Dollar Store Within Reach

When we moved into our new home several years ago, we splurged on a glass and steel dining room table from Design Within Reach. I love the DWR catalog, but I can't decide if the company name is a cruel joke, or intentionally hipster-ironic. They eventually realized that mine was probably a once-in-a-decade purchase, and took me off their mailing list.

I thought the glass would be easy to clean, and it is, except WOW, three grubby boys times ten grubby fingers adds up to a million grubby fingerprints a day. Wipe-clean place mats help, but I wanted some that would go in the dishwasher. After searching in vain for something remotely nice looking and affordable, I found these opaque cutting mats at the Dollar Tree (as you can see here, they do buckle a little in the dishwasher, but settle down nicely if weighted for a bit). A buck for a two-pack. That's design within my reach.

this post lives all by itself here

Perfection, Shaken or Stirred

I've been on the lookout for the perfect all-purpose cocktail glass. Martini glasses are too delicate. Margarita glasses are too big. Plastic is out of the question. And my cabinets are too few to accommodate a different set of glasses for every kind of drink. I didn't know what I needed, exactly, but I knew that I'd know it when I saw it.

I saw it yesterday. These "Ripple" stemless martini glasses from Pottery Barn are perfect. They feel substantial and luxurious, but are very inexpensive. They'll do for martinis, margaritas, old-fashioneds, cordials and even wines and ice cream. They have a cool, textured asymmetry that suits my modern aesthetic. And they feel "right" in my hand.

I bought eight. I can't find them listed online, which makes me wonder if they have been discontinued. A worthy excuse to go back and stock up.

this post lives all by itself here

Spa Treatment

I just ordered my second set of this Pike Street 100% Egyptian Cotton 725-Gram 6-Piece Towel Set(in white). I bought the first a year ago when this special price came around, and the towels are every bit as luxurious and thirsty as when they were new; maybe a little more so with repeated washing. I get "free" two day shipping with my Amazon Premium program, so that's six spa-quality towels for 24 bucks. Too good a deal not to pass along (great wedding gift).

Disclosure: the link above is served through my Amazon referrals program. I get a few cents if you order through it.

this post lives all by itself here

Mother's Big Helper

There is no sound that strikes doom in a mother's heart like the sound of a thousand Legos being dumped out on the floor in the next room.

And we have a thousand of them. Easily.

That is why I think the people who invented Box4Blox* deserve the Nobel peace prize. It's a series of stacking bins that sort and store Lego bricks by size. GENIUS. The website says it can store around 1,500 bricks. We sort them and dump each tray into a corresponding color-coded plastic drawer. It's absolutely incredible.

And so much cheaper than Valium.

---

*No affiliation. No kickback. No kidding. This rocks.

this post lives all by itself here

Feel the Force

Someone said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Proof: the years I've spent picking up scattered Yahtzee dice, Monopoly money, Battleship pegs, Sorry place markers, mancala tiles, and the plastic frogs that come with Cranium; and repatriating them to the original boxes (it's always the one on the bottom). Of course, they escape the very next day.

I was groaning over a group of these objects while sorting the boys' toys with Lorie, the author of Clutterdiet, when I had an epiphany. I grabbed an empty pencil box and my labeler.

"From now on, if they're missing a game piece they need to play with, they can look for it here," I declared, smoothing the label over the front of the box.

Lorie smiled hugely and said something like, way to go. But I know in her Jedi-mind she was saying, "well done, my young padawan."

this post lives all by itself here

The Power of Labels

If you were to walk around my house, it wouldn't be immediately obvious that I have a handheld label maker, but it wouldn't take that long to figure it out either. The first time you opened my fridge to find milk for your coffee, or a drawer to find a pencil to jot down something, you'd see that someone in this house is very fond of Helvetica. That someone would be me.

As with any conversion experience, it kind of defies second-hand explanation. You're just going to have to trust me. Labelling things works. Magic. When things have an official home, they tend to find their way back there. There's something about the shiny printed letters that confers authority, and in the case of kids' oddities (above) and mom's office supplies, respect.

I paid $10 for my handheld P-touch by Brother from buy.com. If you are willing to wait a few weeks, you can score one at that price too, by subscribing to an alert from dealnews.com. It comes around about once a month. If you're having an organizational emergency, and you need one now, you can find it on Amazon (I get a small referral fee through this link),for a few dollars more. It has all the features I need, and it slips into my tool belt.

The only way I could love it more is if it vibrated.

this post lives all by itself here

Kids' Information Station

Photo by Mark Lund. Used with permission.

One of the worst areas of chronic clutter for us was the family "drop zone" in front of the dining room buffet. Backpacks, purses, mail, keys, coats, newspapers, and everything else that came in the door with us tended to land there. As I tackled our home office area, the adult paper storm abated, but the school one endured. As I wrote in this month's Good Housekeeping, I spent some time thinking about how the kids come and go on school days before rushing in to impose a solution. In other words, go with the flow.

What I came up with was this very inexpensive, but sturdy, mesh in/out tray from Container Store. It has one tier for each kid, assigned in order of age and reach. The bottom tray is for the Littlest Who. I was tempted to hang it in Patrick's studio, near the art desk where homework often gets done. Or in the sunroom, where backpacks and coats are supposed to go. But after thinking about it a few days, I realized it made sense for it to go in the kitchen, next to the small counter peninsula where I fix lunchboxes and after-school snacks. Above it, I mounted a dry erase monthly calendar (also from Container Store). I use an online calendar, synced with my Blackberry, for all scheduling. Now, I transfer all kid-related events (school holidays, cub scout meetings, babysitter nights) onto the dry erase board, where the boys can see what's coming up in their own lives any given week.

After mounting everything, it took a few days of training the boys to use it. But because it was set up intuitively, with the natural flow of our lives in mind, it was an easy transition. They come in the front door, put school papers in their tray and lunchboxes on the counter, take coats and empty backpacks to the sunroom. In the morning, it's in reverse, and it's super easy for me to tell at a glance what needs to be seen, signed, scheduled, or otherwise handled. It's been several months, and it still works beautifully.

this post lives all by itself here