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National Match-Up Day

Happy Monday! Today is the day officially designated as “National Match-Up Day” by my friend and fellow blogger, Sara, over at GoGingham.com.

No, this is not the day you have to wear the same clothes as your significant other. Thank gawd.

No, this is not the day you have to get all of the socks into pairs. Thank gawd.

No, this is not the day you have to put all of the right school forms in the right backpacks. Thank gawd.

No, today is much easier!

Today is the day that you make sure all of your food storage containers have matching lids! Yay! I love doing this because it means I get to throw things away. With no regret whatsoever! Less stuff means – well, less stuff! To clean, to keep track of, to wish I could find a lid for!

As you may know, I live in a fairly small house. Less stuff is kind of the holy grail around here. I swear, I will fill up whatever space I have with “stuff.” In New York City, we lived in a two bedroom apartment with three kids. All of our stuff fit in that apartment. Including strollers. And high chairs. Now I can barely fit our stuff in a 3 bedroom house with a garage – and there is one less person living here!!! It is a constant battle between me and the stuff.

My secret weapon in the fight against too much stuff is to make things do double duty. These are my drinking glasses.

When used with a plastic lid, they become food storage containers. I love this. It just makes me happy.

I try to keep only a few essential food storage containers beyond the drinking glasses. A couple of big squares, a container I could give away in case I need to share soup with someone, and a few portion-sized containers for leftovers. Luckily, our main food staple, leftover pizza, fits nicely in a plastic bag which can be used several times.

This is the place I keep my food storage containers. Yes, it is small.

Here are the contents of that little nook. Yes, that is a lot of stuff.

Once I matched up everything, got rid of extras, put other things away where they belong, this is what I ended up with.

Technically, the salad spinner and blue egg cooker are not food storage containers, but they are plastic, so for some reason it makes sense to me to keep them with the food storage containers.

Everything fit into one wire basket drawer. Making the lids and containers easy to grab keeps things from getting out of control. If you have to dig for something, you are definitely going to make a mess.

I was able to organize some of my other small appliances (I love small appliances!) in the second wire basket drawer. Winning!

This extra storage space was a bonus I didn’t expect. (Also, I don’t mean to brag but did you notice the very clever use of the copper water line to the refrigerator as a custom salad spinner holder? Are you jealous?) You never know what good things will happen on “National Match-Up Day”!

Do you clean out your food storage containers on a regular basis? Did you do it today?

Filed Under: decluttering, home, organization, projects Tagged With: organization, projects, storage solutions

Favorite Things Friday: Adopted Plants

14 Sep By annie kip 4 Comments

So, “Coffee and Destruction” actually became coffee and digging. When we were walking around her house and waiting for the big digger to be moved into position for maximum destruction, my friend casually mentioned the gorgeous lilies which grew next to her garage and how much she would miss them.

WHAT??? Gorgeous plants going to waste? Something must be done.

We grabbed the neighbors shovel, some plastic trash bags and went to work. These lovely plants would have been wasted if I didn’t just take them right then. It was sort of like an emergency c-section of viable plants.

The plants certainly don’t look like much right now, but neither does that lump of goo they call your baby when it first emerges. Sometimes, you just have to trust the professionals.

This isn’t a root. It isn’t a bulb. It is a tuber. As ugly as it is now, it will sprout gorgeous lilies next Spring. Just like that little red, wrinkly baby is going to grow up before you can say “who used the umbrella in the shower and why are these shoes in the refrigerator?”

I planted these orphan plants in my front yard so my friend could enjoy them as well – every time she drives by! It is the best of both worlds for her – she doesn’t have to raise them, she can just enjoy them! Sort of like a very involved birthmother!

In the excitement of saving plants, we asked the guy with the digger to pull out and set aside some big bushes. Um. Really big bushes. Which we could not move. And then the digger was gone. Oops.

Luckily, some neighbors with a trailer were able to roll a couple of them away and the beau was willing to grapple with the other ones. Phew. I guess you could say this was a plenty perfect effort at saving plants.

I got rid of overgrown bushes at home this week too. My daughter helped me trim back the bushes around our house and the beau came by with a truck and hauled them away. Yep, we gave those bushes quite a haircut. I am so lucky the beau is willing to roll with my projects and help clean up the messes I make!

Have you ever adopted plants from friends?

Filed Under: family, garden, projects Tagged With: garden, projects

Collecting Rocks

22 Aug By annie kip 5 Comments

Have you ever picked up a rock at the beach and thought it looked really interesting, brought it home and then, when it dries, you can’t remember why you liked it?

I love all of the interesting details that show on rocks when they are wet, but it seems all of the special details go away when the rocks are dry.

My friend, Taylor, told me that coating rocks with a layer of polyurethane keeps the rocks looking like they did when you first picked them up. I tried it this weekend, and the results were great!

