My Husband Thinks it's Crazy

But I don't care.  I do it anyway.

I don't know anybody else who does this, and you might think I'm nuts, too.  Nobody will ever get me to stop, though.

What is this absurd thing I do?  I keep my socks in the living room.  The only socks I have in the bedroom are the ones in the dirty laundry.  My clean socks are kept by the front door.

I don't wear socks at home, just when I'm putting shoes on.  So it makes sense to keep them near my shoes (which I keep in the front closet).  If it's the last thing I put on before I leave, it makes perfect sense to me that it should be close to the door!

Yes, that is smelly foot spray in there.  Don't judge.  Ballet flats make your feet stink, too, and you know it!

The top two drawers now are labeled on their upper edge (hidden when the drawers are closed) so I'm not tempted to just turn them into junk drawers.  Otherwise, I'll be back to the days when I would stress when I was in a hurry because I couldn't find what I needed in the drawers.  I would have to sift through a bunch of junk to find my keys and whatnot.  

Organizing Project and Another IKEA Hack: Bookshelves

A while back, I wanted to put a bookshelf in the awkward little space in the middle of our apartment.  Matt calls it a "hallway" because it connects all of our rooms, but there is no actual hall.  It's just a little space with four doors and a little bit of wall space.  I really didn't want it to function as "wasted space," so a bookshelf to store our office supplies seemed like a great solution.  The problem?  The only wall big enough for the shelves was the wall with the intercom.  If we covered that up we would have quite a bit of difficulty buzzing people into our apartment!

My parents gave us a super-cheap IKEA bookshelf a few years ago that they were no longer using.  The only real problem with having it in a very visible place like this was that, well, it looks as cheap as it actually is.  So, I had to try to spruce it up a bit.  And make a few other alterations.

Hey, look, my dog wandered into the photo.  :-)  Please ignore the picture frame sitting behind the dog.  That is for a future project.

The back of the bookshelves was a really flimsy, plastic-like material, which looked awful but had one distinct advantage: it was incredibly easy to rip off and cut with a utility knife.  So that's what I did!  I took it off of the back, made the appropriate measurements, and cut a whole where the intercom would be.

I could have just nailed or stapled it back onto the frame like that, but I wanted something a little more interesting.  I had a few yards of a material left, so I took out my trusty hot glue gun (I love that thing!) and went to town!  I'm not overly in love with the pattern on there, but I didn't want to go buy new fabric when I had something perfectly useful.  I can be cheap like that.

Here are a few close-ups of the project.

This is the hole I cut for the intercom.

Here you can see our mail center and bill organizer.  The trash can sitting next to the bookshelf in the top picture is specifically designated as a receptacle for all of the mail that needs to be shredded.  This way it all gets sorted in one place!

Could I have put a label in the little holder on the front?  Yes, but my handwriting is ugly, and typing up a label and printing it out seemed like too much effort.  I like making things easy.  Label maker to the rescue!  When the lid is closed the label is hidden.  I already know what's in it, but putting a label on it makes me think twice before throwing things in there that don't belong.

Lazy Susan from Home Goods, one of my very favorite places to shop!  Nearly everything on these shelves is actually from Home Goods!  They have really cheap and pretty organizational products.  If you're looking for attractive storage options, definitely check out Home Goods!  If you don't have one in your town, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls are part of the same company and often have the same items.

The little plastic box with the markers in it is from The Container Store, which is another one of my favorite stores!  The good news there is that if you don't have a store nearby, you can shop on-line.  I strongly recommend it.  :-)  I love their stuff, including their clear plastic boxes like this one.

Hopefully somebody out there will be inspired to be creative and have some fun with their own organization projects!

DIY Picture Frame Thingies

I've had a few people, Matt included, who have commented that they think my bookshelves look really cool.  I do love them myself.  There's a kind of homey, inviting feel that is still interesting and exotic.  Here is what they look like.

I'll have to take a picture in better light and upload it for you.  This one is really washed out.

Most of the (non-book) stuff is from Home Goods or Hobby Lobby, so it was all really cheap.

The DIY part is the two picture frames you see sitting on the top.

This was probably the easiest thing ever.  And they make an impact that is significantly larger than their price tag!  I got the gold frames from a garage sale for about $5.  They were sitting under our bed for a couple of years because the frames didn't have backs.  I bought them because I liked them, but I had no idea how I was going to use them!

Then, during a trip to Hobby Lobby looking for fabrics, I was inspired!  I remembered seeing an episode of Design on a Dime where they had covered a basic wooden frame with fabric and hung it on the wall.  Why couldn't I just staple fabric to the back of these frames?  So, I found fabrics with the same colors and themes that would fit with each other, and I stapled away!

I'm actually pretty proud of these.  Guests regularly comment on them, and even Matt (who sometimes pretends like he is oblivious to all things aesthetic) has said that he really likes them.  Woo-hoo!  Success!  For about $10!

First IKEA Hack: DVD/Video Game Shelves for a Small Collection

I really wanted a way to organize and store our DVDs, but a lot of the media storage I was seeing was made for WAY more DVDs and games than we actually own.  So, Matt and I went on an IKEA treasure hunt.

