How to Revive a Fuzzy Sofa

Back in August we bought a new sofa. "Sofa" may be an understatement, as it's a 9-piece sectional that runs the length of two entire walls of our living room. We struggled to decide whether to get leather or fabric. We've got young kids and dogs. We had a durable leather sofa that lasted us many years, but we've also has a leather love seat ruined within the first month thanks to dog toenails. In the end, we decided on this huge fabric sectional, with the understanding that it probably won't last forever. We get it. But within the first month or so of enjoying our new couch, we noticed a few of the cushions were getting a little fuzzy, for lack of a better word. It didn't take long to figure out the cause:

It was our dogs, of course. Specifically, it was the little spinning ritual they do before they lie down. Here's what the cushion looked like before the damage (it's actually the vertical cushion for comparison).

And here's what the cushion looks like with the damage from the dogs. Not something you want to see a month after you shell out a fair amount of cash for new furniture.

Since noticing the damage, we attempt to keep the sofa cushions covered with blankets during the day. It's not a perfect solution, as the girls will often use the blankets to keep warm or build a fort. And the blankets inevitably end up on the floor, making the room look even more cluttered than it already is. And, of course, the damage had already been done. Once I noticed the cushions were beginning to resemble a worn sweater, I knew I had to give my Sweater Stone a try. I bought my Sweater Stone several years ago at Faribault Woolen Mill*. It has worked wonders to spruce up my tired fuzzy, pilly sweaters over the years. I put the stone to work on the cushion (it literally took less than a minute) and saw great results. 

Here's the after photo. Drum roll please..................

It's not back to it's original condition, but it's much, much better. The damage is no longer the first thing you notice when you look at the sofa. Even knowing it's history. 

And here's the floor after using the Sweater Stone. 

The Sweater Stone. I can't imagine a cheaper, easier, and better way to revive my fuzzy sofa (and sweaters)!

*I have no idea if they still sell the Sweater Stone.

**This is not a paid advertisement--just a great solution I wanted to share with you!

Organizing Goals 2012 - #9 A Chore Chart (For Me)

This is the final entry for my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. The first post in the series can be found here.

9. A Chore Chart (For Me): A while back I jokingly mentioned that I need a chore chart for myself. A little gold-star motivation. I've never had a daily (or even weekly) cleaning schedule--I'm more of a clean before company kind of gal-- but I think I need to change that this year. I've seen some great examples of cleaning schedules on Pinterest, and my friend Bethany shared her weekly cleaning schedule recently. I like the idea of having a few things that need to be done every day and then divvying up the rest of the cleaning throughout the week. I always feel like maintenance is nearly impossible in my house between the dogs and the kids and the husband and the unpredictable work schedule, but I think I need to really give it a good effort this year. I always feel so much better when my house is clean. I hate that the messy state of my house is always in the back of my mind. And I've been catching myself a lot lately wanting to invite different people over at the last minute and feeling like I just can't do it. I don't want to be like that! I know my house will never be immaculate, but I do know I can do better. And I'm a sucker for crossing things off a list, so a laminated chore chart may just do the trick!

Organizing Goals 2012 - #8 Create a Storage Solution for Kitchen Entry/Island

8. Create a Storage Solution for Kitchen Entry/Island: Sometimes I feel that if I solved this one problem area in my home, all my troubles would go away. I'm realistic enough to know that probably isn't true, but I'm really hoping to give it my best shot.  Our kitchen entry becomes a dumping ground for coats, shoes, hats, mittens, gloves, backpacks, purses, and miscellaneous stuff--a LOT of miscellaneous stuff. There are several factors contributing to this mess.

1. This is the door my family uses 99 percent of the time.
2. There is no closet near this door,
3. There is a huge unused counter right next to the door.
4. We have no storage here other than four overused coat hooks and lots of flat surfaces.

I definitely know I want to get a lower set of hooks so my daughters can start hanging up their own coats, snow pants, and backpacks. Not only will that keep them off the floor, I won't have to do it anymore (win-win!). I'm thinking some sort of storage cubbies where the little table is now (it doesn't have to stay) or even under the ledge of the counter would be great. I hope to get to IKEA soon to take a look at a shoe storage unit, beautifully used here. If the divider can be removed from the top shoe drawer, even better. I'd use that one to store backpacks. I also need a better storage for hats and mittens. And finally, I would love a rug by this door, but I haven't had any luck finding one thin enough to be able to open the door.  Even the super thin officey ones don't work. For now I have one leading from the door toward the kitchen, although it's not visible in the photos.

