones, so it might have been more than I usually do, I just didn't want to get any drip marks.  I normally like to use heirloom white, since its a little warmer, but this will do for now.  I have been on the lookout for it at the Home Depot near me, but they have been out of it for months now.  Until then...here she is.  Being all organizational.

It has really helped to organize stuff on my counter.  I won't go as far as to say that it has eliminated all the clutter, but it definitely helps.  And even B has started putting things in there when he gets home from work.  SCORE!!

So for $2 I feel like a more sane housewife....for the time being.  My next project for that space is to hide the phone cord that hangs down from the shelf.  I bought this white plastic tube-like thing to do it, I just need to figure out how I'm going to stick it to the wall.  I'm hoping I can find something that is removable.  Maybe velcro, or that 3M stuff.  I'll report back.

For now, I'll just enjoy my organized kitchen.

Hope you all had a great 4th!  We were away for the week and are just now getting back on a normal schedule.  The heat is CRAZY though.  Our two window-unit AC's have been running around the clock.  Can't wait to see our electric bill.  EEK!

Stay cool. 

Progress: To-Do List

We are already a few months into the new year and although I haven't made a lot of progress on my 2011 to-do list, I am SLOOOOWLY but surely checking things off here and there.  This past weekend, for example, my parents came down to spend some time with me and I immediately put them to work (nice daughter, huh?  At least I fed them dinner....haha).  Some of the items we tackled were so new that they weren't even on my original list, but they had been bothering me for the last month or so, so good ol' dad went to town.  Here are the projects that we accomplished on Sunday (and I use "we" in the loosest sense of the word since I did a lot of managing/overseeing the projects while they did the actual work).  I blame it on the pregnancy......

In no particular order:

Re-caulk the farm sink - Since the sink was installed in the summer, the caulking started to contract and separate a little in the cold weather this winter.  I didn't even notice it until recently when I bent down to get something out of one of the cabinets and was MORTIFIED that it looked so yucky.  Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it before we fixed it, but it only took my dad 5 minutes to squeeze a new bead of DAP Kitchen & Bath Silicone Sealant across the gap.  Easy peasy!!!  And since we already had some of the caulking lying around from other DIY projects, it was a $0 fix!  What is better than that?

Re-caulk the beadboard seams in the half bath - Similar to the situation with the farm sink, the beadboard was installed in the summer and over the course of this winter the boards (which come in 4' sections) started to contract and separate a bit.  It wasn't the end of the world, and again, I wish I had taken a picture before we fixed it, but it was definitely something that bothered me.  So, with a little more caulking, DAP Alex's Plus Paintable kind, to be exact, we filled in the gaps and made her look brand new again! 

Install knobs on the master bedroom closet doors - If you recall from my DIY Dirty Little Secrets post a while back, I had painted but kept putting off installing the closet doors in our master bedroom.  No one ever went in there, and I was so used to the open concept look that I just didn't bother to finish off the project.  Well....FINALLY, I bought some new satin nickel knobs at Home Depot ($2.39 each, so it was about $14 total) to match the knobs on our bedroom furniture.  The best part is that it only took 5 minutes to install them!!  I feel silly for having waited 6 months to do it now.  If you are reading this and are living with a half-done project, just suck it up and tackle it.  I didn't realize how much it had been bothering me to have the mess of my closet exposed until I had the doors up and it looked all neat and clean.  I INSTANTLY felt more calm.  It's amazing what a few minutes can do.  So, if you are hesitating, just DO IT!!  I promise you won't regret it!







Hem and hang master bedroom curtains - I bought the white Ritva curtains from IKEA back in the fall (maybe even summer) in hopes of hemming and putting them up when I did the dining room makeover, but no such luck.  Months and months and months went by and we lived our lives in a giant fishbowl.  Finally, and thanks to my amazing mom who did all of the ironing, we installed the curtains in the bedroom.  It looks so much more home-y and cozy in there.  Curtains make such a huge difference in a room.  And at $14.99/pair, it was a STEAL!!!  I used these curtains in my living room as well, and I plan to use them in the guest bedroom and nursery as well (although I would like to sew an accent piece of fabric down the sides of the curtains in the nursery to make it a little more colorful and playful).  These curtains are online now for $19.99/pair but they seem to go on sale quite often at the store, so next time you are browsing and see them on sale, grab them....you won't regret it!  I definitely looked at curtains from West Elm and Pottery Barn, but at the end of the day, I honestly feel that the quality of these IKEA curtains is comparable to either of those options and at more than half the price.  I TOTALLY recommend these!!!  They come in a few other colors as well, so you aren't limited to white curtains throughout your entire house either.  I believe they have a burnt orange color, a black one (which is a little bold, but if you pair it with light colored walls it could be a really nice contrast), chocolate brown and beige (which I might actually get for the guest bedroom).  So, bottom line.....go get these if you are not sure of what to buy for curtains.  Even if you only use them for a year or two until you save up for your "real" drapes, it is worth the price.  They are a heavy linen-feeling fabric (although I'm not 100% sure of the actual fabric it's made of).  Best deal out there!



Before we moved in...



Painted & decorated...but sans curtains...





All complete...sorry for the bad photos though....the light was really strong yesterday morning



Organize the basement:  As crazy as it sounds with a baby on the way, we are still thinking of finishing our basement in the next few months.  So, in anticipation of that big project, I thought it would be a good idea to go through some of the boxes downstairs (since I had my dad there to lift them for me) and see what we should keep and what we could afford to part with.  It still looks pretty messy down there but I got rid of a lot of boxes of misc. things that could just be thrown away or donated.  And a few of those boxes are also marked for a future yard sale.  The only thing left to do is move the couches and other furniture out of there and have the two refrigerators removed.  I have heard about a few different recycling programs for refrigerators, but most of them require you to have a participating enery provider (e.g., NStar).  Our provider doesn't participate so I'm looking into other options.  I have tried craigslist but no bites as of yet.  Maybe I will repost it again this spring and try one more time before we give up the fight.  If you know anyone in the Boston, MA area that needs a fridge, either a second one for a garage or a replacement one for their older model, I have a good working condition Amana one in that yellow-y color for sale!! 

Before we moved in....it was probably more organized at that point than it is now.  I forot to take a picture of the room this morning, but it looks pretty similar to this except for a few additional pieces of furniture laying around here and there



So that's it for the weekend project update.  Hopefully I will finish up cleaning out the basement in the next couple of weeks and can show you some before and afters before the REAL before and afters of the renovation!  Ok, my brain hurts from that sentence.  Happy Wednesday everyone!!