Style Lush

Entryway Storage Problem Solved! (and a Sad Goodbye)

By Sara

Wow. So this is it, friends. Our last week of posting (for now). It has been a pleasure to see you here every week for the past few years, and I'm really going to miss you. Before I say goodbye, I wanted to share something I've finally checked off my To Do List. Let me take you back to 2010 and my desperate plea for help in dealing with our complete lack of storage in our entryway. Here are the photos I posted to show you what I was dealing with:

You'll notice a lack of closets, hooks, pretty much anything that resembles coat/shoe storage. It was a...problem. I improvised these past few years with an over the door rack on the basement door but that was cumbersome and provided hooks for only a few coats. On New Years' Eve a few weeks ago, my husband and I sat down and came up with a House To Do List for 2013 and at the tippy top of that list was "entryway storage plan". I'm proud to say we actually came up with a plan, executed it, and are now enjoying a much more welcoming and organized entryway.

First, my husband and I installed faux board and batten on the short wall separating the living room and dining room and parallel to the stairway:

 

I say "faux" board and batten because we cheated and didn't actually install the "board" part which would sit behind the "batten" or vertical pieces of wood. We attached the vertical wood trim pieces directly to the wall and painted it all in a semi-gloss white to match the existing trim. I won't go into detail on our process since there are already great detailed DIY tutorials on the web but suffice to say it required triple measuring, quadruple leveling and a loud nail gun. 

The hooks and bench are from Ikea and the basket for shoes is from HomeGoods. The new front door is from Home Depot and we installed that sucker last winter ALL BY OURSELVES. Why yes, I am feeling rather smug and proud of us. To combat the influx of mail and give us a place to drop our keys, I moved a console from the living room into the entry:

The bottom baskets hold our hat, gloves and scarves in the winter and then sunhats, sunscreen, and sunglasses in the summer. A console like this is really functional in the entryway and if you have the room, I highly recommend one. 

I have a few more improvements coming for this space and I hope you visit me over at my personal blog Belle Plaine to see the final reveal. Again, thank you all for making Style Lush one of your daily reads. It's been a fun three years and I look forward to seeing you all again!

xoxo.

Dog Crate Topper

By Jen

We have two dogs that live in our house.  Both are crate trained (thank goodness) so when we leave the house, we put them away in their nice little houses and they stay there until we get back.  However, this also means that I have two giant dog crates in my house.  One is in the laundry room and the other one is in our upstairs closet.  They take up a lot of space. 

I’ve always ended up piling things on top of them, but being made out of wire, that doesn’t really work very well.  It occurred to me one day that I could get some wood cut and make a roof for each dog crate.  So I measured and headed off to the hardware store.  A nice guy there found me a giant piece of wood (he went outside to get it, apparently it is for construction of some kind) and cut it into pieces according to my dimensions.  The whole thing cost me something like $7!  (And these are big pieces of wood!)  The wood was very rough, so I bought them into my garage and painted them with some leftover paint I had. 

And ta da!  Dog crate toppers!  Now I have room on top of the laundry room dog crate for a cube system where I keep all sorts of things and I use the bedroom dog crate mainly for stacks of junk.  I am doing to fix that eventually though, I swear. 

(Photo by me)

Have you come up with any creative ways to turn something that was a space nightmare into something helpful? 

Help Me Make This Cute

By Jessica

One of my goals for this year is the complete organization and de-cluttering of my house. I need this for my sanity, NEED IT, and one of the first areas I've been tackling is the entry way by my front door. I had some "big dreams" of finding an entry table at a thrift store and using that as a way to keep the mail from crossing the threshold and continuing to take over the top of our bar. After the reality of my local Goodwill shattered that for me, I decided to rummage through my garage and see what I already had that might be able to work. 

Which is how I came to have this metal shelving thing brought into the house. 

It's not the prettiest thing going but it did suit a lot of the needs this area has: storage for my boots, a space for baskets to hold misc shoes and paper recycling, space for mailing needs (envelopes, stamps and an address book), someplace to put the mail itself and a space for my husband to put his work bag.

Right now all the mail is pretty much just slapped down on the top of the thing, I have one sad little candle holder over in the corner and the misc shoes are in an old picnic basket BUT it was such un-believable progress from how bad this area used to look, that I was willing to just live with it for a bit. 

I also have to admit being stumped by the unit itself. It's brown coated metal on the sides and shelves, with a wood laminate top and chrome accents. How exactly best to paint such disparate surfaces? 

Also, do I want to paint it a bright color and go with plain baskets? Or paint it white or black and go with bright baskets? And for the mail do I want something to sort it on the top or maybe some sort of magnetic sorter on the side and leave the top for display?

HELP ME!

IKEA Kitchen Cart as a Craft Cart

By Jennie

A week or so ago, I saw Emily--one of my favorites (and Style Lush veteran)--post this picture on her Instagram feed:

(Photo used with permission by Emily) 

Emily had taken this IKEA RASKOG Kitchen Cart ($49.99) and turned it into a kid's craft corner. Simple and brilliant. I love that you can just roll it around your kitchen or dining-room table, to serve whatever kid (or mom, I can color like a boss) needs a crayon or piece of paper in that moment. 

I think it's a great color but you could spice things up with a can of spraypaint, no problem. (Check out this post from Manda on some good spraypaint tips!) 

Thanks for sharing, Emily!

