The Last Big Project for Organizing Season

So, I confessed the details of this project to my sister and she burst out laughing at me.  Then she told me I was "special" and I'm not certain she meant it as a compliment, but still, on the off chance some of you are "special", I decided to share with you the last "big" thing I did this Organizing Season.

Our closet.  Exciting, isn't it?

(How is that for an introduction?  I'm hoping you'll be so disarmed by my candor that you won't laugh too hard at me.  Besides, by sharing it this way, Superman will have time to digest it before his next leave!)



Of course, this is the "after"!  Who thinks of taking a before
of their closet?

Are you an early adopter of things like technology or "time-saving" gadgets or "new, improved" old things?  I'm not.  I have to be convinced that the new widget will improve the quality of our lives.  I really think long and hard about whether "new and shiny" will actually do anything to enhance my life.  Will it just be a thrill to get something new or will it really be a help?  Will it only work because I'm paying attention to its newness or is it really an improvement? This is the line of questioning I ask myself when considering bringing new things into our home.  Still, I do adopt cool things:  We have an iPad, I have a smart phone (albeit with Virgin Mobile because I'm anti-contract), we have wireless internet, and we have laptops.  Heck, I even have a Blendtec (but it took me 18 months to decide I'd really, really use it...and I do.)




Were these really going to be better than the cheap-o tube hangers?  What
about the heavier plastic hangers that swiveled?

So, don't laugh when I tell you it took me more than a year to decide to upgrade our...hangers.  Yep, I said hangers.  You know those fuzzy hangers?  They tempted me from the get go.  No tank tops falling off the hangers?  No paper thin t-shirts sliding right off the hangers?  No slippery workout jackets needing to be zipped to stay where I put them?  Buttercup's strappy little summer dresses would actually stay put?  No misshapen cardigans that slipped but didn't fall, so now they have a weird lump?  I didn't believe it.  I held back.  Its just a hanger.   Would they even be strong enough for coats?  They look small.   How much difference could they possibly make?  Still, I continued to be frustrated by trying to keep our clothes on the hangers and looking nice.  Maybe it is because my shoulders are so broad, but my clothes were constantly falling off the hangers...it drove me crazy.    I was so tempted to get those fuzzy hangers, but I just wasn't sure.



Oh, yes!  They were much better!  (See my old hangers in the first box?)

Finally, though, I'd had enough.  I'd been pricing the hangers and really was having trouble justifying them, no matter how frustrated I was. ($5 for five hangers?  Really?!  Um, no thank you!)   Then, the stars aligned and I walked into my local Costco and saw packs of 35 hangers for $9.99.  I pulled the trigger and bought three boxes.  (I suspect strongly that my tipping point arrived when inexpensive hangers arrived at my Costco.  The correlation between the price going down and my purchasing the hangers caan't be understated!)  

See Superman's shirts?  Look how nice they look!

 I enthusiastically threw myself into the project of rehanging every item in my closet.  I touched every article of clothing in there.  Everything came out, but not everything went back in.  (Changing out your hangers is an amazing way to go through your closet.  You miss nothing!)  It was amazing...everything stayed where I put it.  I was hooked.  I went back and bought more hangers (yes, Superman, I did...I needed to do your side!) and finished the job.  And when I was done, I was happy.  It looked so, well, organized.

Can you tell I have a mom uniform?  I hate shopping, so if I like something, I buy
a few of it...coral t-shirts, grey t-shirts, white t-shirts...notice a trend?

But, here is the real test.  Its been three weeks.  Am I still happy?  Oh my gosh, yes!  I cannot believe how wonderful it is to have my clothes stay put (they stay put even when you're pulling out something next to something else and they used to both slip off -- not any more), to have all my clothes hanging at the same height, and to know everything in my closet is something I wear. 

There you have it, my last big project for Organizing Season.  It was a big "little" project, but it was so worthwhile.   Commence laughing!  (It is okay...it won't hurt my feelings.)

Cat Boxes

You might remember that we expanded our family this spring.  We got three kittens in a two week period.  To say it has been a ton of chaotic fun would be an understatement.  Seriously...these little fuzzballs have been so delightful to have around, I already can't imagine life at home without them.

Unfortunately, with cats comes litter boxes and more cat food.  Bringing three kittens into our home had us going from one cat who was mostly an outdoor cat and never deigned to use a litter box to four cats, three of whom used litter boxes exclusively.  Throw in two dogs who think the stuff that goes into litter boxes is candy and that kitten food was a readily available snack.  This was making me crazy and not a "fun chaotic crazy".  With winter fast approaching, I knew I needed to come up with a solution because the dogs will be in the house 24/7 when the snow flies!

Have you see these?   These are cat boxes disguised and furniture and I love them.  They're just so much nicer than the standard blue plastic (why are they always blue?).

This one is $169 at csnstores (marked down from $279).  I can't spend $169 on a cat box...no way!

Look at this one!  It is from BigFatKittyCat and is $215 ($49 shipping).  It has compartments...which would be nice.

I can't afford any of these solutions!  (Who can?!)  So, with some missteps and some trepidation, I informed Superman that I needed to learn to use all of his super-cool garage toys:  table saw, miter saw, router, nail gun, and anything else that I noticed out there.  Superman is super-cool himself, so he spent a day teaching me how to use all of his neat toys (he shares nicely, too).    A new drill and some used saw horses, some wood putty and some sandpaper, a few coats of primer, some spray paint, a few hinges, and some plastic and silicon for flooring and I did it!  Two new cat boxes made with my own hands!  I'm so proud of myself, I can't tell you.

I made one with compartments for upstairs, but I'm thinking that I'll give it to the Divine Mrs. M (she has three cats and a dog as well as two big kids and baby!).  We don't really want to have it upstairs (we had planned to put it by the bedrooms) and if she can use it, I'd love for her to have it.

She's measuring to see if it will work in her laundry room.  I hope it does...if it could help her contain her chaos even a little bit, I'd love to help with that.

Here is the one I'm keeping for our downstairs bathroom.  (Right now there is a bowl of cat food on it  (which means the door to the bathroom has to be restricted from opening all the way to keep the dogs out, but in a few more months, the two youngest kittens will be eating from the bowl on the washer and the dog issues will be done.  I'll be able to work on this bathroom - can you see the new flooring we got in January?)

See?  The litter box is far enough back in the box that the dogs can get to it.  The plastic flooring sealed with silicon will make clean-up easy.

I think both boxes cost us about $40 in supplies compared with $500+ for the two I found online.   Oh, and we just measured our spaces, figured out what features we wanted and drew up plans for our cat boxes.  They turned out exactly as we'd planned. Can you believe it?  I'm just so excited and proud of myself.  Now I'm checking to see what Ana at Knock-Off Wood  has for me next!