A Thing of Beauty

This past weekend, I organized my shoes.

Wait, wait! Don't close the browser window! This story has a good ending.
Bear with me. 

I realize devoting a full day to shoe organization is like one step above (below?) storing them in the oven, Sex-and-the-City-style.

But it was necessary.
My shoes had started to multiply like Gremlins in a kiddie pool.

There were shoes behind the closet door.

And behind the bedroom door.

And in an old, broken bookshelf.

And on another old, broken shelf. 

(Thanks again, movers, for breaking all my stuff!)

And in a basket.

Er...two baskets. 

And in the closet.

And the other closet. 

Some might say I have too many pairs of shoes.
This sentence does not compute.

I clearly just needed some better shoe storage.

Here's what I did:

1. Assembled the large, deep Ikea Billy bookcase. (This one.) Despite my non-love of white laminate, I determined that the white shelves and background would provide the best, most neutral canvas for shoe display.

2. Drilled three extra sets of shelf holes at the top, bottom, and right below the middle door hinges. This was a huge pain in the ass and I wish I'd done it before I assembled the cabinet but I didn't realize that it was necessary until after the shelf frame was together.

3. Added the Billy Olsbo glass doors. Drilled holes and added cabinet knobs.

4. Alternated Billy glass and wood shelves in the cabinet to keep the look light & airy.

It only took about 4 hours.

Ikea seems to have gotten smarter about their instructions. They now feature this drawing to start that bible of exasperation, the Ikea instruction booklet:

Do you see that?

Sad guy with pile of parts = alone
Happy guy with pile of parts = with another person

That's right. Ikea is trying to tell you that you should not assemble their products without a second person around.

Screw you, Ikea. I don't have another person.

Despite their singleton discrimination, I have to admit, they've got a point. If you have ever assembled anything from Ikea that involves door or drawer parts, you know why this drawing is here; namely, for moral support and suicide prevention when you realize you're missing a part. I bet their risk management people made them add this to the instructions to avoid lawsuits.

Approximately 60% of the way through the building process, there is inevitably a moment of utter exhaustion as you look around, surrounded by torn boxes, papers, little metal parts, and rebus instructions. And a half-assembled piece of plywood laminate furniture that you have carefully made sure is NOT TOUCHING THE BARE WOOD FLOOR.

Ugh.

That said, I persevered despite a minor breakdown (proudly, there were no tears) that accompanied attaching the doors. In the end, it was worth it. 

I can now see all my flats, sandals, and heels at once. The only thing that would possibly make this better is a wider shelf (and more wall space) so that my boots could be in there as well. But there's no room for boots. It's ok. I'm still pleased with this solution. It feels like I'm shopping every time I get dressed.

It's a little bit awesome.

Joy. I feel joy every time I look at this thing. It's like Christmas morning EVERY morning.

As Mom said: "Nice! You have room for one more pair!"
Yes. And I'm enacting a strict one-in-one-out policy from here forward. Gremlins begone!

A Lovely Spring Day

There's something about a sunny spring day that makes me just want to throw open the windows and clean house.

I know, I'm weird.  (We've covered this before, no?)

Today was one of those sunny spring days. I got up to do laundry (my most hated chore) and went out for a couple of runs while the loads were in the washers (shorter, more painful, hilly run) and dryer (longer, more enjoyable run and a stop for La Boulange's amazing cold-brewed iced coffee).

I got home, fetched my clothes from our wretched garage laundry room and put the laundry away. I note this because in more lazy times, piles of clean laundry live on the second sofa in my living room for a while. This is the problem with having two sofas, too many clothes, and no roommates. I still have plenty of outfits to wear and a comfy place to sit and watch tv even when the other comfy place to sit is covered in clean clothes and sheets.

Feeling inspired by my responsible adult laundry effort, I elected to tackle my positively nasty stove, cleaning the grates and everything. A Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (my all-time favorite cleaning tool) was put down in the process. But now the stove sparkles. 

I made myself lunch, channeling this post. This time I added a new element - anchovies (three of them, mashed up to a paste) - into the butter. The spring radishes really are so mild. I love them.

I tried on and purged a bunch of old clothes from my dresser and closet. I then tackled a project that's been in the hopper for MONTHS - I put up new hooks on the side of my movers-damaged-bookcase-turned-handbag-and-shoe-storage piece, for displaying all the too-long necklaces that just get tangled on top of my dresser, and to get my gym bag off the floor, for once and for all. Victory.

True that, poster. True that.
Also, I just want to give a shout out to the DeKalb T.J. Maxx which is the best, cleanest, most well organized T.J. Maxx in existence. That's where I picked up that cute pillow. I saw an identical pillow months later in a snooty home store in Sonoma for 5x what I paid. Ha. 

After that I showered. Sorry, there's no picture of that. Trust me, it's better for all of us that way.

By the time all that was done, it was time to tackle the fun chore of bill paying. Woohoo! I got a little ambitious after paying bills and tried to rollover my old 401K into my new one but got confused and decided that it would be better if I just had a snack instead. A ripe mango in the fruit colander was calling my name, so I whipped up a mango-strawberry smoothie.

Kate's Mango-Strawberry Smoothie

Ingredients
1 ripe mango, peeled and pitted
8 or so strawberries, washed and trimmed
1 cup Greek yogurt - I usually use 0% because that's what I keep around
1/2 cup milk

Directions
Put everything in the blender and blend it. 
The end.

