Drawing on the Furniture

On one of our various moves, my brother-in-law Rusty scratched the headboard of our bed.  Big time.  You can see it here.

Fortunately, until recently we had been using a box spring on our bed, which pushed the mattress up and concealed the scratch from view. Now, however, in preparation for our new memory foam mattress that will be arriving any day now, we have ditched the box spring (it’s gone into my office to make it into a guest room) and are using slats.  This makes the mattress wayyyy lower on the bed, and now, If I haven’t plumped the pillows up, you can see the scratch.

I’m not sure exactly what the finish is on our bed.  It’s something that’s not quite a veneer, not quite just paint.  Either way, I came up with an easy solution.  It turns out that Crayola’s black coloured pencil is the exact colour of our bed.  How convenient.

So I just coloured in the scratch.  It was that simple.  I mean the scratch is still there, because it’s pretty deep and shows up quite strongly in relief, but it’s a bit less obvious.  I also took the pencil around the bed and coloured in all the chips and nicks from the past seven years.  It worked beautifully.

If you have wood finish, why not try it with some brown coloured pencils?  I have heard as well that rubbing a walnut over wood scratches helps to hide them.  Try it!

Put a Lid on It!

Like my mother, containers are my passion.  Bowls.  Vases.  Tins.  Boxes.  Jars.  I love them all, vintage ones especially.

I used to have a number of vintage jars to store various items in my pantry.  The Pie has broken two of them (*I* only break things that are new and expensive), but I’ve got some left.

The lids are a little finicky, though, I guess from years of denting and twisting and probably a faint patina of rust and grime on the lid itself.  It’s hard to get everything to thread properly sometimes.

So my trick is pretty simple.  I take a piece of paper towel and I put a drop or two of vegetable oil on it.

Then I rub it on the inside edge of the threaded part of the lid, making sure that it doesn’t come into contact with anything that might touch the contents of the jar.

It’s the same sort of logic as spritzing cooking spray on a recalcitrant zipper.  A little lubrication goes a long way.

The Accommodating Office

This will (hopefully) be the last full summer that we live here in St. John’s.  Accordingly, our friends and families are taking advantage of it and we are having four separate sets of guests staying in our house from June all the way until August.

Normally when we have guests, we cram an air mattress into the tiny space that is my home office floor and force our guests to live in cramped conditions for the duration of their visit.

This summer, probably because the Pie and I will be sleeping in there while our parents take our bed, we decided to move things around to make for a little more room.

We got a Groupon deal for a new memory foam mattress, and so when (if) it arrives we plan to keep the old mattress for a few extra weeks and use it on the floor of the guest room/office.  As crappy as the mattress is, if you have ever slept with another person on an air mattress you will know how much more preferable it is to being flopped around every time the other person rolls over or gets in or out of bed.  Anyway, in order to do this we had to make a bit more room for ourselves.

Many of my teaching materials are going across the street to my school office.  I should really use it for more than meeting with my students, as it’s pretty spacious and, unlike most of the students in my department, I only share it with one other person, a per-course instructor like me who is never there.  I plan to stake my claim on the desk by the window. I’ve already dusted it, after all.

If we could afford it, the Pie and I would be all over some amazing furniture that better utilizes small spaces.  Watch this video from Resource Furniture and see what I mean — it’s very inspiring.  As we can’t afford it, we did the best we could.  I found this desk online and decided that a small rolling desk was probably the best option for us, and that $60 was a decent price for it.  My old desk, which was actually originally in the Pie’s office, was a sturdy structure from IKEA, in the JERKER line.  I hated it.  Mostly because if you are familiar with IKEA furniture, you know that once you put it together the first time, you really shouldn’t take it apart ever again.  And we moved this heavy sucker FIVE TIMES.

Fortunately our friend Kirby had a serious crush on the desk, and with no IKEA nearer than Québec City, had no way to get one of his very own.  So we gave him this one, and he’s very happy with it.

So, after de-cluttering my work area (so much stuff that was out in view that could be put away somewhere else), and shoving the freezer over to the other side of the room, there’s a lot more floor space in my office, plenty of room for a queen-sized mattress and some more to spare.