This was the easiest DIY project in the world – spread out some newspapers, lay out your rocks and spray with a high gloss sealer.

Wait a bit until they dry and then flip them over and finish the job. You will see all of the detail that first caught your eye,

and the color and pattern that seemed so special.

I know it seems wrong coating a natural thing – like a rock – with polyurethane, but if it lets you enjoy that natural thing for the characteristics that make it unique, isn’t that a plenty perfect solution?

What do you like to collect?

Filed Under: projects Tagged With: projects, rocks

Boys’ Closet Re-Do–Part 2

2 Aug By annie kip 2 Comments

I am pretty certain no one has painted this closet since 1941, when the house was built. Back then, they did not seem to put much effort into closets, evidenced by the sloppier plaster job and cheap wood used – because, you know – it’s just a closet!. The wood used for the attic access in the ceiling was even left completely unpainted. The good news is that this made me remember that this is just a closet! and It really just has to function – not look nice.

The bad news was that I like things to look nice, so I had to prime the wood in the ceiling, as well as my new shelf supports before painting.

I could have not painted the inside of this closet. I actually struggled with this for a few minutes, then compromised by deciding to paint the whole thing one color, because that was the easiest way to get the job done. And I like things pretty.

I even brought my reluctant 13 year-old in on the job, since the stakes were so low. Even though it would have been easier to do it myself, it is important to me to make sure my kids know how to do some basic things. This fellow can do laundry, but we are still working on learning to stir. ( I actually think he just prefers the way I make the Mac and Cheese and is faking this disability.)

I used long laminate shelves purchased at Home Depot for about $20 and had them cut to the sizes I needed, right there in the store. We popped them in, screwed in some hooks, and a hanging bar.

Now each boy has his own side of the closet to keep neat and there can be no excuses for clothes left around the room and on the floor. Previously, it really wasn’t possible for the boys to keep their room tidy because there was not a place to put everything away, but those days are over. Each boy even has his own basket for dirty laundry and will be responsible for doing his own as needed.

The closet re-do will take care of a huge mess that has been in my laundry room as well as the boys’ room for several months. I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to finally have this system set up and in working order!

What do you do to make it easy to keep tidy?

Filed Under: decorating, family, home, organization, projects Tagged With: projects

Boys’ Closet Re-Do–Part 1

1 Aug By annie kip 4 Comments

It always seems like getting organized requires some kind of disabling upheaval of the status quo in order for a change to be made. It is especially bad when the status quo revolves around delicately balanced piles and a complete disregard for orderliness.

Case in point: my boys share a room. In order to bring in new desks and shelves so they could put their expanding collection of “special things that must be kept” possessions away, I had to get rid of their dressers. (Just so you don’t think I am completely crazy, the dressers were old and the drawers were sticky. We needed shelving for books, toys, etc. The boys never kept the drawers neat so it wasn’t working anyway. It was either time to buy new dressers or time for a whole new solution.) As part of this grand plan, I was going to build shelves in their closet for their clothes. What could go wrong?

This all happened about 4 months ago. Since then, the boys have basically been running down to the laundry room every morning to get clean clothes. This means that they wreck my nice, neat piles of clean laundry just about everyday. This has not been a good system for us.

I am happy to say that I have finished their closet re-do and their clothes are nicely put away. It wasn’t difficult, but did take a good chunk of my attention, which of course, prevented me from properly feeding my kids and bathing. I did manage to play tennis though!

First, I had to remove all of my clothes from their closet. Yes, I am a closet hog. I am working on not being this way. This was a good first step.

I planned to use some left over molding for the shelf supports. I cut it with my miter saw into 9 inch pieces and used a sanding block to smooth out the edges.

I determined the distance I wanted to have between shelves and then marked that measurement on the wall. I used a level on that mark and drew a line to show where I was going to attach the molding/shelf support.

Attaching the molding with nails was the easiest thing for me to do.

Using a “nail-sinker” (which is what I call it – I don’t know the technical term), I hammered the nails deeper into the wood and then used putty to cover the nail heads.

Getting started was the hardest part of the project. Once I got going, it really didn’t take long to get the first phase of the project done. I was feeling really good about the progress I had made in one afternoon!

Do you get your projects done quickly or do you procrastinate?

Filed Under: decluttering, home, kids, organization, projects Tagged With: projects

National Match-Up Day

Favorite Things Friday: Adopted Plants

Collecting Rocks

Boys’ Closet Re-Do–Part 2

Boys’ Closet Re-Do–Part 1

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National Match-Up Day

Favorite Things Friday: Adopted Plants

Collecting Rocks

Boys’ Closet Re-Do–Part 2

Boys’ Closet Re-Do–Part 1

Subscribe to Plenty Perfect

Search Plenty Perfect

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