Parker Nesting Bowls

By Beth

I have a set of glass nesting bowls that my mother gave me when I was in college, and they are great, except that they are not at all attractive and the largest one has a broken rim and while I still use it I know it is time to let it go.  But come on, these things are bead sorters and guinea pig feeders and play-dough cutters and oh yes, I do occasionally use them in the kitchen.

But they really need to be replaced.  So when the Crate & Barrel catalogue arrived several weeks ahead of my recent birthday and I found a new set of nesting bowls while thumbing through, I handed the open catalogue to my husband and pointed and said "you need to get me this for my birthday."  And he did, here they are:

I love them.  I love them and I haven't even used them for anything yet.  But trust me, nobody is cutting play-dough or feeding pets out of my new bowls.

(Photo credit: crateandbarrel.com)

Rapportive: Great Gmail Plugin

By Jennie

I don't know where I first heard of Rapportive, but I decided to give it a whirl and add it to my Gmail account. I must have been feeling technoligically adventurous that day. Rapportive is an add-on or plug-in, whatever the appropriate lingo is, that adds "rich contact profiles" right inside your Gmail. 

Here, I took a screen shot to show you:

(You might have to click to enlarge. Oh, and that's my Rapportive profile.)

Basically a profile pops up to the right of anyone you're emailing. You can see someone's LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed, etc. (and follow/connect with them on all those places if you don't already). You can see where someone is located, too. 

It feels a little voyerustic, but it's also a lot of fun to learn more about your possible contacts or new blog friends, etc. I also think it personalizes interaction. Everyone who emails you is a person--which, obviously, but there's little disconnect with that thought. It encourages me to respond faster to emails and to-dos. It really has helped me be more productive.

So, hey, if you're into social media and connecting with contacts and other things like that, give it a try. It's free, and I recommend it.

Jewelry Wrangling

by Christina

Last week I copped to hoarding accessories. After writing that post I realized that I needed to revisit my system for keeping them organized. I asked Twitter for ideas for storing my big rings and one of the tips was the ceramic egg holder from Anthropologie (similar), which I have, but I was using it poorly. It was full of earrings that didn't quite fit along with rings and really it was a heap. I don't have a lot of space so I knew I needed something a little unconventional so I looked through closet organization and then ended up in the kitchen section. I chose this.

A glass condiment dish and some command strips and turned it into this.

 

 

You can see it hanging on the wall to the right. I put my dangle earrings around the edge, my bracelets inside and put my rings in the egg holder where they should have been all along.

So much better. Now I can really see what I have, and that I sadly, do not need anymore jewelry. Never stopped me with shoes.....

(personal photos)

 

 

Alarmed: The Best To-Do List App (I've Found)

By Jennie

You may remember that I'm always on the hunt for better ways to stay organized. See, as I get older, I've found I can't remember a thing. If I don't put it on my calendar, write a reminder, or add it to my to-do list, it will be immediately forgotten. I hate this! I used to have such a good memory, but I blame a combination of aging, parenthood, and all that tequila in college catching up with me.

Since I got my iPhone, I've been looking for a reminders app, something that would actually remind me of the things on my to-do list. I've tried a handful and they disappointed me each time. No push alerts, no distinctive reminder sound, no way to organize by date, no way to see completed tasks, no way to delay something by a few days.

Then I found Alarmed and I love it.

I set myself a reminder for EVERYTHING (and I do mean everything). If there's anything I need to do--from bring snacks to my son's school to filling out paperwork to a coffee date to my bills, it goes on here. I can set the time I want to be reminded, and I try to make those reminders at a time when I know I'll be able to immediately take care of something, but I can always snooze or re-edit the reminder if I need to.

What I really love is that if I do ignore or forget about a reminder, it stays on my list and I see it anytime I open up the app. So if I actually "forget" something, no problem! I can see it there time and again.

If you're looking for a similar app, I wholeheartedly recommend. Download! Use! Never forget again!

Still curious, what's your favorite to-do list app?

Mesh Cutlery Trays

By Beth

I recently renovated my kitchen (I swear I have at least six months of material starting with that sentence) and one of my favorite additions is something I bought on the cheap and hid away in a drawer.  But really, huge difference in my life right here.

That's my silverware.  My 16 place settings of silverware because my children us a new fork or spoon for each type of food they are served that never ever fit properly in the plastic organizer I had before.  And wait until you see this:

Would you like a wooden spoon?  A potato peeler?  A 1/4 teaspoon measuring spoon that was always at the very back of my disastrous drawer?  No problem, I have all those things right here where I can find them.

Really, I love these drawer organizer things.  Mine are Copco Mesh Cutlery Trays from Bed Bath & Beyond (never buy anything there without a coupon, you know that, right?) and they come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and configurations, and I highly recommend you upgrade from those horrible molded plastic things you likely have now.

(Photo credit: me in my new kitchen)

Update: Birthday Gifts: Practical or Indulgent?

by Hillary

My birthday gift was not indulgent. My birthday gift was practical and boring and I love it. 

After a close call involving a toddler and an external hard drive (well, not really a "close call" so much as a "total loss of seven years of original music") (but to be fair to the toddler the hard drive was left within his reach and had tempting multi-coloured blinking lights) my husband went out and bought me a 2-bay network storage share centre with four terabytes of storage. Oh yeah, talk nerdy to me, baby. 

My type-A personality is beyond pleased with my new backup capabilities. I had only one digital copy (and very few physical prints) of all the photos I've taken of my son, so this horribly practical birthday gift turned out to be perfect for me. 

{Photo credit: ncix.ca}