We can simply roll the desk into our room or the dining room or wherever, so that I can still do some work at home while people are here.  And I will use my school office more often as well.

I bought this little metal shelf from Canadian Tire to support my herb farm once I re-potted it and I suspect another one will do a handy job of holding all my fabric (the shoe shelf I am currently using is not really up to the strain).

The new shelf in the office.

Of course, removing a large and tall piece of furniture left a huge empty spot on my wall.  But I can fill that easily enough.  I added two more prints I got for Christmas, and then used Rasterbator and a picture of Gren to fill the rest of the space.  Cait tells me she looks forward to waking up to Gren’s looming face when she and her sister come to visit this August.  I told her that not only would she have the poster version, but the real Gren would probably loom over her to wake her up as well.  This is his favourite room to play ball in after all.

Filing Facelift

Happy 400th post!

After I finished reorganizing the library at work I ended up with about two dozen of those cardboard magazine files that I no longer needed at the office.  I thought I could use a few in my home office, to keep my teaching stuff separate from my thesis stuff, and the Pie could always use some organizational aids.

The problem is, of course, that these are old, ugly, and UGLY.  So they needed a bit of a facelift.

First I took the suckers outside and used a can of spray-paint on them in an attempt to make them less ugly.

Unfortunately they were SO ugly that I went through an entire can of paint and the ugliness shone through still.  I did, however, forget to wear gloves and thus my hands (and my rings) became encrusted with paint.

Luckily a bit of vinegar, baking soda, and a pipe cleaner got them shiny again.

Can’t say as much for my hands though.

Anyway, I also had a can of spray gesso, and so I went with that, and it worked a lot better.  I only focused on the front part of the holder, the part you were going to see, so I didn’t feel I was wasting it on surfaces I wasn’t planning on showing.

Then I painted.  I stuck four together, upside-down so the angle was a good one for working, and got going with some acrylic craft paint.

A few vines and some grass.

Fun with rubber stamps.

More rubber stamps.

And the finished product, on my shelf.  Okay, it’s not my best effort, but I’ve been a little preoccupied recently and it’s better than what was there before.

Here are two little ‘uns that are going to play host to all of the Pie’s fighting games.  When I get more paint I’m going to do the Street Fighter logo across them to make him happy.

You can also use wrapping paper or wallpaper or even fabric to jazz up your holders.  Just trace the outline of the box onto the paper or fabric.

Cut it out.

Grab yourself some double-sided tape and slap it on. I am a huge fan of double-sided tape. I put that *%#! on everything.

You might have to trim the edges a bit afterwards but it’s easy peasy.

Handy Items: My Steamy Companions, Continued

Howdy.

If you tuned in on Wednesday you know that I splurged a little at Canadian Tire last weekend and ended up with two steam appliances.  The one I’d like to show you today is the Shark Steam Blaster.  I’ve wanted this thing for months, but I was hoping it would go on sale.  It never did, and I figured now was as good a time as any.  Both sets of parents are coming to stay this summer and I want to make sure the house is as shipshape as possible before they get here.

This machine has some amazing potential.  I’ve only used it twice so far, but the possibilities for it continue to reveal themselves.  The day I got it I waged war on the mildew and weird orange goo and dusty grouting in my bathroom and I’m still reveling in the glorious cleanliness of it all.

The rest of my house?  Well …

I live in an old house.  So the paint is crumbling, and everything has a rough edge, and dusty in all the corners.  All those witchy little corners you can never quite get clean — UNTIL NOW.

Brace yourself.  I’m about to let you in on how grossly filthy my house actually is.

This is the line around my ancient stained ceramic sink.  It’s filled with unidentifiable goo my sponge won’t reach.

This is the godlike cleanliness of my sink edge after I blasted it with some steam.  The whole thing is still scratched and ugly and whatever, but it FEELS clean.  It’s amazing,

When I was looking at purchasing this machine, I read all the reviews.  Most of the negative ones surrounded the fact that the steam blaster isn’t also a vacuum — it just blasts the crap out of stuff and usually spits it somewhere else.  This is kind of gross, as you can see when I used the brush attachment on my stovetop burner rings.

