right now

right now

Jan 17, 2011

Just when I thought I had reached the peak of stretching space...

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted - I've thought about it, but honestly I haven't had anything truly interesting to write about.  I've been swallowed up with my "tossing things" in the house phase.  Pretty boring stuff, unless you are me who is overjoyed to see each bag of stuff headed out the door to spaces other than these...


We've been really trying to get back in the groove of hubby being a regular full-time resident of the house now that deployment is over, but it's been hard, but not for the usual reasons of clashing in the house and disturbing the natural order of things, but instead it seems like I communicated with him more when he was on the ship lately!  He has been working 12-14 hour days every day since he's been back, he is gone by the time the kids are up for school, and home just in time to tuck them in at night.  I've been trying really hard to get back to cooking "real meals", but find that I have to just save him a plate to eat when he gets home.  The kids and I always sit down to a family meal, but sometimes the content & originality is lacking when I cook only for 2 little guys.  


The past week I have been trying to use the freezer stash of garden goodies every night from here until Spring so we can get an accurate amount to preserve for next year, since we need to account for hubby being home and eating the harvest too.  I grew less last year, but hubby will eat anything and everything that I can plant so I need to get creative again!


Some of the dinners this week were pretty basic one-dish meals, but all had garden veggies incorporated:

Good 'ol spaghetti & meat sauce, used ground turkey and the canned sauce and stewed tomatoes & frozen beans

Sausage & Frozen Bell Peppers with canned stewed tomatoes & pasta

my favorite usage of freezer stash or fresh:  Stir Fry!


How about the rest of you?  Are you finding you had enough preserved to last til Spring, or will you be increasing the amounts preserved for next year?  I definitely need more tomatoes put up!


Last night was hubby's night to cook, he makes amazing pizzas - I just wish he would clean up his mess afterwards!

 I hope the boys learn his crust recipe, it will serve them well later in life!



On to the only excitement of the week-  I made the long trip up to D.C. to IKEA on Friday to create my "craft space"!  It is very hard to describe the limited space I have in this house, but here's a reality for you to ponder... I only have 4 rooms in this house including the kitchen - and no garage!  Minus the kitchen, it's one room that houses both boys and all their toys, our bedroom that also serves as my office space and garage like storage behind a curtain for all our camping/hiking stuff, a living room that is also the dining room and music room, that leaves..... the hallway!  


FYI:  the below rack behind the bedroom door was my old "stash space"...I can't even really hang door units on the door since they are all french doors to have the place feel bigger than it is.


The hallway in the below pic also stores the washer/dryer behind the blue curtain on the left side as well as hubby's fishing gear up near the ceiling, see it LOL?  He used the recess at the end to build me some built in shelves for the few knick knack pictures I have.


Good thing I really love organizing and get a "high" off of being able to fit our lives into this small space.  While I would dearly love to have a permanent table to sew at, this will do pretty well since the dining table is right next to the craft storage area, and all of it is out in plain sight so I will actually be tempted to USE the sewing machine!  (Before I had to dig all this stuff out of underbed containers and trolley carts shoved into a closet).


Below, the big reveal... taking up only about 7-8 sq ft and going vertically, it houses my entire yarn stash, area for my sewing machine, supplies, etc.  Since it was IKEA, I sprung for the shelf lighting to highlight this area to do double duty as "art".  We even have mountain bikes hanging in the house and choose to highlight them rather than hide them.  It amuses a few people but we need to - no garage and hubby actually rides his bikes to work every day, rain or shine so they need to be accessible.  The reason I love IKEA so much is that it's one of the few stores that carry shallow units instead of the standard 11-12 inch deep shelves that would stick out into the hallway too far.  These cubes and shelves are only 7.5 " deep.  Also, if you notice my attic stairs have to pull down here, so I solved that by putting the units on casters and they are secured to the wall at the top with industrial velcro.  When I need to pull down the stairs, I simply wheel away the first unit and they will come down.   I can get away with the velcro because the high shelves are light and only store yarn.  Hubby just shook his head and smiled when I was done, he said it wasn't at all what he pictured from my talking about what I was going to do.  Not sure if that was a compliment or not LOL.


Below, a close up look at the shelves/wall.  I used a baking sheet divider to store random pieces of fabric, magnetic bars to hold things like scissors, tins of pins, etc.  Spice rack holds more notions, a plastic trash bag caddy holds partial skeins of yarn that are destined for a rug or some other small project.  I reused a metal chalkboard tray from the kids' room to hold my cutting mat and smaller felt quilt block design board I made last night (not pictured).  There is even a space the the left of my old machine to park my someday new machine!




