The Unveiling.

My apologies for waiting so long to post this, I've been a bit busy (story of our lives, right?)

BUT.......

I feel like the Target Lady!

Hooray!

Why? Because it's finally done!! 

I have a working kitchen!!

No more washing lettuce in the bathtub!!!

This happened.  More than once.

Soooo, I guess you want to see it?

Here it is!!

BAM.

Some cruddy i-phone panoramas for you.

I LOVE my kitchen.

I'll do some specific posts later about a few of my DIY projects, but here's a few photos to tide you over until then.

Oh hello, hidden microwave!

I had to spring for the brass faucet.  It was 100% necessary.
It also took Dave almost a month to realize there was a sprayer built in here.

Giving myself a pat on the back for this one- I made 2 pendant lamps for $66 total!!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!
I won this penny tile on ebay.
(It's in the side door hallway).

Side hallway.
Not much to see, except my new floor and light (which needs an Edison bulb, btw.)

This sink is almost 12 inches deep.  Sigh.

Handmade walnut shelves!
And no, nothing on here is "staged" for this post.
I have actually been able to keep things looking like this for over a month without any problems!

Walnut butcherblock countertops, finished by yours truly.

I searched for WEEKS online to find this rug.  Thanks Etsy!!!
It has the perfect color combination for my house to tie everything together!
Also, caaaaaan you spot the dishwasher?
It's there!

This is the glass globe from the original outside light above the side door.
I followed a tutorial on vintagerevivals.com, and made it into a planter!

Of course Margot needed updated bowls and a tray...she's gotta fit into my glamourous kitchen, too!

Can you spot Margot?

We've still got some work to do- a few things to wrap up in the side hallway, touchups on the organizer wall, and now a domino effect has taken place that means the dining room will end up getting a mini-makeover later this month (think new paint and curtains, as well as a new light).

I'm so excited to finally have a working kitchen, though- it's pretty glorious!! 

Everything's a Dollar!!

Have you ever laid on the floor of a room in your house and looked at the world upside down?  If not, I suggest you do.  Sometimes it gives you a whole new appreciation for the way things look.  And sometimes, it just makes you realize that you really need to get on the ball and hire someone to fix the falling plaster on your ceiling.  Oh well.

My house is not perfect.  And that's ok.  

In my last post, I promised to discuss the hanging piece on the inside of my hall closet door.  I saw the idea on Pinterest and decided to copy it.  It called for a shoe organizer and some hooks- that's it.   Anybody ever try to do this, though, and realize that the cute things that someone found "at the Dollar Store" never appear in your local store?  Ugh...so annoying.  This is what I saw on Pinterest:

Cute, clear, lots of small pockets.

This is what I found at my local dollar store:

Blue, with less, and longer, pockets.

Not bad, but not great.  I was kind of annoyed by the bright blue, but for $1, I wasn't going to complain that much.  It was, after all, going inside of a closet.  I wanted to label the pockets I would be using with something, but didn't want to spend a lot of time doing so.  I had these labels in my craft closet, bought at a previous time for who knows what, and knew they'd work in a pinch for cheap, fast organizing.  All I did was use some super glue and a Sharpie, and bam, labels were made.  I think they were only two or three dollars, so the entire project still racks in under $5.  Not bad.  I suppose I could have printed labels on stickers, or on colored paper that I then could glue to the organizer, but in the interest of time (and my level of caring), handwritten labels worked just fine.

Really, Dollar Store, how would shoes actually fit in here?

From my last post, I'm sure you saw that I have two bins at the top of my closet that hold bathroom "extras", and seldom used medicinal pieces.  The Medicine bucket used to hold all medicines, pain relievers, etc, but I got annoyed with having to stand on my tippy toes every time I needed to grab something out of the bucket.  All of the medicines that get used on a frequent/semi-frequent basis went in the new door organizer. 

Because I have real wood doors (give a holla for old houses!!), I was able to just use two cup hook screws in the door to hold up the organizational hanger.  No pre-drilling, no marking, just good old fashioned eyeballin' and screwin'.  What?  Get your minds out of the gutter, people. 

Look closely.  The cup hooks aren't level, but that's because the grommet holes on the organizer weren't level.  Balancing people, it's all about balancing it out.

FYI, I have an uncanny knack for being able to tell if something is level, to about a 16th of an inch.  True story.  It's one of my many endearing qualities.  Hmm.  I feel as if I've made mention before concerning my fantastic eye-leveling abilities.  If I did, and I stated that I can level to an eighth of an inch, IGNORE IT.  It's definitely a 16th.  Really.  I swear.

Um....yeah.  We get hurt a lot.