But a quick swipe with a soft cloth and you are left with this gorgeousness. And I didn’t even have to scrub!

I mopped my floor, as well.  This is a floor I’d actually cleaned recently.  You can’t really tell, because the linoleum tiles are ancient and stained and never look clean.  But clean or no, this was the mop head after I’d gone over it once.  I don’t even know where that piece of kibble embedded in the cloth came from.

Then I flipped it over and did it again.  And I’m still picking up goo.  But I would probably eat off that floor now.

There’s even a squeegee so you can do your windows.  It’s pretty neat, though a bit awkward to hold when you get to the bottom of the window.  But still pretty neat.

Remember that this is a machine that shoots out pressurized high temperature steam when you hit a button.  And I haven’t burnt myself yet.  That’s amazing in itself.

Something I want to try is to clean my oven with the steam blaster.  If you know me, you’ll know I am a huge slob when it comes to the inside of my oven.  I started to run out of steam (both literally and figuratively) about an hour into blasting the crap out of my kitchen, but I took a minute to give my oven door a swab with the brush feature.

There wasn’t a lot of pressure behind it, but even so I was amazed at what I could wipe off afterwards with a flannel cloth.

One gross item in my house did manage to defeat it, and that is my scratched up ceramic sink. I have to bleach it on occasion because the staining gets so bad. But you can see the steam did make a few dents in the dingy.

I’m definitely going to use this sucker on the grime of a million past tenants in my place, especially on my fireplace, and the residue of winter all over my stairs.  I’m also going to pry up the burner rings and have at them as well.

I just can’t get over how clean everything FEELS when you’re done wiping it up.  And with very little effort on your own part. AND WITH NO CHEMICALS!

Enough product-plugging from me. Back to the regular crafty, cookie posts on Monday. Have a great weekend!

Handy Items: My Steamy Companions

It was a steamy weekend here on Elizabeth.  Not because of romance or anything like that (well, there was some of that but I won’t bother you with that), but because of two purchases I made while out with Fussellette on Saturday.

They are the Shark Steam Blaster steam cleaning system, and the Shark Garment Steamer (which was 50% off!) and I got them both from Canadian Tire.

I’m not going to give you specific brand-related product reviews for these things, but I do want to show you a few things that make these appliances very handy items to have around the home.

Let’s look at the garment steamer first, shall we?

I hate ironing.  With the passion of a thousand suns.  With this gadget the only time I need to bust out my ancient ironing board is when I’m doing something crafty and need the flattening power an iron can offer.

I’m assuming all these rigs are easy to assemble and use. There’s only one button, for turning it on and off. Obviously you need to be careful when you are operating this sort of machine, because it is shooting hot steam out of one end.

One of the best things about the steamer is its portability. I can pick it off the stand and carry it about to the extent of its power cord, or an extension cord if necessary. So I can use it on my curtains, which I usually hang while they are wet, so they don’t get seriously wrinkled. But of course there are still a few bumps and dents that require steaming out. The bristle attachment on the steamer head makes it easier to work with thicker fabrics and denser materials.

A few quick swipes of the curtains and not only are they wrinkle-free, they are also completely scent-free as well. This is a handy item indeed if you have a smoker in your house and you find all your porous materials collect the smell of smoke. Or garlic, or other cooking smells.

For us, we just have the dog, so pet odours are our main issue, but fortunately they are limited to the items he can touch, and he is too short to reach the curtains. But I can just run this over our bedspread and now there is no scent of dog on it. There’s no scent at all, in fact.

Very handy for removing odors of smoke, sweat, stale perfume or deodorant, pet smells, you name it. It works well for clothing that you can only dry clean or you don’t want to wash too often. And left behind is the scent of nothing, which in this day and age is the best scent of all.

You can also use it to refresh some of your other cloth treasures. My grandfather gave me this polar bear when I was around two and I don’t care that I’m thirty — I’m never getting rid of it.

And of course this machine is designed to get rid of the wrinkles in fabric. If you take off the bristle attachment it is remarkably good for smoothing out my more delicate dresses, like this one of chiffon silk (which would be ruined with an iron).

