Space Upgrades

Getting back into normal life is weird. Time has been simply flying by, and all of a sudden, we are about to hit a three-month anniversary. Wait, the wedding was already three months ago? Yikes.

The biggest thing we have focused on has been getting the condo back into working condition. The wedding prep months had this place looking a bit cray-cray, and we hadn't eaten a proper meal at the dining room table since the winter. A little organizing here and there later, and now we have everything back to it's normal (clean and organized!) state. This OCD gal couldn't be happier. It's been nice having friends and family over again.

Our first big purchase as newlyweds was an easy one. Living in a condo leaves us with limited storage space. We have had to be clever with what we have so far, utilizing a big IKEA bookcase for books and display in the living room, and racks in our patio closet to store out of season items. What has been lacking, though, has been somewhere for our nicer dishes and growing bar service wear. A new sideboard/bar was in high order.

Enter our new bar! We picked this one from Pottery Barn it because it provided space for wine while adding tons of surface and cabinet space.

I absolutely love it. Our china has a proper home, and we can have a "bar cart" style table top, too. It's wonderful to have a place to display our collection of decanters and Lehmann family crest-adorned crystal glassware.

I especially love the pull-out trays that provide space for drink prep, and the drawers that can hold bottle openers and other accessories.

My mom gave me this hint for storing china. I didn't want to box it up and put it away, never to be used. Along with nice dinner parties and fancy occasions, we like using ours for date nights at home.

She recommended that I use simple coffee filters to separate the plates, keeping everything safe while right at hand for easy use. Genius, and only $2 for the pack, instead of way more for fancy liners. Great idea, Mom!

Have you done any space upgrades recently? Tell me about them!

Love is Like a New Planner

You guys. I am absolutely in love.

Even though for the past number of years, I have been forcing myself to switch into all e-land with my social scheduling, there has been a part of my soul (yes, my soul, I am that passionate about this) that has died a little bit each time I can't color in a day on my Blackberry with colored markers to designate a wedding, birthday or date night. The days of high school and college with planners full of handwritten notes, colors and stickers seem far too far away. Plus, I was having trouble with reminders on my Blackberry for myself like "buy a birthday card" (a week in advance so I could mail it), "Call Friend X," and "pay that bill."

A few weeks ago, I heard about these absolutely amazing planners that were available on this absolutely amazing-looking website. And because of said soul-dying, I decided right then and there to say "Happy Belated Birthday to Me" and I bought myself one.

O.M.G. It arrived. Even the box was a planner-girl's high. Perfectly wrapped and totally girly.

I selected a lovely teal/turquoise Life Planner with a kaliedoscope pattern from Erin Condren, a personalized stationery store that is the newest must-have for social planners like myself. One look at their Facebook page will show you how dedicated and in-love her fans are.

Before I show you its marvelous inside, let me first show you what also came in the box with this beauty:

Free labels, all personalized for me! Happy Birthday labels that I can stick on a box or a bag, and generic labels that would be perfect to add to a bottle of wine for a hostess gift. Adorable!

Hot tip: Erin Condren is on One King's Lane for one more day! Get labels or other EC items all of your own for a great price.

Ok, back to my planner...

 

These cheery pages are inside each planner regardless of your cover style. A.k.a. you better be okay with cheerful color (but who isn't?!)

 

One thing I love about the Life Planner is that it has these monthly pages along with the weekly views, which are broken out into morning, day and night.

Each of those weekly view pages has a Goals and To-Do column on the side for you to keep track of those little weekly things.

 

And of course, the planners have these amazing tabs to separate out each month! 

 

One user tip: While laminated tabs are on the Erin Condren line-up for 2013, the 2012 ones currently are not covered. Both the brand and most Facebook fans suggest using a certain size of Avery tabs, or simply covering each tab in clear packing tape. I did the latter, trimmed off the edges of extra tape on each one, and you can't even tell it's a handmade job. Promise :)

The back of the planner is almost as fun! It has sheets and sheets of little colored labels you can use on each day to designate events and other special things. After those is this great double-sided envelope (above left) to store loose papers, and a clear zipper pouch (right) as a catch-all for all sorts of other things (business cards, coins, etc.).

As you might expect, I sat down ASAP that night that this gorgeous planner arrived with a celebratory glass of wine and proceeded to fill it all out. And while I snapped all of these shots pre-pen-hitting-paper, I have been enjoying using my planner every. single. day. Already I have NOT forgotten (haha) to meet up for an evening appointment I had, to mail out a check that reserved my spot on a Bachelorette trip, and to do my taxes... ok fine, just because I didn't do them yet doesn't mean I forgot to do them ;)

Who are my fellow Erin Condren lovers out there? What is your favorite thing about her line?

What about those of you who haven't heard of her before? What do you think?

Slim Fitting

As a follow-up to yesterday's post about taking advantage of storage space, let me dive back into the closet. At the end of last year, I received a box of slim-fitting hangers from my parents for my walk-in closet. They, of all people, know that I own a lot of clothes and have limited space in which to store them! So these black velvet-covered hangers have been a perfect upgrade, giving the closet a whole new feel. What I didn't realize, though, was how much of a space-impact they'd actually make! Take a look at the before ...

And the after! (Apologies for the slightly blurry BB picture!)

I discarded and donated a handful of items while I went through to swap out the hangers, but otherwise, this is literally the same bunch of clothes, just with tons more space! Now what should I do with that extra space ... purchase more clothes? ;) Or perhaps create even more storage using a hanging basket organizer?

