Category: Clean & Organize

Tips to clean and organize your house, and keep it that way.

Oh, We’re Half Way There

Published on by Our Humble Abode13 Comments

Oh oh, livin’ on a prayer.  Bon Jovi, also known as greatest hair band ever, how I love thee.  You are the soundtrack to my life, sort of.  We are half way there, but we’re not livin’ on a prayer.  There being Jen, my blog BFF and genius behind IHeart Organizing‘s 30 in 30 challenge. I know I show a lot of my thrifty (and sometimes not so thrifty) buying, but I’ve never shown what we donate.  Well, that’s about to change.  Let’s see how we’ve done.

First, we started with the entry closet, where we didn’t get rid of anything.  Now, let me explain.  Our closet is small, so out of season (winter coats and boots) and seldom used items (my heels and Ben’s dress shoes) are stored in our bedroom.  I also sort through that closet regularly, so not much that we don’t use or need stays in there.

So, I moved on to our living room.  Again, Ben and I don’t have much that we don’t like or use in there.  But, Vincent and Everett do.  Toys, toys and more toys.  I’m so sick of cleaning up toys!  If you follow us on Facebook, you already know that.  I attacked the toys, showing no mercy.  Anything that hasn’t been played with recently went to the donate pile.  Broken toys got thrown away.  We don’t have anything to sell because we sent our expecting brother and sister-in-law home with anything worth keeping.  No pictures of this because I had to hide everything to prevent Vincent claiming everything as his to keep.

Shortly before this challenge, we donated all the VHS movies we had, seeing as we don’t even own a VCR.  I also put all of our music on the computer, so we donated most of our cds, keeping our favorites for road trips.

For week two, we picked up the pace.  Kitchens seem to store so much, but a lot is unnecessary for everyday.  Things that I’ve been holding onto simply because they were from my great grandma, our old set of plates and glasses, just in case, utensils because we might need them.  That had to go.  After about 30 minutes, kid corralling included, I had our table filled with items to sell or donate.

Right there, we’ve got 25 items, if we count groups of similar items as one.  How about a list?

  • 9 large IKEA glasses.  We broke three and I can’t stand not having a complete set.  Unfortunately, IKEA stopped selling that style, so we bought different glasses about two years ago.  Let me repeat, two years ago!
  • 9 small IKEA glasses.  We broke one, and I decided to keep two because they work well as vases.
  • 1 wine glass, the rest have been broken.  Are you noticing a trend?

  • 6 dinner plates, we had 8 before two were, you guessed it, broken.
  • 8 salad plates
  • 1 sugar jar.  We don’t drink coffee, why do we have this?  Oh right, someone gave it to us.
  • 2 cake stands, that we never use.  Who has cake long enough to put it on a pedestal?
  • 6 plastic floral place mats.  Grabby handed boys + place mats = food mess on my rug.  Not good.
  • 6 gold place mats
  • 2 children’s place mats
  • 2 tattered table runners from my great grandma.  I might try to re purpose these.  Any ideas?
  • 1 rustic wine rack.  Ben isn’t sophisticated to drink wine from bottles, only lovely boxed wine.  I don’t drink.
  • 1 votive holder

  • 3 outdoor plates
  • 6 matching plastic cups
  • 6 green plastic cups.  Why is the Target dollar section so appealing?
  • 1 salt and pepper shaker set
  • 2 small gravy boats
  • 1 blender, the base broke and we kept the glass.  Why?
  • 1 vintage paper towel, aluminum foil, saran wrap, and wax paper holder, from my great grandma.  We’ve never used this, but I love the look of it.  Sadly, I think it is time to let it go.  Unless I can find a use for it in our laundry room?  Ideas, creative folks?
  • 1 pain in the butt puzzle.  I’m sick of picking it up.
  • 1 glass candlestick holder

Individually, we’ve exceeded 75 kitchen items!  Wahoo!  Then, when Ben returned home from work, he chased the kids around.  I found even more to get rid of.
  • 2 wooden bowls
  • 1 glass bowl
  • 1 drawer of utensils
  • 1 small baking dish
  • 1 platter
  • 2 colanders/strainers
  • 1 salad bowl
  • Miscellaneous, mis-matched plastic food storage bins.
  • 8 vintage, hand embroidered cloth napkins
I also tossed about 5 every-page-filled coloring books into the recycling and dried up markers to the trash.  After all that purging, we have two drawers and one cabinet completely open.  One empty drawer opens to the dining room, where we had Vincent’s craft supplies.  I put it to better use to store our napkins, which is much more convenient than getting up to go to the kitchen for a napkin.
I always imagined walking down the hall to see Vincent’s art covering my walls and furniture.  This should put my fears to rest.  Vincent can’t grab his craft supplies without my help opening the cabinet below.  Pre purge, this cabinet stored the food processor, waffle iron, outdoor plates and place mats, leaving no room for craft supplies.
If we ever get around to renovating our kitchen, we’ll have less junk to move around.
Now, I have to decide how I would like to dispose of said items.  I usually donate everything to Goodwill, but I might list the whole lot on my friend Craig’s infamous list.  Though, I could list the vintage items in my Etsy shop.  Or, I might host my first garage sale and try to sell a few larger items, like the Bowflex, Total Gym, captain’s bed, and bookshelf we’re currently storing in the large basement bedroom.  If you are interested in any of the items, please send me an e-mail at ourhumbleabowed@gmail.com.
Have you made any purging progress?  Do you have any tips, secrets, or a process to purge items?  When I was younger, my mom made my sisters and I spend an entire day, once a year, removing everything(!) from our closets, throwing things away and organizing before we could do anything fun.  Is your mom evil like that?  Just kidding, I love you, mom!  Maybe you want to be evil like that to your kids (or husband?)?  What room or rooms, have the most clutter in your home?  Are you a garage sale guru?  How do you price the items you’d like to sell?
*Update:   We have sold the kitchen organizer and embroidered napkins.  Thank you for your interest!