Just see what it can do to this faux-pashmina scarf, which you can see got all wrinkled in the washing machine.

A few passes later and you can’t even tell that it (or half of it) was ever wrinkly.

Definitely something worth having on hand. And so much easier to use than an iron, where you have to worry about getting the pleats sorted or the seams lined up …

Now I think in the interests of space I’ll leave off showing you what the Steam Blaster can do until Friday. Stay tuned!

Moving Closets

Two posts about my closet in a week.  I’m sorry about this.  I’m not really feeling that creative lately, but I do have an overwhelming urge to organize the crap out of everything.  So unfortunately that’s what you get from me this week.  Sorry again.

If you are lucky and live in a utopia where there is plenty of storage, then you probably won’t find this post interesting at all.  If, however, you are a normal person with the normal amount of crap that people accumulate, you might find this helpful.

We have six closets in our house.  I suppose that makes us lucky.  But they’re a little limiting.  One closet houses our hot water heater, so it’s a write-off for storage.  Another holds our coats, shopping bags, and boots.  Another gives a place for our power tools and place settings and dog-related equipment.  Another is the linen closet I featured on Monday, which also stores our luggage, toilet paper, facial tissue, and paper towel.

I recently moved into my husband’s closet.  Previously, I put all my girl clothes in the closet in my office, which is also where we store our camping equipment, Hallowe’en decorations, Christmas decorations, fabric, yarn, and an ever-growing collection of flattened cardboard boxes that await our eventual move back to the mainland.

Space is at a premium in this closet, and lately, the things (stacked neatly) on the floor of the closet started to interfere with the things (hung neatly) on the pole.  Mostly it was the scads of empty boxes.  So I had to move.  Fortunately, I don’t own too many girly clothes that require hanging up, so my husband will barely notice that I’m there (mine is the stuff to the left of the white fabric shelving). Of course, his closet is where we store all our miscellaneous technical equipment: coaxial cables, pieces of computer, boxes and cases for PS3s and Wiis and whatnot.  Baseball gear.  Our vacuum.  Miscellaneous unidentifiable items that the Pie won’t let me throw away.

To save space, I have hung my dresses on stacked trouser hangers.  This means that the dresses themselves don’t hang so low in the closet that their bottoms get dusty and wrinkled dangling amidst all the other crazy things.  So I simply folded them in half and draped them from the waistline on these hangers, which you can get anywhere.

In addition to keeping the hems out of harm’s way, it also takes the pressure of gravity off some of the more delicate straps and hanging loops, all of which tend to stretch and mis-shape your dresses if you leave them hanging like that for too long. Having the dresses securely folded across these hangers (which have non-slip coatings on them) also means that I won’t be searching for something else and accidentally knock a dress or two to the floor, where it will be smushed into the chaos in the bottom of the closet.

That also frees up a bunch of hanger space.  And I realized that I had over a hundred of these babies that we were never going to use.  I find it hard to believe that we used to have enough clothes to fill all of these things!

Lining Up Yer Linens

Martha Stewart.  Love her or hate her (or, like me, oscillate frequently between the two emotions), but you have to admit that the woman (or one of her various minions) knows how to organize a closet.

We don’t have a lot of linens in our linen closet, but if I leave the Pie to his own devices for even an hour I will find the whole thing in complete disarray.  Folding stuff and stacking it in neat piles is not something in his skill set (which is fine, because he’s really good at other things, like frying eggs over-easy, which is not in MY skill set).

Martha suggests keeping your various sheet sets folded and tucked into one of their own pillowcases.  This way they stay folded if the pile falls over, and you don’t end up looking for lost pillow cases at inopportune times.  So simple.

Library Shuffle

By night (and by weekend), intrepid blogger and try-er of new things.

By day, mild-mannered law librarian?

Yes.  That is actually what I do for a living as I procrastinate my way through my anthropology degree.  I am a librarian at a large-ish law firm downtown, and it’s a great gig.

A couple weeks ago, someone alerted me to the fact that there were NINE boxes of books hidden in a store room on another floor.  Nine.  And these weren’t small boxes.  It took me and my cart three trips to get them all upstairs, and I got stuck in the space between the elevator and the floor every time.