I just started making these recently, and I'm addicted. They are a favorite new weekend treat. I usually do not add any sweetener - I like the wholesomeness of just the fruit (but I do try to wait until the mango is almost too ripe and I select the ripest strawberries in the container).

For serving, I especially love to rinse out my to-go iced coffee cup and straw from the morning's coffee and drink my smoothie out of that. Drinking smoothies out of straws is so much more fun. Actually, drinking anything out of a straw is more fun. Except hot coffee, of course. Also, I'm recycling!

In spite of today's loveliness, the week preceding was kind of a rough one for me, and I determined that flowers were in order. I love late Spring because it means peonies are in season. They are my favorite (alongside my early spring lilacs), and always remind me of our dear neighbor, Jane Beard, who was like another grandmother to me when I was growing up.

Jane practically had an entire field of peonies in her front yard and they always bloomed at the beginning of June, ushering in summers filled with daytime lemonade stands and evening games of hide and seek.

The tricky part about peonies is that they are only available for a very short window in May and June. Their scarcity makes me want them all the more when I see them.

Tulips and roses are fine when you can't get anything truly seasonal, but I really love old school blooms like these peonies that look like they came directly from someone's garden. They are very lightly scented and smell fantastic - such a nice little bonus.

 

I also picked up the most perfect notebooks for work at Flax Art and Design. I know this place is a San Francisco institution - I remember getting their catalogs at home when I was young - but somehow in two years I'd never set foot in the store. On a lark, after picking up exciting things like toilet paper and dish detergent at Safeway, I stopped in.

I was in crafty heaven. Flax is amazing. Like Paper Source times 1000. I could spend hours upon hours dreaming up projects there.

The notebooks I picked up at Flax are perfect for work (and I don't use that word lightly to describe objects) because they are:

• large (all the better to diagram with),
• spiral bound (so they lay flat - helpful for a left-handed person),
• thin (so they're lightweight and don't take up much room in the already heavy work bag), 
• cheap (duh), and
• pretty! 

I think I am going to start with the robin's egg blue one, although I do love all the colors. I also love the inscription on the front:

"Most advanced quality gives best writing features & gives satisfaction to you."

Indeed, little notebook. Indeed.

I don't know why this picture is formatting vertically. Odd. I suggest turning your computer clockwise 90 degrees.

Happy Spring Day!

This is Genius.

I so have this problem. Nowhere to put clothes that are not fresh from the laundry/closet but also not dirty enough to go in the laundry basket.

I'd love to see two or three of these hung vertically up a wall. I might have to take this on. Except for the lack of a table saw...tricky....

Anyway, thank you again, genius editors at Apartment Therapy.

A Hook Problem

Almost exactly nine years ago, my dear dad and I drove the long, flat, boring road from Chicago to Austin in my move to Texas. Of course, once we got to Austin and unpacked Vinny (my car), we made a trip to The Container Store, or, as Dad likes to refer to it, Anal-Retentive Heaven.

As anyone who has moved all of their wordly belongings out of state knows, moves are hard. They're stressful.

In the midst of such stress (mostly on my part), we found ourselves wandering the aisles of The Container Store at the Austin Arboretum. As lost people are wont to do, we were going up and down every aisle in the store to make sure we weren't forgetting anything. I don't know how familiar you are with The Container Store but their employees are aggressively friendly. This one saleswoman, who looked a little too much like the cartoon Cathy come to life, just would not take a hint and leave us alone. She must have asked us if we needed help, oh, 4 or 5 times. In the span of 20 minutes. We didn't need help the first time she asked and we didn't need help the fifth.

As we meandered down the hook aisle, Cathy pounced once again.

"Can I help you with a hook problem?"

It was all we could do not to laugh in her face. A hook problem? How do you have a hook problem?
Like this?

Which brings us to today.

In the move to reorganize and clean out my apartment and make better use of my "storage room," I am now trying to be super-efficient with my closet space across the board. Sadly, my dining table leaf has been left without a home in the new storage room layout. It has taken up residence in the hallway - obviously not a long-term solution. I was excited to discover it actually fits in my linen closet, but only if I find another home for the ironing board. Brainstorming space solutions, I realized that if I hung the ironing board on the closet door, my leaf storage problem might be solved.

I decided to try ready-made options first in my quest to hang the board. I picked up one of these handy dandy things at Bed Bath and Beyond, but it didn't really work because a) I didn't need storage for the iron, just the board, b) my iron didn't fit that nicely in the holder because it's too big, and c) I would have had to install this on the thinnest part of my door because the charming "architectural detail" prevents me from installing it at the top, where it's the thickest.

I really just needed to mount the bottom part of the iron & board holder on the door but couldn't do that without adding ugly washers to the scenario to keep the molded hook thing that came with the kit on the door. As a firm believer in the balance of form and function, I nixed that option.

Then I realized there must be hooks out there in the world that I could install on the top of the door to hang the ironing board. I dug through my hardware box and assorted existing selection of hooks, but none quite fit around the ironing board leg. Next best option was a trip to my trusty local hardware store (the kind of old school place that's just filled with so many parts and bits that it's almost impossible to find anything unless you ask) and came home with a few prospective solutions.

In the end, the simplest option worked best. Look how spiffy my ironing board (with awesome cover from the DeKalb, IL TJ Maxx) looks now. And now the table leaf is no longer in the hallway. I'm so very pleased.