Cold hard inspiration

While I love reading decorating and organizing magazines and blogs, and get a ton of inspiration from them, it's often difficult to implement those ideas due to various constraints (time, space and money the most obvious). We rent a small-ish apartment, so we can't knock down walls or even repaint. We can't hang much from our very old plaster walls without them crumbling. And pretty much anything decorative placed on a flat surface will be promptly knocked down (and likely broken) by one of our two cats.

So I have to be realistic. I can drool over all the great stuff I see on Pinterest*, but in reality I can't do much with a good deal of what I see. So when I see something that I can adapt to our space, I jump on it!

I don't like our kitchen. It's tiny, and poorly laid out (I'm pretty sure it used to be a large closet!) and the appliances are "economy models." The refrigerator/freezer leaves much to be desired - the freezer in particular. It doesn't have a light, or a shelf. It's just a big, cold box that we tended to shove stuff into hoping not to cause a frozen vegetable avalanche.We had mostly empty containers of ice cream hidden by bags of frozen vegetables and freezer burned chicken.

When I saw this great idea for freezer organizing in the BHG Secrets of Getting Organized 2012 I knew it was something I could adapt with great results! (view on Better Homes and Gardens website)

Source: iheartorganizing.blogspot.com via Victoria on Pinterest

I wish I'd taken some before photos of our freezer, but I likely would have injured myself in the process. I cleared everything out of the freezer, washed it down and tossed anything no longer good and/or edible. I then separated our frozen items into categories, and loaded them into labeled bins and into the freezer they went!

We ended up only having three main categories: vegetables, fruits, and pasta/bread items. We don't eat much meat (hence the freezer burned chicken), so when we do want it, we buy it as we need it.

The freezer that was my inspiration (above) is a full size freezer, so there's a lot more room, and a bunch of other great ideas if room permits.

I used vinyl alphabet stickers I had on hand to label the baskets so we'd know what was in them. I found these small, stackable plastic bins at Target (similar), and knew they'd be perfect for this project, so I had them at home before unloading the freezer. We already had the ice cube trays and ice bucket, and everything fit perfectly - pretty good for not measuring any of it beforehand!

If you're not sure what size and how many bins you'll need, you'll probably want to clean out and sort into categories before going shopping (or re-purposing items you already have!). Just be sure to put everything back in or you'll come home to a mess!


Have you cleaned and/or organized your freezer or refrigerator recently? Do you use bins to organize your freezer? Any other great ideas?


*It drives me crazy that they don't yet have an android app, it's probably a good thing because if they did I'd be more obsessed than I already am.

Bookshelf Tweaking

Today was a lovely, lazy Sunday. A perfect day for a mini-project. Nothing too involved or time-consuming, but something little and fun.

We have a great bookshelf in the living room that we just love. Bought it unfinished and stained it ourselves last summer. The cats love it too, and are always trying (and often succeeding) to pull the books off the shelves. This morning was no exception. Books lay sprawled out in front of the bookshelf; as I put them back (again) inspiration struck.

I love books and bookshelves, and I'm always drawn to them in magazines and blogs. One approach I've seen often and just love is organizing books by color, so I figured I'd give it a try. Our first attempt had been to arrange them by genre, but that didn't last long. So, I got to work with a different approach.

Here's how it looked when I started:



About a half hour or so later, here's how it turned out:



Not too shabby, I think. Want to see a couple close-ups?





Just ignore those Twilight books there at the bottom... nothing to see here, folks!

So, what do you think? Improvement or no? How (if at all) do you arrange your books?

V

Bookshelf Tweaking

Today was a lovely, lazy Sunday. A perfect day for a mini-project. Nothing too involved or time consuming, but something little and fun.

We have a great bookshelf in the living room that we just love. Bought it unfinished and stained it ourselves last summer. The cats love it too, and are always trying (and often succeeding) to pull the books off the shelves. This morning was no exception. Books lay sprawled out in front of the bookshelf; as I put them back (again) inspiration struck.

I love books and bookshelves, and I'm always drawn to them in magazines and blogs. One approach I've seen often and just love is organizing books by color, so I figured I'd give it a try. Our first attempt had been to arrange them by genre, but that didn't last long. So, I got to work with a different approach. 

Here's how it looked when I started:

About a half hour or so later, here's how it turned out:

Not too shabby, I think. Want to see a couple close-ups?

 

Just ignore those Twilight books there at the bottom... nothing to see here, folks!

So, what do you think? Improvement or no? How (if at all) do you arrange your books?

V

Diving In

If you're reading this, you probably know me. And if you know me, you know that I have strong opinions, don't hold my tongue, and am passionate about a number of things. You also probably know that family is everything, and mine is big, all sorts of crazy, and I love them dearly. I love corny jokes (thanks, Dad!), and crafty things (here's to you, Mom!). I live with the love of my life  and our two cats. I'm sure I sometimes drive her crazy with all of my little projects and crafts, but she supports me no matter what.

So, what's the point of staring this blog, anyway? And what's it going to be about?

Well, I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while now, but couldn't decide on what it should be about. I figured the best way to find out would be to dive in and see where it takes me. So...

It won't be a blog about decorating, or crafting, or fashion, or cooking, or organization. But I'll talk about all those things, because I love them.

It's not going to be all about politics - but on occasion I'll talk politics. Because, after all, the political is the personal and the personal is political.

I'll most likely write about social issues, things that bother me or that I wish I could change. I'll probably highlight things that inspire me, or showcase the good in the world.

This won't be a blog about gay rights issues, but I'll touch on them to be sure - I'm gay and these issues affect my life daily.

I'm not going to post about our cats everyday, but expect to see them make an appearance when they do something insanely adorable or infuriating.

I might talk about a book I've read, or a movie I've seen, or a recipe I've tried.

We'll see where it takes me, and I hope you'll come along for the ride.

V

At-Home Salad Bar Solution

In an attempt to be a little healthier and eat more balanced dinners, B and I started making a point to have salads with our dinners each night. However, washing the lettuce or spinach, peeling and chopping carrots and cucumbers and all of the other salad fixings can be tedious and time consuming, especially when preparing a main dish as well.

We were talking one night about how convenient cafeteria and grocery store salad bars are, so we brainstormed ways to bring the convenience of a salad bar into our own kitchen. The solution we came up with is very simple and has been working extremely well, and cuts down on dinner prep time and dishes significantly - and has made packing lunches a cinch!

We found everything we needed at Target, and spent less than $20 on the whole set up! Unfortunately, I couldn't find the items on the Target website to link to.

Here's what we used to create our own at-home salad bar:

Two small plastic containers with locking lids

Plastic interlocking drawer organizers - these were helpful so that we could customize the layout of each container.