This is definitely one of my biggest challenges for the year. I look forward to getting started!

Ignore the dirty wall. It's leftover from two pictures I tried for years to keep hung. Every time we'd shut the door the pictures would tilt. I tried blue sticky stuff (as you can see), but it only helped a little. Finally I just took them down.

I'm always amazed that little coat rack doesn't fall off the wall.

Organizing Goals 2012 - #7 Combine Bedrooms

Each day for the next week or so, I am introducing my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. The first post in the series can be found here.

7. Combine Girls' Bedrooms: Later this year we plan to move my youngest daughter in with her sister. It will involve buying new beds and bedding. I think my two-year-old is too young for bunk beds (I can just imagine them pushing each other off the top bunk), so I've got my eye on this amazing DIY trundle bed. Side-by-side bunks are also an option. We've got an old loveseat in the room that we cuddle on to read our books at night, which will have to go (the loveseat, not the cuddling and reading) to make room for the beds. We will also need to figure out how to combine closet and dresser space. There are two large, unused closets now. I would love to add closet desks if there is room. And finally, we'll decorate! The room is already painted and has some flower and fairy decals on the walls, but that's about it. I will be on the hunt for a rug to warm things up a bit. I  have a fun dinosaur theme in mind--my daughter is obsessed.

Organizing Goals 2012 - #6 Reorganize Bathroom Storage

Each day for the next week or so, I am introducing my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. The first post in the series can be found here.

6. Reorganize Bathroom Storage: It's been almost two years since I organized my bathroom storage. You can see how that went here and here. Based on these current before photos below, I'd say it's time I get to work.

Organizing Goals 2012 - #5 Organize Food and Finances

Each day for the next week or so, I am introducing my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. The first post in the series can be found here.

5. Organize Food and Finances: There is a reason my daughter once asked me if budget is a bad word. No, we don't have problem overspending in our house. We live well within our means. But constant debit-card purchases (even on necessary expenses) were adding stress in our lives.  Seeing that long banking statement with several purchases a day was like watching money fall out of our pockets.  My husband has long asked me for a household budget with the purpose of figuring out exactly where our money goes. This year I've finally created a budget, and we are working toward a more cash-based system for handling expenses. I think there may be a few kinks to figure out, but progress is being made. We were both amazed when we checked our bank statement and there hadn't been a purchase in 5 days.

The new budget has led me to organize my food purchases and menu planning.  Before all this, I had a general idea of what we had on hand and what we tend to eat, and I would make a very general list, forgetting things, including things we didn't need, etc. Then my husband would make the trip to Aldi to stock our pantry and would end up buying 36 cans of soup (the kind my daughters refuse to eat), of which I might eat two in the next four months. You get the idea.

First, I looked for an app that included the following:
1. pantry inventory--I need to know what we already have on hand before I know what we need to buy.
2. long-term menu planning--I need to know what I plan to cook so I know what I need to buy for our 4-month supply.
3. shopping list--My husband tends to make the Aldi shopping trip, so it's important that I can provide him with a very detailed shopping list--I learned that yesterday when he interpreted an arrow I drew as a 5 and came home with 5 containers of sour cream. He also called to confirm that we needed 40 cans of black beans. No, that was actually a 4 with another number crossed out.

Unfortunately, I haven't found the magic app yet.  But I did find a pretty amazing 3 Month Food Supply spreadsheet from Food Storage Made Easy.* The spreadsheet includes a column for ingredients on the left, and spanning the table to the right at the top of the page are meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) for 30 days. The girls have included a "Have on hand" column, where you can enter the number of each ingredient you have on hand. You then fill out your meals for the month, and under each meal you mark the number of each ingredient needed. The beauty of this spreadsheet is that it will then give you a 3 month total, as well as the number you need to buy (figuring what you have on hand) to make that 3 month total.

