I love shoes. I do not have an entire shoe closet or anything, just 10 or so pairs of fancy shoes, and lots and lots of flip flops. I decided to do something about my mess of a shoe closet this weekend. I found shoe boxes at Big Lots for $1 each and came home with five of them. This was a trial run and I just wanted to see how the shoes would fit…
Before -- It's a shoe disaster!!
As you can see, there were piles of flip flops on the floor and lots of shoes in their original boxes. That is not the best way to store shoes, as you cannot see what they actually look like. I tried to keep the little pictures / post its with descriptions on the front, but it just does not do them justice.
After -- so much better!
I also got a couple of open boxes for the flop flops.
After -- a better view from the front!
The clear shoe boxes were just what the doctor ordered and I plan to buy five to 10 more in the next couple of weeks. I can already see just how gorgeous this closet is going to be! How do you organize your shoes?
Our life has been very busy lately. Busy lives = chaos in the home, at least that is usually the case for us. I had some free time this weekend and used it to do some major clean-up around the house. This way we can be busy and not in chaos! One project (that I may or may not have been avoiding) was organizing the file cabinet/filing things; we had a stack of paper probably a foot high that needed filing. Papers were stuck in random drawers and in piles on desks — in short it was a disaster! I gave myself two large chunks of time to sort things out: Friday night and Saturday morning. That way I was able to have some down time in between. I definitely needed time to regroup!
Unorganized Messy Labels
After I sorted all of the papers into files by type (medical, giving, home, etc.), I took them back to the file cabinet and started putting them away. The problem is that our files were messy. I had not really changed them since Matt’s bachelorhood — and instead of the plastic labels, he used masking tape. Over time, I added newer folders with built in labels. This weekend, I fixed all of the messy labels. I cut off the tape and replaced them with nice new paper labels inside plastic sleeve things. It looks so much nicer!
Nice and Clean File Labels
Okay, so the camera does not do it justice. The files really do look so much better! Also, I forgot to take before pictures until I was halfway through cutting off the old labels. I did, however, get a sweet picture of all of the cut off labels!
The Old "Labels"
What a mess! It was so nice to get all of our papers filed away and organized. I added a few new files, and fixed the labels on the old ones. It may seem like a small project, but I was so glad to have it finished. The tiny project really does make the whole house feel organized. What have you been organizing lately? What seemingly small projects have you done that made your life feel so much better? Next on my list: taking pictures of our garage sale stuff and listing it on eBay.
Earlier this week, I talked about our entryway and shared some finished Ns. I wanted to give you all an update on crafty projects that I talked about last year.
Project Number 1: Journals. I scrapped this project. I knew I would never finish them, so I just tossed them.
Project Number 2: Wedding initials. Done. I showed my newsprint one earlier. Here are the other two…
Project Number 3: The beanie was unwound and I am currently making a bunny with it. It was for Easter… maybe I will finish it by next Easter.
If you want to see the rest, click on over the jump…
A while back, Emily discussed chores and how she and her Matt get theirs done. My Matt and I have finally figured out that the best way to keep our home clean is a combination of things: regular guests/church at our house, a chore chart, and mutual encouragement. Let’s go ahead and break that down.
The kitchen chalkboard is a perfect place for heartfelt encouragement -- or a list of things to bake!
Regular guests. I love entertaining, obviously. I want to have the house clean when people come over, so that is a good motivator for me. Our cell church has divided and now meets at three different homes on Sunday; this is exciting as our small home can now host church. We have been hosting about every other week — meaning the guest bathroom and front of the home are deep cleaned and de-cluttered on a bi-weekly basis.
Chore charts. We made a google spreadsheet outlining what chores need to be done and how often. We split up the list together, leaving some things (like dishes) as joint tasks. Each room or area now has a specific date and time that it gets cleaned. For someone who is poor with time management (me) this keeps things manageable. We rarely look around the house and have no idea where to begin cleaning!
Mutual encouragament. Words of affirmation is one of my love languages, and verbalizing things helps us figure out what is going well (or not) in our marriage and chores. I feel like a million bucks when Matt complements our spotless sink. And I know he appreciates the notes of greatfulness that I leave on the mirror after he cleans the shower.
This combination of methods has been pretty successful for keeping our home clean and tidy. What works for you and your hubby? Any ways to keep it fun and lighthearted?
Today I’m tackling a not-so-pretty subject. It’s a little embarrassing, but apparently it’s common enough that I thought I would share so that it might benefit someone else: carpet beetles. If you just stick with me through some gross bug-talk, I promise there’s a fun video at the end.
Over the last six months or so, I’ve noticed some odd tiny bugs and couldn’t figure out what they were or where they were coming from. There wasn’t a ton of them, but every few weeks or so I’d find one and it struck me as odd. Research led me to find they were carpet beetles.
These are how tiny the little stinkers are. Yuck.
Essentially, you start seeing their larvae around the baseboards and carpets. They’re really tiny hair worm like things that are a few millimeters long. They eat carpet and other fibers and eventually turn into tiny beetles. They almost look like tiny ladybugs with wings. You’ll find these in similar places, but also near windows. While not harmful, they may damage fabrics and carpets. The good thing is that it doesn’t mean that you live in a filthy home if you have them. It just means it’s time to clean, clean, clean.
It’s been a couple weeks and I haven’t seen a trace of the nasty little bugs. We washed our clothes, sheets and towels, and vacuumed every inch of our floors (carpet, rugs and laminate), paying special attention to the baseboards, as well as our couch. It involved moving furniture and clearing clutter, but it was well worth the massive effort for the peace of mind.
From what we read, however, we needed to vacuum the floors every day for about a week to really keep them from coming back. While it seemed like we didn’t have an extreme case of the little pests, I was overwhelmed by all the work to keep them from returning. So I may or may not have convinced Matt to use our Costco credit card rewards to bring home an iRobot Roomba vacuum.
Love my Roomba!
The idea was just to try it, but so far we really like it. It seems to do a fairly thorough job as long as you keep your floors clear of clutter. It does well on carpet and bare floors, and even picks up my long hair well. The one compromise that I’ve noticed is that you have to clean out the brushes more often. It doesn’t get the stairs, which is probably its biggest downfall.
If you wanted to know the real reason why I wanted it, though, is so I could make a DJ Roomba as seen in Parks and Recreation.
So far, we’re carpet beetle free! Chalk that up as a win for our cleaning robot. Thank goodness. I’m hoping none of you have to deal with any of those pesky pests!
vacuum.
Thank goodness. I’m hoping none of you have to deal with any of those pesky pests!