This assortment of hangers at TJ Maxx is very similar to the Costco set I received, and these are totally affordable at only $10 for a group of 10! They have all sorts of colors and styles, so no matter your personal tastes (or those of your S.O.), you are bound to find ones that work for you.

How else do you keep your clothes and closet organized?

Storage: Look Up

Not all home decor and organization upgrades have to be expensive or even permanent. Living in 1,000 square feet means that whatever I do in here, though, has to work and be efficient. My rule is, no space should go unused. 

For example, we have two spare folding chairs under the bed along with wrapping paper and a box for bows, ribbons and tissue paper. A spare folding table stands up behind the bedroom door where no one would ever know it's there. The tallest shelves in the kitchen hold the extra wine glasses and Sweetwater glasses (omg so many of those...). Open shelves in the closet were converted into storage by adding small plastic bins:

Another easy fix I have been using is for the laundry room. And when I say room, I mean sliding doors that contain the side-by-side washer/dryer, an elevated hot water heater and two small shelves. This doesn't leave much room for the actual laundry or any sort of permanent drying racks. I have a pop-up drying rack that can hold much of my delicate laundry, but since I am perhaps a bit of a clothes-horse, sometimes that one rack just can't hold everything.

Voila. Instant drying rack for the larger shirts, leggings and hose. Sometimes, this "rack" also holds my undergarments, too, but I decided that might just be a bit too over-share for a picture :) The "rack" is just a spare dowel that I keep alongside the washer, but you can use what's on hand like the handle of your broom, mop or Swiffer, too. I prop it on top of the partially-open doors, add hangers and the clothes, and then once they are dry, the rack can just be stowed away!  

What small or even silly thing do you do in your home to help you organize or store things?

Home Inspiration for the OCD

As you probably know, a large part of my day-to-day job is working with bloggers not too unlike myself. I am incredibly lucky to be able to professionally work so closely with bloggers that inspire me personally with their ideas and lifestyles.

Y'all know I am a blog-reading addict. Beyond the reading and research I do at work, in my personal time I often can't help but cruise around bloggy world finding new sites to add to my Reader. I may or may not have time to actually read all of the blogs, of course, especially if I keep adding new ones! :) But add them I do, and on lazy weekends or downtime evenings, I like nothing more than skimming through and "meeting" each writer and their blogs.

What has begun to happen, however, is that I am becoming completely and utterly overwhelmed by the sheer GENIUS out there in bloggy world. There are just bazillions of creative ideas, tips and tricks, and I just can't keep up. My Reader's feed of Shared and Starred Items is unorganized and pure chaos, and then my Firefox bookmarks and Read It Later list are beyond any reasonable to-do status.

Recipe bookmarks aside (I am already overwhelmed by my Binder as it is), I am saddened to think about how many inspirational decor and organizing ideas I have bookmarked and then forgotten about. Yesterday's wrapping paper station post was easier to remember about, because it was a physical magazine page that I had torn out. But then that torn-out page was cluttering up my counters before I got a chance to write about it. There must be a better way to put this creative mindset into some kind of an order.

Seventh House on the Left (yes, yet another new bloggy find) has the perfect solution for me, and I can't wait to get started. Wouldn't you believe it, but she was having the exact same issue, except in hard-copy form with magazine stacks to infinity. Check out how she managed it:

This idea is utter genius. I have a lot of torn-out pages in a little folder at home, but if I was to print off a lot of the inspiring webpages, too, I could easily fill up a binder (or two!) with cute, home-y ideas. The added sticky notes and tabbed sections make it easy to flip through and remember what caught my eye with each page. Then, the next time I am feeling that too-familiar itch to snazz up the condo, all I have to do is open the binder to find some of the concepts and themes I had previously enjoyed.

This will be a perfect rainy-day project to have out on the dining room table, or something I might tackle during my upcoming vacation. I can't wait to share my results with you.

How do you organize your creative side? Do you use an online management method? Or is it all chaos like mine? 

Gift Wrap Central

Somewhere along the line, I ended up with a Better Homes and Gardens subscription. I seriously can not recall why or how I got on this list, but I am not complaining. It has been a refreshing magazine to flip through each month, providing endless decor inspiration and ideas for simple, healthy meals.

Granted, I have zero interest in the whole "Gardens" part as a high-rise dweller. Perhaps they can do an insert for "high rise window boxes and patio herb planters" someday :)

When I am not deep in imagination about using their suggested paint combinations or planning out some new weekly meals, I gravitate towards their imaginative ways to organize a home. While it's a magazine meant for someone in a larger home, they take a small-home approach to their tips and tricks for cleaning up clutter around you.

This concept in particular has me hooked:

Image Source

Ingenious. Using an over-the-door pantry organizer that you can find at most home improvement stores or online catalogs, and organizing the sheer chaos that is gift wrap supplies. I am in love. I particularly like how they hang the tissue paper over the front to keep it clean and crisp.

While we have taken advantage of most over-door space in the condo for things like a robe hanger in the bathroom and a scarf-and-apron hanger in the kitchen/coat closet, this is something I would use in a heartbeat in a larger home.

Pressed for space like I am? Use an under-the-bed crate that you can pick up on the cheap from Walmart or Target, and use it for all those paper rolls, tags, bows and bags. And if you are a ribbon fiend, check out this miraculous $5 storage idea and tutorial from my newest bloggy addicition, Spunky Junky:

Happy Wrapping!