Clearly start-up is time-consuming. I first did a food inventory, which with my daughter's "help" took me about 45 minutes. Then, I planned my meals for the month. This was surprisingly easy. I picked a homemade soup for one day each week, and I had a day for leftovers, which left me with only 5 days to fill each week.  Next, I started filling in the ingredients. I first copied and pasted the Common Food Items list found on another page of the spreadsheet. I did it that way so the ingredients would be organized by category and in alphabetical order. Then I added and removed items based on my food inventory. And finally, I went meal by meal marking the number of items needed to prepare each meal.

So I now have a 3-month shopping list.  This is great, But unfortunately I need a 4-month list. So I still need to tweak the spreadsheet. For the trip yesterday, I wrote out the list and added a month's worth of ingredients to each 3-month total.  It did feel pretty great to have my husband come home from Aldi knowing he got things we will actually use (aside from the 5 containers of sour cream). I am still trying  to figure out the best way to keep the food inventory updated.

I love it when a working toward a goal has some unexpected benefit. I've been meal planning for a couple of weeks already, and let me just shout it out: I LOVE IT! Never would I have imagined that having a meal plan would be so...freeing? You know that gnawing in the back of your mind every day that starts at about 4:00 when you realize you have no idea what to make for dinner, and then you start to ask yourself why you have to be the one to figure this crap out every day.  And then you start to resent the fact that you have to cook anything at all.  And then you say Screw it! and order a pizza? No? I guess it's just me.

Things are totally different now. I actually look forward to checking the menu plan throughout the week.

Oooh, fajitas! Great idea.

Yum, I can't wait for Friday when we have that roast.

Better thaw out that ham today.

It feels like 50% of the burden of cooking has been lifted.  Knowing what we're having and being confident that I actually have the ingredients on hand to make the food is a huge relief.  And I'm being more creative with my meals rather than falling back on my last-minute standby dishes. I also like that I feel free to switch meals around within the week to better fit our schedule. 

I still have some figuring to do with our food budget.  Between the three annual Aldi trips and the fact that we order a quarter of beef a couple times a year, figuring out a monthly total gets complicated. But, I am working on it. So that is progress toward my goal.

Do you meal plan? How detailed do you get? Do you use a food inventory? Do you use technology to meal plan?

*Wow, I did not realize that there is a whole food storage culture out there. Who knew? I am not part of the food storage culture. I am just lazy and like to spend a little time as possible grocery shopping.  In addition to Aldi, we stock perishables from the local grocery store throughout the month and buy meat from a local butcher.

Organizing Goals 2012 - #4 Reorganize Linen Closet

Each day for the next week or so, I am introducing my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. The first post in the series can be found here.

4. Reorganize Linen Closet: You may remember this before-and-after of my linen closet.  Lately it's been looking more before than after. This closet is also where I store gift wrap supplies, cards and envelops, games, light bulbs, my shoes, and several other odds and ends. It's time to revisit this space and clear out some clutter. My girls' art supplies (Play-Doh, crayons, markers, colored pencils, glue, coloring books, etc.) have been growing exponentially, and I need to find a good storage solution. If you have any great ideas for storing art supplies, pass them along.  I'm considering something like this, which would make them easily portable. And I think a magazine file might be a good way to store the coloring books.

I've got my work cut out for me

Notice my shoes are noticeably absent from the shoe rack.
Apparently they were scared off by the dinosaur. ROAR! 

Organizing Goals 2012 - #3 Organize Spices

Each day for the next week or so, I am introducing my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. The first post in the series can be found here.

3. Organize Spices: I store my spices and baking supplies in a tall storage cupboard next to my refrigerator. Like most of my cupboards, I'm not using the bottom shelves. My youngest would empty it out for me daily if I did.  So everything has been stuffed onto the top five shelves.  Considering I can't actually reach the top shelf, that leaves me with four working shelves. My spices are out of control. I've been slowly stocking up on them over the last year, and unfortunately because they are a jumbled mess, I've bought several duplicates, compounding the storage problem.  I ordered these spice clips (found via Pinterest) a couple of weeks ago.  Like the good online shopper I am, I scoured the Internet and found the best deal after figuring in tax and shipping.  Unfortunately the company I ordered from has them on back order.  I'm hoping they will finally arrive by the end of the month.  I love the idea behind this product. I've found most cupboard door storage solutions are often so deep they take of half of your actual shelf space. These are versatile and appear to use minimal shelf space. I can't wait to get started on this project! Here is what my baking cupboard looks like today.