These new books turned out to be volumes of statutes and old Newfoundland Acts.  Many of these things we already have in duplicate, but I was able to fill in some gaps, which was great.  But where am I going to put all these things?  I can’t just throw them away.  Lawyers are particularly attached to large-scale book series, because they look good on shelves.  So I had to do some reorganizing.  And so you get a blog post about it!

The last time I reorganized the library was four years ago, when I first started here.  The previous librarian had a laissez-faire attitude towards keeping things current (and tidy), so I did the best I could at the time, given my inexperience with many of the practice areas.  Now I am a hardened veteran, and I know what’s good and what’s not.  And what I don’t know, I ask about.  Plus no one likes to question me when I’m in an organizational frenzy.

This is the library as it was before the organization:

My desk area:

These statutes are in constant use and it’s annoying having people constantly going in behind me to get them out, so I’m going to move them somewhere more accessible.

The “stacks” with the new books piled and awaiting my discretion:

These, Hallsbury’s Laws of England, are very rarely used by our lawyers, so I thought that I would put them in a more decorative place, up on the highest part of the shelf.

Unfortunately I didn’t bank on the huge gaping hole between shelves.  Almost lost one there.

So I blocked it with a piece of foam board and a plaster gargoyle from Dollarama.  I wonder if the firm will reimburse me for my $2.50 expense?

Looks good, though.

In the end, I moved almost every single book we have in the library, which, by my estimation is almost three thousand.

I also ended up recycling probably about two-fifths of the collection.  When your books are updated every year, and the legislation changes rapidly, you can’t even give away your outdated books.  Some of the assistants use them to weigh down pressed flowers or to support their computer monitors, but most of them end up in the recycling bin.  I was looking up DIY projects that use old books, but, cool as they are, I don’t need any bookends or secret hiding places, and I’m not good enough to make sculptures or lamps out of them.  I did save a few hardcovers, just in case, but only a few.

I can’t even count the number of times I filled this cart for a trip to the recycling bin.  And I could only do it twice a day, otherwise the bin overflowed and I’m convinced the cleaning staff already hates me.

So this is the new library.  I’m sure you can’t really tell the difference, but everyone who uses it can, and that’s good enough for me.  That piece of cake there is a remnant of my weekly baking club.  Man I love Fridays.

My desk area, now stocked with books we don’t use very often:

And the stacks, now clutter-free and filled with duplicate statutes.

I realize this DIY isn’t really applicable to you, unless you happen to have access and administrative powers over a large number of books, but it’s definitely inline with my irresistible urge to clean things up and throw things out.  And I thought I’d give you some insight to what I do all day. Well, this is it.

Diverting Disaster and Things I Learned from Christina Aguilera

Sorry for the lackluster posts this week, my trusty readers.  At the beginning of the week, my pantry looked like this:

So The Pie put his foot down and demanded some reorganization.  But with school and work and some ridiculous snowstorms, we had to do it piecemeal.  As a result, all available surfaces in my kitchen, including the floor, looked like this for a while:

At one point there was absolutely no counter space at all and so when the Pie did the dishes he had to put the drying rack on the floor, near Gren’s food and water.  Gren was seriously not amused with the disruption.

Now, however, my pantry looks like this:

Finally I can put all my spices on the same shelf, which appeals to the OCD in me.

Who’s to say how long this state of apparent tidiness will last?  Not me.

Anyway, I have a tip for you today, and it comes from pop singer/actress Christina Aguilera.  Actually, I don’t really know if it comes from her or not, but I saw her do it in Burlesque and I thought it was a neat trick.

I don’t know why this is, but sometimes I have trouble opening the lids of household aerosols (actually, the only household aerosol I have is cooking spray, but I’m sure this works with other things).  They’re not like spray paint, which has places you press to get them open.  So sometimes I struggle.

The trick, according to Ms. Aguilera, who did it with a can of hairspray, is to smartly rap the  bottom of the can on the counter top.  Then the lid will open easy peasy.  And strangely enough, it works!