Quick Coat Closet Update

Published on by Our Humble Abode9 Comments

When winter set in, I was itching to organize our entry and small coat closet.  Sadly, I didn’t get very far.  We bought a storage ottoman, which is great for seating and tucking away seldom used items, but fizzled out after that.

So, last weekend while wandering the aisles of Hobby Lobby, I stopped in the hook and drawer pull section.  I found white double hooks for $2.99 each.  Usually, I only buy items on sale, which these weren’t, but I decided to buy two.  I know, I could have bought about 4 more at Home Depot for the same price, but I wanted to get the ball rolling.   After finding hooks, I headed toward the paper, but saw organizers along the way.  I looked at the assorted baskets and didn’t see anything I needed.  But, on the other side of the display were plastic hanging baskets for $1.49 each, so I took two home.

When I returned, I started working right away.

I decided to remove the large mirror on the back of the door to make room for the two new hooks.  Then, I simply screwed the hooks in.  One of our entry problems is a lack of kid accessible storage.  So, I placed the hooks low enough for Vincent (and Everett in a few years) to reach.

The height (and width) is perfect for small kids jackets.  Now, Vincent has a place to hang his jacket, not throw it on the floor.  Score!  One less thing to trip over or have to pick up.  See those blue baskets peeking around the corner?  Here’s a better look.

(No, in the three years since building the closet shelving, we still haven’t installed baseboard – or painted where they were.  Don’t judge me.)

Those are the hanging baskets I picked up, sized perfectly for little shoes (or flip-flops).  When I brought them home, I made another discovery about these handy guys.  Loops on the backs, so the baskets can hang in a string.  Which means, only one nail in the wall!  Now, the little shoes don’t get pushed to the back of the shoe racks, and again, Vincent has a designated place to find, and put away, his shoes.

Now, this dreary day seems like the perfect time to sort through the closet to find items to purge for Jen’s 30 in 30 challenge.  Wish me luck.

Do you have any coat closet organization tips for me?  Kid friendly tips?  Where do you store out-of-season gear?  Please share your secrets.

P.S.  We would appreciate your vote in the Designer in You challenge.  Head on over to give your opinion!

Musical Chairs

Published on by Our Humble Abode9 Comments

A little over a week ago, I shared that my baby turned one.  But, I didn’t tell you that my parents visited from Minnesota to celebrate.  They arrived on the 24th and stayed until this Saturday.  My dad has had a rocking chair since I was a baby.  He’s addicted to it.  So, he bought one for our house so he had one while visiting.  Well, I think it’s ugly, so when they’re not here, it stays in the large basement bedroom.

Yep, it’s buried under the sleeping blanket we use for our backyard picnics.  Well, we were a little slow to bring it up this visit.  I swear my dad became physically sick because he didn’t have his rocker.  Then, we realized what the problem was, hauled the chair up from the basement and he was completely fine from that point on.  So, for the past week, we’ve lived with our living room disassembled a bit.

The Dolce chair moved to the guest bedroom, the matching club chair took its place and the rocker took the club chair’s place.  Musical chairs, I tell ya.  You might have noticed something is missing, too.  If you haven’t, maybe this picture will help.

Yep, the child’s desk we’ve used for the past four years is gone.  My sister just bought a house, so she asked if we would send our small desk back for her.  Fortunately, that desk was a temporary solution from day one, so we loaded it up and said good riddance to it.  Even though I hated that desk with a passion, I’m sort of missing it.  Without the desk, I have no designated place to surf the web, which is fine because of the laptop, but the cords bug me.  Anywhere I sit, the cord follows.

And yes, our house is messy without my maid mom here.  Just kidding, mom.  Our house usually has this kind of mess.  Check out our living room.

On a really good day, (or really bad, depending if you prefer the mess) our house looks like this.

We always have my family haul things out from IKEA, like a Ribba frame for my new print from Little Brown Pen.

