Other Weekend Progress...

There were some times where I couldn't help R with the plywood this past weekend, so I found other ways to be useful. I worked on the sidewalk a little...

There's that rock that got in my way... It's kinda hard to see because of all the sand and leaves, but I think I worked it in pretty well..

Once I literally hit an impasse (asphalt with electrical wires underneath... a job for R), I moved back indoors and tackled the downstairs bathroom.

The downstairs bathroom is something on my "Things to Get Done Before Party" list. In the past year, this room has become our dumping zone (when we run out of room in the Dining Room.. seriously.. it's bad). We rarely use it, so who cares that it's so full of crap that you can't walk in there! But we have some people coming to the party would would rather not walk all the way upstairs to use the bathroom, so it needed to be done. I spent a couple hours organizing everything in the room into piles, then realized that I had piled myself into the room and couldn't get out, so I had to re-pile everything. Most of the stuff went in the basement, a ton went in the garbage and some got packed up in a box to go in the attic. Now all that's left is the window casing for the kitchen and a couple boxes that will be unpacked when we finish the kitchen. Yay! R's comment was "What? There's a floor in there?" I mean seriously... our Christmas tree stand was in there. And still had some dead needles and branches in it. So embarrassing!!

The Importance of an Organized Cabinet

I adore my pots and pans.. they were a wedding present from my uncle and since we cook for ourselves basically every single day, we've gotten a lot of use out of them in the past 3 years. However, they're starting to show their age. In our apartment, we had a large cabinet next to the range which is where I stored all of the pots, pans and baking pans. They were organized for about 1 day, then for the next two years were just thrown in there, with a prayer, hoping they'd stay in there and not fall out onto the tile floor and break. The same has been the case at the new house. Only here, we have a half floor, and what's remaining of it is nasty beyond all belief, so if one of my precious pans fell on that floor I'd be scrubbing the crap out of it for weeks before I'd use it again.

Enter the Rev-A-Shelf 2-Tier Cookware Organizer. I found this little piece of heaven months ago in Lowe's, but was immediately scared by the price tag. With tax, we were looking at about $97 and change. Eek. With a whole house to remodel there was no way I could justify that purchase. Right? But then between Christmas and our birthdays, we received a large amount of Lowe's gift cards (how'd you guys know?). So on a snowy afternoon last week I finally got my organizer (my smart husband instantly recognized my snowed-in cabin fever and set out to Lowe's to get this to keep me busy).

It wasn't very hard to install. My only complaint was that the first instruction was to dismantle the pull out trays, and the things were impossible to get apart (and were drenched in grease which got everywhere). Other than that, it went together without any problems. I immediately got all of my pans and lids in their new homes and basked in the greatness that is an organized cabinet and an empty warming drawer (where I had been storing all of the glass lids so they wouldn't break) that I can now use.

The ingenious thing about this is that it not only has pull out shelves, but it also has a spot for the lids, which I've noticed, most pan organizers don't. They focus on the pans themselves, but for me, it's always been the lids that are the biggest trouble makers. They don't stack nicely. I'm afraid they're going to break. Also, on the bottom shelf are 5 adjustable place holders for the pans. They can be removed or pushed over to accommodate any size pot or pan. This organizer that I bought is made for a 12" cabinet, but I have an 18" cabinet, which left just enough space on the side for pizza pans and cookie sheets. Once again leaving my beautiful warming drawer empty and ready for use!