Here are the "top" two shelves from a distance. Anyone want a year's worth of Food Network Magazines?
(Why yes, we did paint the outside of our cabinets white and got lazy and did not paint the insides.)

Let's take a closer look at that second shelf. This is what I see when I'm trying to find something.

And here are the "bottom" two shelves from a distance. Don't laugh at the five jars of peanut butter, laugh at my husband. He read an article about rising peanut prices and made a point to stock up. Yes, the rising cost of peanuts would be a big deal in our house.

Need some cumin, you say? Hmm...

Organizing Goals 2012 - #2 Create/Childproof Playroom

Each day for the next week or so, I am introducing my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. The first post in the series can be found here.

2. Create/Childproof Playroom: I'm looking forward to a time when I won't have to keep my eye on my youngest every second of the day. In anticipation of that day, I'll be working this year to create and childproof a designated playroom.  I want to transform our basement family room, which is currently where my husband occasionally plays Xbox and my daughter plays with her trains, into a space where my girls can play, while purging our living room of it's current daycare-esque decor.  (I literally have a giant castle in my living room and a plastic princess pink vanity in my dining room.) We already have a huge storage unit in the basement that we bought at IKEA several years ago.  With some bins, it will be a great place to stash toys.  We had a coffee table and an end table in the room that we weren't using, and I hauled them off to the donation center on Sunday (along with a weight bench and weights from the storage room and other odds and ends), so the space is opening up.  Eventually I'd like to get rid of our excess furniture and add some kid-friendly seating, book storage, a rug, and an activity table and chairs.

Sorry for the glare in this photo. The sun was reflecting off our white wood work.

Organizing Goals 2012 - #1 Organize Storage Room

We are well into January already.  And yes, I'm still writing "2011" on everything.  I've made some organization-specific resolutions/goals for the coming year.  Last year I found I was pretty successful in keeping my resolutions when I introduced them gradually.  This year, I'm hoping to continually move toward each of my goals, and I'm already making some progress.  

Each day for the next week or so, I will introduce my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. And I will revisit these goals throughout the year as progress is made.

1. Organize Storage Room: 

This is actually one I can almost check off the list.  The new year started with my husband expanding the shelving in our storage/laundry room. He also added shelving for his hunting and fishing stuff and a bench and chairs to create a workspace.  I am relieved to finally have a home for all of those fishing poles and duck calls that inevitably end up on our kitchen counter. Just after we had everything put away in the storage room, my sister sent me several boxes of baby clothes via a visit from my parents.  We are planning on having more children, so we'll hang on to the clothes for now.  I was happy to see there was actually still room for the clothes on the storage shelves. The final to-do in the storage room is to find a place for our pantry overflow.  We stock up at Aldi a few times a year, and whatever doesn't fit in the pantry goes in the storage room.  Previously the food was stored on our shelves (when the floors were covered in stuff). I have my eye on the shelves above our washer and dryer, but they are inconvenient for a shorty like me.  For now, I'm holding off on figuring it out until our next trip to Aldi, which I plan on making in the next couple of weeks. If I were going for perfection, we would have matching plastic storage bins on these shelves.  I'm not going for perfection. I happily used what we had on hand.  Diaper boxes make great boxes for kids' clothes. Down the road I may replace some of the cardboard boxes and bags, but for now it works.

I wish I had a before photo to show you the dramatic transformation, but you'll have to take my word for it.  This is about twelve thousand times better. I can now do laundry without passing through an obstacle course (yay?). On the right side of the room (not pictured) is more shelving, a work table, and the washer and dryer.

On a slightly unrelated note, I've been watching old episodes of Hoarders on Netflix. Have you seen this? It's fills me with anxiety. The episode where the woman hoards perishable food? The one where they remove 8,000 pounds of GARBAGE from one woman's home.  Or when they find 13 dead cats in another home. I've decided, though, that it's not so much the amount of junk, clutter, and garbage that these people are living in that makes this show so heart wrenching. It's the strained relationships. The hopelessness of the loved ones who so desperately want the fog to clear from their father/mother/sister/brother's eyes. It kills me.

