Gearing Up for Spring Cleaning: AT's The Cure

In the past I've mentioned Apartment Therapy's Book and how it has helped to give me steps for keeping our house clean and organized. Obviously this is a work in progress and we constantly need help and reminders. AT has been sponsoring these "Cures" throughout the last few years and I've signed up for "The Cure" twice now. They send you a weekly email reminder for what you're working on this week - you can focus on just one room in your house or you can focus on a larger whole-house scale. Last time I focused on our bedroom - which still needs alot of work  - but the room went from the ghastly pictures below to the tidy space above. You can go here if you want to sign up for "The Cure" this time around. I'm embarrassed to show you the pictures below but I'm happy to report that after The AT Cure it is much easier to sleep in the room. 

  When we first moved into the house Mr. Monkey went out and bought himself a chest of drawers - the one on the right to be exact. I had the on the left from college. Although the aesthetics for the drawers on the left may not be exactly ours I was happy that at least the drawers slid well. As for the dresser Mr. Monkey got, the drawers themselves did not work so well and they were too small for his clothes so the drawers were often left open and his clothes on top of the dresser. So through the 8 weeks of The AT Cure I set out to help both of us purge major piles of clothes and also find a functional set of drawers. The picture below is after we got rid of clothes and moved in the new-to-us 1960's bedroom set (Craigslist purchase). The 2 pictures up top are how it all looks now. I think I'd like to continue to focus on our bedroom but for now, for this 8 week cure I'm going to place all my attention on personal home office matters. So I'm announcing it here - (yes it's at the very bottom of this entry - hopefully most of you didn't make it down this far . . .) at the end of these 8 weeks I will have purged loads and loads of paper (recycled of course) and I will have a system for organizing our bills - paid and unpaid, and I will have a process for receiving bills, and for storing them when needed. Wish me and Mr. Monkey luck!

Modern Platform Storage Beds!

Doze from Suite New York.

Modern Storage Bed from Modern Interiors.

Hudson from Room & Board.

So when Mr. Monkey and I returned from Chile and Palm Springs we were so happy to snuggle up in our own bed. It's so cozy and soft and soft and lead to achey backs and crooked necks. We were shocked! What happened? Too much kayaking? Too much working out? Too much age? Although we consider ourselves a smart bunch it took us a couple of weeks to realize (cue villian music - dun dun duh) it was our very own beloved bed that was causing us so much pain!!! We promptly moved the old mattress out and moved the mattress from our guest bedroom in. We're cuurently sleeping on that foam pillow of a thing which is super cozy and the cricks and aches have gotten much better. We've recently decided though that we're ready for a new space age springless mattress. We're still shopping for that piece but somewhere along the way a salesperson said to us that platform beds are the best fit for foam beds and well it didn't take much more than that for me to yes yes yes! I started looking and found some gorgeous. I started with Apartment Therapy. They had a posting awhile back on inexpensive modern platform beds. I took a look at the IKEA bed but it was too cheap. I found the 3 examples above. The first one called Doze and is the most expensive from Suite New York. You can pass hours drooling over many of their products. The last one is from Room & Board and is called Hudson with storage. While the price is much more reasonable it's still a touch outside true financial comfort for use. Another problem is that most of these platform beds only come in the queen size. Mr. Monkey and I love being in a smaller bed and our bedroom itself is small. To have a queen would really suck up too much space. And you know we're all about livin' large (in lifestyle) while livin' small (impact and footprint). So our solution . . . drum roll please . . . call in all-around nice guy and extremely talented wood artist - Jonathon Plummer owner of Bunchberry Woodworking. We met with Jonathon this past week and discussed ideas - believe it or not a combination or drawers and cantilevered-ness! We'll keep you posted as we review a first draft of the bed next week.

Modern Holiday Giveaways

Everyone is having a holiday giveaway - from Ellen to your corner independently owned lingerie store (don't ask how I know). But my favorite holiday giveaway is from the family of websites - Apartment Therapy - Re-Nest - The Kitchn - ohdeedoh - and last but not least unplgged. There is still a week of giveaways and I think you should sign up or at least get ideas for gifts for your favorite compact living - environmentalist - foodie - design minded parent - techie geek. Go here for the deets. You do have to give them your email but I've never receieved any email or promos I didn't ask for. Once your logged in for one that password and user names will work for all 5 of them. Pictures above are from a couple of nice one from the past couple of days. The boxes are from the Container store! The plates are from Bob's Your Uncle. And my fave the pillow is from Kevin O'Brien Studio. How is it that a single pillow can be more expensive then a set of plates and nice storage? Honestly the prices of stylish pillows are ridiculous especially when they're ridiculously easy to sew. Or you could try to win one by logging in to the Apartment Therapy peeps! It was there that I learned you can throw your plastic shower curtain in the clothes washing machine and it would get clean! Sweet! It kept ours out of the landfill for another long while! Happy Friday. Cheers to a wonderful weekend.

Holidaze: Preparing for House Guests

For the first time my family will be visiting for Thanksgiving. But this is only a half truth because for the actual Turkey day we will head down to Mr. Monkey's family's place and they have the joy/burden of preparing the Thanksgiving dinner. We will bring pies from our favorite pie-ery in town - Sweet Life and a caserole. I should get my pie order in now in case it's too late. Yikes. My main focus is making sure our bungalow is clean and organized. So over the last few weeks I've taken several stuffed-like-a-turkey-bags of clothes and glassware over to Goodwill. This week I have two bags of clothes to take to the clothes exchange and the rest is mostly laundry and prepping the guest rooms (1 is usually the T.V. room) for Mother and Brother Monkey.

I recently read a post at Apartment Therapy about preparing the bathroom for guests. All of their pointers are a part of my usual routine with the exception of the air scent diffuser or soy candle. I tend to stay away from this because of the strong smell. I end up as Sneezy and I think about guests that may have allergies too. I have yet to find mild but pleasant scent that can just hang out in the bathroom. If you have a favorite let me know. With the four of us adults using one restroom I think a air scent diffuser of some sort is in order.

Here's a pick of the last time we had a guest. Sorry for the blur. That's a fresh flower in a jar, a clock, a light that can be turned off from the bed, a candle plus matches, and the usually small bottled liquids, and oh yes the towels.

As for towels I used to like the idea of leaving a nicely folded tower of towels in a bathroom cabinet. That is until one guest used a towel that (to me) had obviously already been used and was hanging on a drying rack! Major ick! I felt really bad just thinking about her probable gross thoughts about using a pre-used bath towel! I didn't do a good enough job as a hostess - argh. So I've since switched practices. Now I leave nicely folded towels on top of the guest's bed or in plain view in their room so that it is very clear which towels are theirs. Plus there is now a hook on the back of their bedroom door where they can hang their towel to dry. There are so many little details to make sure that guests feel welcome and are comfortable and can get a good nights sleep.

One final note from my Mrs. Monkey Hostess Book - when decorating I was sure to place a mirror in the guest room. Since guests don't have their own bathroom at our wee place they have to stumble out of their room on their way to the lieu every morning. I always prefer to look and make sure nothing is hanging out of anywhere that should not have things hanging out . . . wink wink . . . if you know what I mean. Or even if you don't you probably get the idea. A mirror in the guest bedroom lets the guests see themselves (if they care to) before they head out of their safe and cozy temporary dwelling. That's all my pointers for now. I should probably go and do some of this sh*t instead of just talk about it. Good luck next week. Take a deep breath and another swig of that seasonal ale. Cheers!