Time To Clear The Attic

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend!

Our family is finally feeling better and I have been in the mood for a good project. Knowing that I had an extra day off, I set my sights on our attic. 

Each time I declutter a room, I store things that I want to sell in the attic.  Last week as I opened the attic door to put something else in, a previously stored item fell on my head. I am very thankful it was a comforter.

 Time To Clear The Attic!

 Here are some before pictures of our attic.

I unloaded all of the items that I had been storing to sell. Here is a picture of the mountain of stored stuff from the front of my attic. 

I cleaned our attic last winter but I need to down size my holiday decorations and purge a few more things up there. I will do my best to do it this week. I can only stay up there for a short time because it is so hot in the afternoon when I get home. 

If I get everything done by Friday, I am going to have a garage sale. I was planning to have it later when it is cooler but I am tired of looking at all of that stuff. 

Lets see if I can do it! 

Does anyone have ideas on how to make labels stick to plastic boxes in the attic? 

I have tried packing tape, scotch tape, and duct tape with no luck. The heat just makes the labels fall right off.

Closet Dreaming

Happy Monday Everyone!

 I wanted to begin purging my closet this past weekend.  This activity was delayed due to sickness in our family. While resting, I was thinking dreaming about the new closet that I want to have. I found these great ideas on Pinterest.

Idea #1   I love the separate sections to hang clothes and the drawer space! 

Via

Idea #2  I need two of these! I have lots of shoes.

Via

Idea #3   Ironing board on the wall. What a great idea!

Via

Idea #4  A laundry chute! My favorite! It looks like a boat winch :)

Via

If I could get all of these ideas to fit in my closet, I would be so happy. 

 You will never know unless you try :)

Unruly Receipts

I have a confession. I hoard receipts. I have had times in the past when I have tried to find a receipt for something that I wanted to return only to conclude that I must have thrown it away.  So now I keep every receipt just in case I might need it. 

I realized that this habit had started to cause problems in my purse while trying to find my keys that had dropped into the black hole.

 I dumped out the contents of my purse on my desk. I just couldn’t believe how many receipts there were. The rest of the things I found weren’t so bad although a few things had me scratching my head.  

 Here is a rundown of the things that were in there.

Perfume

Eye makeup

2 small bottles of medicine

A memory stick

A hand full of Splenda packets (My husband only uses Splenda)

Note pad with pin

Hair tie, bobby pin, and clip.

A fun and J card from Justice (My daughter’s favorite store).

A penny

My wallet

Reward card key chain

Keys (Hey I found them!)

2 soda can tops (We collect them.)

Chip clip (Why is this in my purse?)

Screw (Where did this come from?)

25 receipts (WOW)

There has got to be a better way to deal with those pesky receipts. While I gave that some thought, I took out the last 4 items on my list above and put them away except for the receipts.

Then I put everything else back in my purse.  

That’s Better

I have decided to take the receipts out of my purse each day and keep them in my office.  By doing this, I can still keep the receipts for a while in case I need them and my purse is organized. Win Win. 

 
















 I found this cute little book to store them in.  It hides the receipts and it is small enough so that I don't collect too many before I have to go through them.

The unruly receipts have been tamed.

                   Simplify Life One Step At A Time

Sprinkler System Disguise

Every time I swing on my Granny’s swing, I keep staring at our sprinkler system pipes. How Ugly! While they have an important duty, they are not very nice to look at. 

 After a few weeks of thought, I gathered up my DIY courage and went to the wood shed.   I had already taken the measurements for the size of my bench. 

 It had to be:

72 inches long

25 inches wide

22 tall

  I found the following wood in the shed in various sizes:

2x4s

Old fence posts

A 72 inch plank

First, I made a square from the 2x4s. Next I cut the legs for the table out of the old fence posts and screwed them into place. Then, I cut (2) pieces of  2x4 to put in the middle for support. Finally, I screwed the plank on to the front.

I had to be able to remove the top of my bench to adjust the different sprinkler zones. If I made it one piece, I wouldn’t be able to lift it by myself so I made the top in to three different sections. To make the top, I cut several 2x4s the same size and secured them together from the back to make the 3 sections.  I forgot to take a good picture of the three sections but you can see one of the sections in the bottom corner in the above picture. 

After my table was built, I put some sealer on and put it in its new home.  Yea, No more sprinkler.

I wanted a boat paddle to put on the front for decoration but I didn’t have any. I think that my Boat Captain husband has hid all of his old boat stuff from me. Discouraged but not defeated, I got my boat paddle towel rack from above the spa. I traced it on a piece of wood.

 

The paddle was a bit too big for the wood so I improvised a bit by adjusting the length of the arm. 

Then I called my Daddy. He has a jig saw. After about 15 minutes with the saw and some sandpaper to smooth out the edges, I had my boat paddle. (I’m doing my happy dance again) :)   I found some nails and fastened the paddle to the front of my table.  I think it might be a bit off center. Something I will fix later. 

Now I can swing without spying the sprinkler system. Oh Happy Day!

 Simplify Life One Step At A Time