And there you have it.  A quick project that took less than 15 minutes from start to finish.  I will never again have to search in vain for the elusive thermometer (they always seem to be lost in plain sight, right??), or reach up to grab some cold medicine.  It's all right in front of my face now.  Project complete.

Dunzo.

Come On In and Stay Awhile!

Like everything else in my house, my front hall closet is small.  Small, small, small.  It's behind the front door, too, so when anyone comes to visit, they must walk in, squeeze around the door while they attempt to close it, whirl around doing a 360, try not to trip over the single step up into the living room, take their shoes off, and manage to open the closet door to hang up a jacket.  That's a lot of work.

That's it, folks.

This is probably why I have never used my front door to enter the house since moving in.  I take that back.  Here is picture proof that it was used, ONCE.  We bought the house, I yelled at Dave that we needed to document our opening of the door with "our" key for the first time, and this is all we've got.  One, single entry into the house using the front door.

Yay for first time home ownership!

Because Dave and I don't use the front door to enter/exit the house, we've got a whole organizational setup going on next to the side door that I'll discuss in a later post, but this one is about my front hall closet.  For the purposes of this post, I just took a count of what is actually in the closet.  Here's the rundown:

55 pairs of shoes (boots, heels, sandals, flats- all mine) Lest you be worried that 55 isn't enough, I have more shoes hidden away in the basement and my bedroom closet.  
16 coats (Dave's and mine)
12 hats
8 prs of gloves
5 scarves
1 bin of tablecloths, cloth napkins, napkin rings
1 jumprope
2 dog jackets
1 yoga mat

Despite not using the front door every day, I do actually use the closet next to it.  Here's a picture to show how I fit everything on this list inside (neatly!)

Margot will NOT leave my side to let me take pictures!

Alright, first and foremost, the black monstrosity attached to the door...I bought this piece at IKEA a few years ago.  Because the door is a 6 panel wood door, I couldn't attach the storage container directly to it without driving the screws clear through to the other side.  Dave and I attached 4 strips of wood to the thick parts of the door, and then attached the bins to the lumber.  I probably should have painted the wood pieces to match the door, but just have never quite gotten around to it.  Maybe one day.  The bins themselves are singular bins that can be attached and stacked on top of one another.  We chose to do three bins, but probably could have fit four if we really wanted to.

Each bin pulls outward, and has a deep tub to hide your things.

For my purposes, each bin is divided up.  The bottom bin holds summer sandals, the middle bin holds flats, and the top bin holds frequently used hats and gloves.  Looking at these pictures makes me want to label my bins.  Good thing I know someone who does that...shameless plug here.

Down to the floor:  I bought a cheapo shoe rack for the bottom of the closet.  I'm still dreaming up ways I can make this closet more efficient (i.e. so it can hold more stuff), but this works for now.  My heels are arranged on the rack back to front to make it possible to hold more pairs.  And yes, they are organized by color.  You only make the mistake once of wearing one dark brown and one black shoe to work before you learn to keep things separate!!  The floor on the left side of the shoe rack houses all of my black boots, and the floor on the right side houses all of my brown boots.  I really don't ever wear sneakers unless I'm exercising, which is why there are only two pairs at the bottom of the picture.  That's all I've got.  I will have crippled feet by the time I'm 50, but I'll have a closet full of fun shoes to trade off in exchange for not wearing sensible shoes.  Such is life.

DSW and I are VERY good friends.

It's like a beautiful shoe rainbow.  Sigh.

Not sure if you can see from the picture or not, but I also use old wrapping paper tubes to keep my tall boots from falling over.  You can use paper towel tubes if you've got those.  They're free, and they work.

Last on the list is jackets and miscellaneous.  There is a window in the middle of the closet (houses built in the 40's and 50's didn't usually put a light in the closet), which makes hanging a full row of jackets difficult.  You can see the hangars and tops of the jackets from the outside of the house if I string them all the way across the bar, which is why they are pushed to each side.  This also allows me to see the top row of my shoes much more easily.  In my dreams, I have painted the inside of the closet a shockingly bright yet pleasant color, there are built in shoe racks, and the window is frosted or tinted to be reflective so the coats can be hidden.  All in due time.  Maybe this post will be a push in the right direction for me to actually make it happen!  One can wish, right?

Now, after all of my ramblings, I do actually have a point to make in this post.  If you organize and use your space wisely, you CAN actually fit a ridiculous amount of things in a tiny space.  Fifty-five pairs of shoes in one small closet is nothing to sneeze at, right??  I can't wait to do an update post when I figure out a way to double that to over 100!  Until then, I will refuse to admit that I have a shoe problem.  Right now, it's just a collection.