Occasionally, they return home with some goodies, too.  Other than the desk, we sent my parents home with a floor lamp that we were no longer using, a bag of books, and another bag of clothes.

Speaking of giving things away, I’m taking Jen’s 30 in 30 challenge to purge our home of thirty items in thirty days.  Technically, those four items we pawned off in April, so they count, right?  Or is that wishful thinking?  Maybe we’ll count them if we’re short at the end of the challenge…

Now you’ve seen our house strewn with toys and cords and in disarray with chair swapping.  Are feeling the itch to get some spring cleaning done?  Care to join me and Jen to shed our homes of 30 items?  Have you received furniture from a friend or family member recently?  Maybe you’re addicted to a rocking chair just like my dad?

Basement Progress: Laundry Room

Published on by Our Humble Abode7 Comments

Guess what we Ben did this weekend?  I’ll give you a hint.  It involved a little of this:

Yep, that’s sheet rock.  Ben wants to get into reloading (for bullets and other gun stuff) and he needs workspace.  We decided the laundry room was perfect for him, so we’re finally starting to work on it, which sort of came out of left field.  As of a few weeks ago, we had no intentions to work on the laundry room.

Remember the ugly truth in this post?  That’s what we started with.  After clearing out some of the paint and random junk, things were looking a little better.

After clearing everything out, Ben vacuumed the space, with a little help.

With the laundry room cleaned, Ben got down to business while I played with the boys. 

Before Ben could hang any sheet rock, he had to run wiring for outlets and a new light and switch the dryer duct work.  Then, he started with the longest wall, behind the washer and dryer.

We debated where we could sheet rock to on the back wall.  You see, our electric panel and tankless water heater (which is hanging on the studs) are on the back wall, and we still need access to the left wall to plumb our shower under the stairwell.  And, our geothermal system and pressure tank are a pain to work around.

So, Ben did some more wiring and we were able to sheet rock almost to the corner. 

The left wall and ceiling will be exposed.  Afterall, this is a utility room and if anything happens to leak, we’ll know about it as both bathrooms are directly above this room.  Also, some plumbing hangs about 1 foot down from the ceiling, so it would still be ugly.  We plan to remedy this with a wall of curtains along the entire left side, to conceal everything, but keep it accessible. 

Taping, mudding and sanding still to come, but it’s progress.

Already lighter and brighter, no?  On the laundry list: Get new, front loading, stacking washer and dryer set (to be delivered by or on March 3!  Ben got us a screaming good deal, too.  Stay tuned for more details), build storage drawer and cabinet system, configure Ben’s workshop area, buy/sew curtains, prime, paint, tile the floors.  Yeah, lots to do still, but at least we’re starting! 

What’s on your to do list?  Anything you love about your laundry room?  Tons of storage?  A place to iron and fold clothes?  Natural light streaming in?  What is essential to your laundry room function, other than a washer and dryer?

Office Storage: Revealed

Published on by Our Humble Abode21 Comments

To continue our bookshelf week, we’ll share our office storage system and what’s inside.  Sounds like fun, no?  Well, hold on to your seats because this is a wild ride.  We’ll start with my wall o’ shelves.  Here’s an overall picture, just for reference.

First up, these IKEA storage boxes hold my assorted envelopes. 

The storage boxes to the right hold overflow and odd sized envelopes, ink cartridges, and miscellaneous junk because I don’t have drawers yet.

The large boxes at the very bottom in the center hold 12 inch by 12 inch scrapbook paper.  Below those, boxes store fabric, yarn and thread. 

In the far right column, I have a row of magazine files, some empty, some not.

Let’s take a look inside.

These two files have tutorial books, including a trim, origami, and Ben’s workout book.  Another has the boy’s baby books and other baby items like a baptismal candle.

A few more files hold mine and Ben’s baby books and cards from our wedding and showers.  To the far right is a spiral bound scrapbook.

That completes the wall of shelves, but what’s above my desk?  Glad you asked!

To the right, my stock of papers fill a row of magazine files.  I found three-ring binders that look similar to the magazine files at Office Depot a few years ago.  One keeps samples of my designs.  Another is empty but I like to keep it out so I have room to expand.  Helpful hint: The binders also work great to store cds and dvds.  We removed the pages from a four square dvd file and placed them in the prettier file and it’s great!

To the left of my desk I have a few more magazine files (gotta love ’em) storing mailing labels.  Next to those are two boxes for mailing envelopes and files.

Oh, I created simple labels for everything, too.  I know, my OCD tendencies are back, but at least it’s useful!

Above that, I have a shelf that looks purely decorative.

But I’ve got a secret.  I use those pretty marble vessels to store extra paper clips, rubber bands, and pencils.

Pretty sneaky, huh?  That completes our office storage for the day.  I want to know if you have any helpful hints or surprise decorative storage in your home?

P.S.  All the magazine files and storage boxes hail from mother Sweden (aka IKEA).  The boxes are part of the Kassett series and the files are the Flyt $1.99 for 5.  Great price when you need so many and surprisingly durable!