First, I decided to combine my regular Pinterest account and my blog Pinterest account. I don’t know what possessed me to make a separate account for my blog stuff, but that was such a bad idea. My main account can be found here. Feel free to follow my boards. =) I’m still in the process of combining my accounts, so I apologize in advance for spamming you guys with tons of awesome pins. If you want to leave a comment with a URL for your own Pinterest account, I would love to follow some of you.
Second, what is it with sites like Facebook and Pinterest constantly changing their looks. It makes it more difficult to do otherwise simple tasks. Isn’t one of the Rules to Life, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? There’s a reason for that.
Now! Zach and I bought these metal shelves from Lowe’s about two years ago when we moved and accidentally broke our bookshelf.
This was the original. It was just a cheap laminate bookshelf from Wal-Mart, so we didn’t cry over it too much.
We decided that, for our next set, we wanted something sturdy and versatile. And that’s exactly what these shelves gave us. They started as a place for our books.
That changed when we decided to pack up the books and put them into storage because we realized that 1) moving books is a pain, and 2) we didn’t need to keep all of those books because we rarely use them. (We’ll bring our books back when we have a more permanent place to live. And more room. Right now, we have borrowed books and textbooks in our apartment.) We kept a handful of books and put the white shelves in the kitchen, where they held our appliances for a while.
This picture was taken in the middle of organizing the kitchen, which is why there is a bread box on the floor. The shelves are on the left wall.
Once our landlady said she would put a washer and dryer where the pantry is (across from the shelves, out of the frame) and the pantry where the shelves are, I decided to move the appliances. The ones we never use and will never use, I got rid of. The ones we rarely use but are glad to have because when we do use them, it’s because we need them…we put those on top of the cabinets. The microwave is now on the counters and everything else found a home within cabinets. I also got rid of stuff in cabinets. My new rule for keeping kitchen-related things is that if I have to ask Zach, “Do you know what this is?” then it gets tossed or given to someone who does recognize it.
After reorganizing the kitchen, the shelves were moved into the office where they could serve as a storage spot for all of my craft-related things: paint, the power drills, tool boxes, glue, ribbons, fabrics, etc. But it looked awful.
If something has the potential to become something nice, then I kept it. And, yes, I am going to do something with those Amazon boxes. Eventually. (I already know what, I’m just not there yet.)
After looking at that for a week, I ran to Lowe’s. My first stop would be Ikea, but it takes about an hour and a half to get there. Screw that. Lowe’s had some nice storage containers, but they were really expensive. The cheapest I saw was $7. I needed nine of them, which would have brought the grand total to $64 before taxes. Um, no. I was willing to pay at the VERY most, $30…but $64 was out of the question.
I was about to head home and see if I could find anything online, but then Zach remembered that he wanted to go to Best Buy. We stopped there…and it was brought to my attention that the Dollar Tree is right across from Best Buy. (I mean, I knew that…it just slipped my mind.) So we ran in and I found exactly what I needed.
For $1 each.
Bringing the grand total to $9. Woo!
This is SO much better. They’re more boring and a little shorter than I wanted them to be (and in all honesty, I’m not thrilled that the picture over the shelves blends in now), but they work.
I organized everything into “like” items and put them each in the same bin. I then put the small, cloth tool kit inside the large, plastic one (along with the drill). Originally, I was keeping my paint in there. The paint is currently in a bin; however, I intend to put it somewhere more accessible later…I know what I want, I’m just having trouble finding it (but I haven’t checked Amazon, which might be why). As you can see, the fold-up table that I use to paint on sticks out a lot, but it’s better than having it up against a wall.
The office/guest room still needs work, but it’s really starting to come together. As well as it can, anyway.
“But, Chelsey, surely cloth bins from the Dollar Tree would just fall apart, right?” Wrong! I actually asked myself the exact same thing. They have those handles on the front and I kept thinking, “These are going to tear right off when I try to use them, I just know it.” NOPE! For only $1, these were made very well. Obviously, they can only hold so much weight before tearing (though I have not experienced tearing, this is just something common sense tells me), but they are very nice bins for what I need them to do. I am incredibly happy with this purchase.
Off topic now.
Some of you may have noticed that big bag that’s sitting between the shelves and the nightstand. That is Zach’s sand bag. It contains 75 pounds worth of sand. In warm weather, instead of going to the gym, he likes to exercise outdoors by running around with it. He also does strength exercises by dropping it and picking it back up or doing squats with it on his shoulders. Things like that. It cost us maybe $20, which is way cheaper than a gym membership or a set of weights. And when he gets used to the weight, he adds more sand. He has a system that makes adding or subtracting sand easy and relatively mess-free. If he decides to add more this summer, I’ll be sure to show you exactly how it works. (Or maybe he will in the form of a guest post.)