A Summer of Dust, Dog Hair, Grime, and Clutter

This summer I've pretty well fallen off the wagon and into a deep, dark pit of despair when it comes to keeping my house clean.  For eight consecutive weeks I worked more freelance hours than I ever have before, including pre-children, including pre-freelance.  It was an insane experience.  Oh, and did I mention I continued to be a stay-at-home mom while fitting in these hours?  Which meant waking up at 5am and staying up until after midnight many days to work while the kiddos were asleep.  It also meant calling up my babysitter a few times a week, paying her well, and sneaking off to the coffee shop to get in some real focused work time.  In fact, I'm hoping she understands her babysitting fee is hush money.  Please do not tell the neighborhood what kind of slobs we are.  Maybe I can get her to sign a nondisclosure agreement.  Anyway, this all means that all nonessential household chores (anything other than cooking, washing dishes, doing laundry, and child care) were put on hold indefinitely. I even went a full month without reading a book.  Shameful.  Here's a little peek at what I've been living with...

Granted, this mess and clutter changed over the weeks, but the general chaos was constant.  It got so bad my husband even did the dishes TWICE!!  That's unheard of around here. 

Do you see my blog's cute vintagey polka-dot background with it's adorable fake dust.  I actually wiped my screen once this past week assuming my computer screen was actually THAT dirty.  Gross. But it wouldn't have surprised me.

So after spending my summer stuck inside reading away at my laptop, this marks my first week with a "normal" workload.  Have you noticed the baking, the cooking, the gardening, and the extra blogging happening here?  My only challenge now is to not go too far in the other direction being lazy and wasting the day at the computer.

I feel like I'm about to gear up for another round of organizing and cleaning.  We've got new furniture coming soon for our living room, and before that comes we're planning on painting.  It will be a good time to give the living room (and the rest of the upstairs) a deep clean. 

There was a great post today from Rachel Meeks at Small Notebook on how to make a room uncluttered while retaining a warm, homey feel.  Rachel sums up the beauty of a clean home perfectly:

When you have clear surfaces, your room is ready to be used. You can come in and set down your drinks and popcorn bowl on the coffee table. You can eat dinner at the table without sitting next to the paperwork. Your bed is ready for you to stretch out on it. The room welcomes you. It’s not a place to hold your stuff, it’s a place where you can live.

That sounds like exactly what we need over here.  Right now I work at our kitchen table, so the table is always cluttered with my laptop, books, my phone, and whatever my daughters have brought me throughout the day.  As a result, my husband often eats on the couch rather than clearing off a spot at the table.  That's not right.  I don't want my house to be a place to hold my stuff.  I want it to be a place where we can LIVE.

Hopefully I'll have some after pics to share soon!

Bathroom Drawer Revisited

In a previous post, I added a before photo of the last holdout in my bathroom purge: a bathroom drawer.

And here it is now.

I have no idea why we have such an abundance of oral hygiene products, but we do.  We also have a disturbing number of lighters (11) considering neither my husband nor I smoke.  Actually, a couple times a year he picks up the bad habit for a few weeks.  Apparently he's not good at keeping track of lighters. Anyone have any good ideas for getting rid of them?  Do I just toss most of them in the garbage?  Is that even safe?

Since the bathroom is pretty well in shape now, I'm going to be moving on to my daughter's bedroom.  The biggest obstacles there are a drawer of sentimental stuff (ALL of the cards from my first daughter's birth and a bunch of manuals for baby gear) and her closet (a catchall for all kinds of random family stuff).  Now I'm very practical when it comes to the sentimental stuff.  I have no problem throwing out those cards.  My husband, on the other hand, thinks it's imperative that we keep it all.  I know from experience (thanks, Mom!) that someday we will need to get rid of this stuff; we'll be downsizing to a smaller place or just needing to use our space more efficiently.  And we'll have to pass along this stuff to our daughters.  And then they'll have to find a place to store it.  I've got the proof, handed down by both sets of parents, in our basement storage room (the last room in the project, for good reason).