I'll explain what we did, but his is the final result.

These are actually designed to be hung vertically, and they are in IKEA's bathroom storage department.  They're called LILLÅNGEN, and they're intended to go with these cabinets.

I was being really cheap (remember that student budget we're living on?), so we went with the boring brackets.  They're only 50 cents each.  It could be way cuter if you used some of the fun brackets from IKEA, like these.  You can still see the silver screws, and I'm planning to cover those up with paint or something.

Really, we just assembled the shelves according to the directions, decided which side we wanted to be the "bottom," and drilled a few holes for the brackets.  Not too complicated.  Well, aside from the usually difficulty of deciphering IKEA's wordless instructions.

It's the perfect size for our limited movie collection, and it only took a couple of hours.

The Purge

The first step to reorganizing my whole apartment had to be getting rid of, well, bags and bags full of stuff.  Some things had to be donated, others recycled, and some were just tossed.

The pictures below are the two piles that still remain in the apartment.

What I discovered along the way is that responsibly disposing of stuff can get complicated.  Thankfully, Oak Park has a wonderful list of places that take donations and/or hazardous waste.  Unfortunately, I didn't discover this list until I was nearly done with the purge and had already done a lot of donating and recycling.

My husband Matt took most of our electronics (that have been sitting in a closet waiting to be recycled for ages now) to an electronics recycling even at the zoo.  The EPA has a webpage with information on how and where to dispose of and donate electronics.  A lot of charities will hold recycling events to raise funds (like the one at the zoo where Matt took ours).  Check out any organizations you support to see if have similar programs.

I had a gallon Ziplock bag packed to capacity with expired and unused meds, and I was extremely lucky that I happened to be looking for a way to get rid of them when the DEA was holding a prescription drug take-back day.  The FDA has info here and here on getting rid of drugs if you're interested.

Old books, clothes, working appliances, etc are getting donated to a local thrift shop.  Textbooks, however, are a different story.  Nobody around here seems to want old textbooks.  So I compared the amounts various websites would pay for them, then decided to donate them. They sent me a printable shipping label, and all I have to do is box them up and drop them off at UPS.

During the Great Gluten Purge I found a lot of non-perishables that I could take to the local food bank.  I also put all of our wheat flour in Ziplock bags.  I can't donate it because it's been opened, so if you happen to want some flour and you live near Oak Park, let me know.  Otherwise, it's going to get added on to somebody's Mother's Day present.  "I love you.  Here are two bags of flour.  Happy Mother's Day"

So, hopefully someone will benefit from what I learned in this process.  Also, be sure to check your own city's website for a list of helpful drop-off locations before going through all of the complicated searching I did.


Resources
http://www.oak-park.us/public/pdfs/Public%20Works/04.02.08_Recycling_Guide.pdf

http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/materials/ecycling/donate.htm

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/BuyingUsingMedicineSafely/UnderstandingOver-the-CounterMedicines/ucm107163.pdf

http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/BuyingUsingMedicineSafely/EnsuringSafeUseofMedicine/SafeDisposalofMedicines/ucm186187.htm

http://www.bigwords.com/

http://www.betterworldbooks.com/buyback.aspx

What this blog is about

About?  Does a blog have to be about something?

I suppose this blog is about me.  But, instead of being about me in the self-indulgent, wanna-be-philosophical, borderline angsty sense that my Live Journal account was (when I was 18 and thought I knew more than I actually know now), this will be about, well, things you might actually want to know.  So, instead of musings on life, love, and the universe, I'm going to try to post a few things each week that other people might be able to use.

For instance, I recently organized my entire apartment (I was going to say "reorganized," but that implies there used to be some sort of system).  A few folks have expressed a desire to see pictures.  So maybe I'll post some of those.

Also, I've done a few IKEA hacks of my own, and I've got a few more planned.  Maybe you'd like to see those?

I've gotten a few compliments on how I've accessorized my living room, so perhaps I'll share how I did that on the budget of a graduate student married to another graduate student.  In case you didn't know, that's not a huge budget.

Maybe I'll talk about Apps I love and have recently discovered?  Or share some favorite recipes?  Books, movies, and nerdy stuff?  Well, I'll keep the nerdy stuff to a minimum.  That's enough for a whole separate blog.

It's possible this could turn into a place for me to talk about my adventures (AKA struggles and frustrations) as a gluten-intolerant, mildly lactose-intolerant, formerly caffeine-addicted person who gets headaches when she eats too much fructose.  This is why my husband stopped doing the grocery shopping...the list of things I can't eat just keeps growing.  I can't say I blame him.  I'll keep you updated on the list of foods that hate my guts...literally.  So, yeah, look forward to that with wide-eyed anticipation...

What I can promise is way too many pictures of my adorable dog.  I think my Facebook friends are starting to get tired of it.  Once I have kids, I'm sure I'll be sharing those pictures, too.  Maybe a video of future me giving birth?  Yeah, maybe not.  That's gross.

I'll leave you with that very disturbing thought.  Have a wonderful day!

Kara