I'm pretty darned excited about it all!  BUT.... this week is for ordering seeds, so the sewing will have to wait a bit longer.  We are scheduled to have a whole week of rainy, crummy weather, so it will be perfect for finishing up my seed ordering and bed plans - those catalogs sure bring a bright spot to a dreary day!

26 comments:

  1. Your husband's pizza looks great! My husband is also the pizza maker around here.

    You did a great job on the hallway. It will defintely make your life a lot easier!

    I have never had a real big house either. The house that I had when raising the children was the smallest with 1 bath and we did just fine. I'm spoiled now with 1 1/2 baths!

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  2. Holy Moly! That's a heck of alot of yarn! Your use of space is EXCELLENT! To the point it could walk from the page of a magazine! Very impressive and productive space. I'm tellin' ya, sometimes it really is nice to have everything within reach!

    Very cool! And when can your hubby teach my hubby how to cook? Anything

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  3. So when are you available to come to other states to get us organized? It looks great. You make excellent use of every square inch. Impressive.

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  4. Ya know, you really should be working in a highly paid position as an organizer/designer. How you manage to envision all this and pull it together is beyond me! What a great job.

    How are we doing as far as having enough preserved garden produce for the year? I honestly think I could feed a family of six from now until summer . . . and not run out of anything. Somebody has got to stop me. Both growing and preserving!

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  5. Very impressed with the new space- and wow, you have quite the yarn collection. Reminds me a bit of my seed collection. Slight overkill, but you certainly won't be left without if every yarn store in your state should shut their doors. ;)

    I did manage to freeze LOTS of other people's fruit which has been great. Bagged up all my sauce in pizza portions, and I still have some left. Plenty of zucchini brownie, and zucchini bread mixes left.....out of kale, green beans, and other people's corn. Out of pickled jalapenos, but lots of relishes and jams left (we go through a pint of jam every one to two weeks).

    Must be really hard to have hubby home (finally), when "home" means back to work all day.

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  6. I love what you can do with the space! It's just perfect. I love Ikea for that reason, but really don't like the drawers that close quietly. What good is having a drawer if you can't slam it?

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  7. Ooo, that space is pretty sweet! I'm amazed at what you can get into a little space. Maybe I'll have to have you design my new kitchen. LOL!
    Judy

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  8. I have never been to Ikea. My older daughters are promising to take me when we go to Portland this next weekend. Your space looks incredible!

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  9. What a lovely spot to work in! I'm so impressed with how much space you get out of that small house! I don't think I could very easily, but of course I think I have too much stuff! Someday when our roots are rooted, I hope to have a lovely craft area too. I've never been to Ikea either, but hear awesome things about it.

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  10. PERFECT! You did a great job and it looks fabulous. It's so very nice to have things where they are accessible.

    Having things out in the open forces me to keep them organized and tidy. I've found that when I can hide my things behind a closed door, the trashier my space becomes.

    Your creativity is shining through!

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  11. I agree, you could certainly earn a living organizing. It looks fantastic.

    Hey, you were only about 45 minutes from us when you were at IKEA. I just love that place. Hope to make a trip there soon. We need to redecorate son's room and he is requesting an IKEA redo. Are you for hire?

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  12. That storage space looks awesome! And my husband makes wonderful pizza from scratch, crust and all. He makes bread too but uses the bread machine to do all the work and then bakes it in the oven.

    Why is it when I make bread or pizza no one says how wonderful I am for doing it but when the husband does everyone gushes over him? So in protest over the unfairness of it all I don't make pizza or bread anymore. Humph!

    I wish I could go to IKEA but it would be either an 8 hour drive or a 5 hour drive over winter roads which isn't going to happen and then how to get the stuff home? I'll just drool over all the wonderful things you got and how well you organized your home.

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  13. OMG-move over Martha Stewart!! Erin....you are amazing at how well you have organized such a tiny space. You have such a beautiful home.

    As for the garden next year, I've done good on most stuff, but need MORE broccoli, and bigger potatoes (the ones this year were DINKY for some reason). Onions and green beans--I had the perfect amount. I will never do corn (too space-hoggy). And I need some carrots that actually last until it's time to freeze them!!

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  14. I love how organized everything is! I've got my sewing and embroidery stuff all over the place here. Drives me insane when I go and try to find something.

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  15. I love IKEA and I love this space! I absolutely agree that you could do THAT for a living! Enjoy your sewing projects when you've finished ordering your seeds!