So, any suggestions on how to handle the sentimental overload and convince my husband it's a good idea to pare down?  Or will I regret it someday?

I Am Not Alone

So just when I think I must be the messiest, most cluttered person I know, my sister steps up and lets me know I'm actually not.  Case in point, she sent me these pics after my recent bathroom decluttering post:

By the way, this doesn't include her makeup drawer.  I'm still waiting for that photo.  So sister, my loyal blog readers (all 10!) will be looking forward to some "after" photos.  Get to work! 

And in the spirit of total disclosure, I still have one more bathroom drawer to get through.  Take a look:

I'll let you know how it goes.

I Waited 15 Years for This?

A couple days ago, as part of my ongoing bathroom purge project, I got rid of a TON of makeup (most of it never worn out of the house).  It was a sad reminder of all of the dollars I've wasted over the years trying to find the perfect (or at least acceptable) lipstick/eyeshadow/eyeliner.  I wish I had a before photo or even one of all of the crap I threw out, but I don't.  You'll have to take my word for it.  I've talked about this over the last week or so with my best friend, my mom, and my sister.  Apparently I'm not alone here.  We've all got a stash of unused cosmetics.  Why are we keeping them?  We don't use them.  And not only does this extra makeup mean more clutter, my friend reminded me that, for health reasons, we are supposed to get rid of makeup regularly.  I guarantee I won't miss anything I threw out.

I'm pretty sure I've had my old makeup bag since I started wearing enough makeup to warrant a makeup bag (about 15 years).  The problem is that there is nothing wrong with the old one.  Granted, it isn't very cute, but it worked just fine.Tonight, as a reward for clearing out all that old unused makeup, I bought myself a new makeup bag.  I'm not sure it's worthy of having waited 15 years (that's half my life!), but it's cute enough and much better than the old one.   

Before:

After:

The "makeup" drawer I cleaned out looks great.  Other than my "everyday" makeup, I kept only a handful of additional products. They're stashed in a small bag way in back.

P.S. I swear the big banana clip is only for hold back my hair while I straighten it!

P.P.S. Now if I would only get rid of some of the 9 lipsticks stashed in my purse.  One thing at a time.  One thing at a time.

Stocking the Pantry

Every few months we make a trip to Aldi to stock our pantry.  When I say "stock" I mean "STOCK."  Those who know my husband will understand.  He has emergency preparedness anxiety.  We can't be too prepared.  He would love to have enough food stocked to last us a year.  We had two overflowing carts at Aldi today, and his exact words were "We didn't really get that much." 

Here's some pictures of what we brought home.  There was actually more than this.  Excuse the few other things in these pictures, but we got home right at lunch time, so I cooked us a quick meal before I put things away.

Here's the pantry before.  Not bad.

Here's the pantry after.  .

Here's the overflow that will be stored in our basement until we're ready to use it.  And we do use it.

You're probably thinking 1) we're crazy or 2) we're awesome.  After the first couple of trips to Aldi I thought we were crazy.  But after doing this a few times, I've grown to appreciate the fact that I can make fewer trips to the store.  I HATE grocery shopping.  And if I can make fewer trips or even shorter trips, I'm game.  We have the space, so why not?  By the way, people, Aldi is cheap.  Way cheap.  And great for pantry items.  You can't get everything there, but it is worth a special trip if you've got the room to stock up.  Just remember to bring a quarter for you cart. 

Think I'm exaggerating my husband's preparedness anxiety?  Check out the first-aid corner of our bathroom cabinet.

Told you.

Everything but the Skeletons (Revisited)

Mission accomplished!  I spent the good part of yesterday afternoon taming our linen closet.  I have to say, it looks great.  I didn't go out and buy any special organizing stuff for this one.  I just worked with a few random boxes and containers I had on hand. 

I learned that people do not need an endless supply of cleaning rags (grease-spotted shirts make great rags!).  This is all the more true for those who rarely clean.  I promptly threw out an entire garbage bag worth of rags.

Originally I thought this closet would take me days to get through.  But once the contents were spread out across my bed (I should have thought that through), I realized this was a one-day deal.  In and out.  And here it is before and after.