alaskanfrenchie's Profile

I keep all my shoes in the basement next to the garage, where I put them on to leave the house. I also keep a couple of "yard" and "mail" shoes on the main floor and slippers of course in the bedroom closet. When I first moved into this house the shoes were crammed into the very teeny, tiny bedroom closet and it was a huge mess. Now, because I have a massive laundry room adjacent to the garage, I can organize, store, and most importantly see all the shoe options. Fortunately I figured this out fairly quickly; think of it as a walk in closet just for shoes!

steel wool is a super fast way to get rust and junk off metal...

I have an old mid century house and the closet doors are not sliders they are like double french doors but solid and open up into the room, the access is nearly 100%. So if you have enough clearance in the room it works beautifully. I gave up a walk in closet from my last home and initially was really depressed about not having it but this works equally well. I am contemplating adding wallpaper to the back of the closet to make it pretty or I think it would look really great to replace the doors with frosted glass to add some reflective light or just to spruce up the look. Here's some ideas.
http://www.houzz.com/french-closet-doors-for-bedrooms

one thing I can swear by is this stuff www.umcka.com...the minute I start feeling even slightly ill I start taking big doses of it and miraculously no cold...not sure about how it works for the flu but I rarely have either! check it out

Costco sells boxes for a decent price (www.costco.com/Common/Search.aspx?whse=BC&topnav=&search=moving%20boxes&N=0&Ntt=moving%20boxes&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-US) if you can't find them for free!

If you join AAA they have travel specials for members with options that you can drive to. Jetsetter, which also requires a membership, has some amazing international deals and locations. (www.jetsetter.com) Also Travelzoo (www.travelzoo.com) has package deals and some really great hotel prices. A trick I've used for priceline is to check out the hotels they are selling and then use the bidding function if the hotels in the list look like somewhere I would want to stay. Usually it works!

I use beeswax on dresser drawers that stick, it works!

I'm in the midst of a serious de-clutter project and am realizing that if I've had something for the last 5 years (since I moved to this house) and have not used it; well it is very unlikely I will in the future, so I am donating or throwing things out. When I bought this house I already scaled back considerably given the overall square footage (the kitchen is like a shoebox). One item I didn't have room for was a microwave or convection oven. Initially I thought OMG how will I live without that seriously important kitchen device? After the first couple of months I realized I didn't really need it and the workarounds like using a saucier with a lid on low to reheat leftovers or actually boiling water in a kettle instead of zapping it in a microwave didn't really impact my cooking and eating routines. It's easier to manage and organize fewer things; I see it all as a time saving opportunity.

I keep a separate set of cleaning gloves, products, etc. in my main floor bathroom so the process is quick and easy to get scrubbing and dusting. I like the idea of segregated gloves especially when toilets are involved!

Regarding the freezer clean out, schedule it around the same time your garbage pick up day arrives, it can get pretty smelly on a hot spring day melting and creating another clean up task in the garbage can.