    Does your husband give away his crust recipe? :)

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  16. FABULOUS!!! Your cooking looks absolutely mouthwatering, hubby's pizza's look delicious and your craft are is just perfect! Your yarn stash alone had me drooling... You know, we have a larger space than you guys and my crafts area is nothing like yours. I have a area set up in our walk in closet for stamping, the sewing machine and fabric in one closet, yarn in a basket, sewing supplies in another closet... I need to get my stuff more organized, thanks for giving me the necessary motivation!

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  17. You all are so kind! I actually would do this stuff for a living if there was more of a call for it, sadly the people who need my services the most are the ones who wouldn't let me get rid of all their clutter LOL! That's the biggest hinderance to organizing, you MUST get rid of stuff first. My rule is if I haven't looked at it in 6 months or used it in 12 in the case of seasonal stuff, it needs to go! As for my yarn stash... yikes, some people have affairs while the hubby is deployed - I just buy yarn LOL! Hubby was a little taken aback by the personal yarn store, but he laughed at the same time so I guess I'm okay! In my defense, I am using it! IKEA is a 3 hour drive each way for me, so I really have to have my list together when I go - on Friday though it took me 90 mins to go 21 miles on the way back, ugh I hate I-95 up near DC! As for hubby's crust, he doesn't use a recipe, I am in awe of his talent with bread and yeast, I have none of that! Anke, your comment made me laugh because I think we are in the same boat - I was doing fine until I added sewing to my list of wanna-be hobbies, and you were probably sailing clear as well but now you have added spinning! Sue, I hear you on the corn, I won't do that again! Way too much space considering that I can go down the road and purchase it from a local farm stand and process the whole batch in one day!

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  18. Wow Erin, those pizzas look absolutely amazing. The crusts look perfectly bubbly...just how it should be. Your hubby will have to share his secret one of these days!

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  19. In a way, I am lucky that I am not close to either an IKEA or a Trader Joe's. Most of my income would outgo there. You did a wonderful, tasteful, skillful job in designing that space, Erin! I am still working my way through my 2008 canned tomatoes! Thank goodness 2009 was a lousy harvest here. Of course, then there was last year...

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  20. Fantastic use of space! This is inspiration to try and organize my craft space too. I have never been very good at organizing, but now that I have a little girl I am constantly on the lookout for ways to make life just a little less hectic! I saw this on Prudent Baby this morning and when I saw all of your yarn I thought you might like to see it.....
    http://www.prudentbaby.com/2010/02/wine-rack-as-yarn-storage.html
    Wine rack as yarn storage!! What a great idea and since there are SO many different kinds of wine racks, the possibilities are practically endless.

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  21. Oh my Erin, that is ingenious! Great way to find extra storage. I love Ikea too, there is one 15 minutes from our house and that place definitely is fun! BTW, those pizzas your hubby made look amazing. Hope you'll post the recipe.

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  22. Erin, you can come force me to get rid of my clutter any day! I need someone with a firm hand because I tend to say, but I might need it one day...

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  23. Hubby says there's no secret really, just let the dough sit as long as possible, he can make good ones in just a couple of hours, but if he starts the dough in the morning, there's more bubbles. Also he said the oven has to be HOT, he does his at 475, he's been chomping at the bit to make a wood fired oven in the backyard, but I'm not convinced this is the right house to do that to LOL!

    Blueberrychicken, welcome! Thanks for the compliments, I also thought of wine storage cabinets, but cost was a definite issue for me, and we don't live in an area where there are good thrift or antique stores. I know what you mean about children, when things are organized it's so much easier - I have such limited "alone" time spurts that when I want to do something crafty I need to be able to get to it right away and strike while the iron's hot!

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  24. Erin, you really did motivate me to clean up my crafts and sewing supplies. Come and have a look...

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  25. Quilting was my first fiber love. Yours looks great, love the fabric choices. Be forwarned that it may lead to other things, like spinning, weaving, etc., etc., LOL

    I meant to tell you the other day that I'm one of your newest followers. For some reason though, Blogger isn't posting my photo, just the blank head with no name. You do show up on the list of blogs I follow though. Not sure why this is happening because I follow publicly. According to blogger help group, I'm not the only one with this problem but no one has a fix. Frustrating.

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  26. Hi Leigh! I think my house would explode if I bring any more stuff in here, although hubby expressed interest in spinning... hahaha I could blame that on him if the equipment shows up! I'm trying to figure out how to train my Australian Shepherds to spin their dog hair into fiber while I sleep, double whammy - I get fiber and don't have to sweep anymore :)

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