Organizing on my vacation

My mother was so excited to have me at their house for a week because she knew I'd be dying to help out around the house! I must say, if all the houses I worked on in MA were already as organized as my mom's, I'd have nothing to do! But there were a couple of small areas that we worked on.

The first was her kitchen cabinets. It's just her and my dad living there now, so when I asked her about sets of dishes she had upstairs in the kitchen and got answers like "oh those...I use them once a year when I have book club at my house", we moved those things out of the MAIN zone and into the STORAGE zone (i.e. shelves in the basement!) Then we thinned out the existing dishes, glasses, etc. This is one of the things I picked up at Target to give her more space in her primary dish cabinet:


It's what most of us probably need, right? For just $5 (or so) you can easily create more space. My mom had cereal bowls stacked on top of small salad plates and was having to move them each time we wanted to unload the dishwasher. No longer!

Her favorite thing we did was thin out the pantry a little (my relocating hardly-ever-used kitchen appliances to the basement) and then stacking up the canned goods on risers like these:

Fabulous, right? And just $8 at Target. We were able to get 3 and outfit the whole pantry!

Home Sweet Home!

It feels so good to be home after 16 days on the road, 5 states visited (!!) and seeing lots of loved ones. This was, by far, our best family vacation to date. And in this culture of flying, it feels good to have a good "old fashioned" road trip filled with fun surprises along the way. My kids were amazing.

After about a week of being away from New England I start to get a little home sick for 1. donut shops 2. water 3. Red Sox 4. our wonderful accent. It seemed fitting when we passed an IKEA in CT with a massive (wicked massive!!) billboard reading "HOME IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PLACE IN THE WORLD". I couldn't agree more!

So I got to check out some fun stores while we were away and picked up a reuseable shopping bag I'm crazy about, www.envirosax.com. It's one of those that rolls into a little ball (about the size of a wallet) and opens into a full sized shopping bag. It's perfect if you're going into the city for the day and want to consolidate bags, or if you're simply running into the pharmacy and don't want to waste a bag. I got a really cute green one and plan to use it every day! Remember, it's the small changes that tend to get us into new fabulous habits!

It's your turn!

I'm going to be out of town with sporatic access to my site, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to ask you wise readers to take over! Email me YOUR favorite organizing trick and I'll post it on the site. What cool ideas do you have? It doesn't have to be anything fancy, because the folks who read this blog read it because it's NOT fancy advice! partridgeathome@yahoo.com.

Chore Cards, too cute!

I just received some "chore cards" I ordered for my kids from another mom on Etsy, which is that terrific website I recommended (home made things). They were a fantastic deal and are just too cute. I hung hooks on the fridge and the kids are totally on board with doing this. Example cards are "brush teeth", "homework", "reading", "clean your room". They were just $5 per pack (one for my daughter, one for my son). If you go to Etsy and type in "chore cards", she's the one called "Soap Star Mom".

Ask the Organizer/Decorator Time!

Okay faithful readers, it's your turn! I'm ready for some more questions...
What's bugging you around your house? Do you have a room/part of a room that you're not using because it's not functional? Not beautiful? What's happening in your house? Your apartment? Your office? Your car? Your kitchen cabinets? Let's get talking!

I'm going to Boston for an overnight, and when I return I'd love some good questions to go through. If you want it private, email me at partridgeathome@yahoo.com. Or, just simply leave your question in the comment section.

Take care!

What I found in my grandmother's closet

We just returned from a 3 day visit to my grandmother's house in Maine. There really is nothing like the 4th of July parade in a small New England town!

One of the perks of my visit is that I help my grandmother organize her really large really OLD (and not necessarily in the good way...) house. It's a multi-family with an apartment in the middle where we sleep (but otherwise serves as a storage area for old things from the family). For years I'd had my eye on emptying out the old walk-in closet. This closet is really narrow and very long. Probably about 12 feet long. So I grabbed a box of 20 lawn and leaf bags and went to it!

Almost everything I found was dusty and 100% polyester (those were the times!), so I tossed 8 bags of clothing to the local clothing collection place. I imagine some college-aged kid loving the stuff around Halloween :)

The most "classic" thing I found? On many levels? A 16 Magazine from July of 1971 featuring none other than THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY. I almost screamed. My last name? Partridge!!

C2 LOVO Paint

Are you familiar with C2 paint? It's called "one of the most innovative, high quality paints in the marketplace". I haven't used it, but I've been in houses that have and the colors are simply stunning.

This year (on Earth Day!) they launched a new line of paint called "LOVO" which is "non-toxic, Low-VOC (volatile organic compound) and available in 496 handcrafted, luxurious colors". They offer "smarter sampling" too, with 16 ounce LoVo samplers you can try before you commit.

You can check it out at www.c2color.com

And to you faithful readers, I'll be off line for a few days. We're heading up to Maine for the holiday. Happy 4th to you all!