February 21, 2005
Put the Book Back on the Shelf.
After I posted about kitchen and clothing storage, one reader asked me something like "Oh, but what about the books? The books are everywhere!" The written word is taking over so many of our spaces, I know.
My favorite books sit atop our television in a tidy stack, like art:
I majored in English Lit, and I've been in the book business for something like eight years. So yeah, I'm a terrible bookhoarder. I pluck them out of trash piles, I buy them on the internet, from libraries, regular bookshops, and even from stoop sales. I take friends' castoffs. I have a ton of my old college textbooks, gathering dust where they sit on my shelves.
This is the smallest of three bookselves in my apartment:
I use every available square inch of this shelf, as you can see. For a while, right before my last big book purge, the top shelf was stacked two deep.
Like I noted with clothing storage, purging is essential. If you have a book just to have it, or if you're filling your shelves just so everyone will know how smart and well-read you are, well, there you have your priorities. Priorities you'll regret next time you move.
There is something so freeing about setting books free to circulate, and choosing favorites for your all-time, desert-island collection helps you to better define your tastes and beliefs and personality.
I don't mean to sound like a broken record here, some austere minimalist shouting "Throw it out!" God knows I don't follow this advice all that often. I have loads of clutter, and stacks of books I don't really like, books I've never read, books I may never get around to reading. But man, it feels amazing to send books on their way, imagining the hundreds of other hands they'll fill. At least once a year, get rid of a few. You'll feel lighter, more free, and you'll thank yourself the next time you must pack them into boxes and carry them down the stairs.
In the meantime, I love these shelves right here.
(Thanks for bearing with me during this past week's brief hiatus.)
Posted by Lara at 10:08 PM | Comments (16)
February 03, 2005
Up, Up, and Away.
I promised a reader I'd share more kitchen storage ideas for tiny places, and I aim to please.
Our closets are teeny and overpacked. One houses a huge water heater, a boiler apparatus, and a vacuum. Another houses a lot of shoes, sweaters, and luggage, and the third? It holds an ironing board, three guitar cases and all our coats, even though it's not even deep enough for the entire width of a hanger. Who builds a closet that shallow?
So we look for alternatives. There are the usual places, mostly under furniture.
But I am a woman who needs a lot more than under-bed-boxes. My boyfriend has an old computer he won't throw away. There's a carrying case for my sewing machine. We kept the heinous medicine cabinet that came with the place (we plan to rehang it upon leaving, taking our nice new one with us). I have a big bag of potting soil. He has a huge home brewing kit. I've got more than eight gallons of paint to hide. We have all of this crap, crap we sorta need, crap we definitely don't want to look at on a regular basis.
Any guide to living in a small space will tell you the following: Look up. Think vertically.
Ladies, gentlemen, I now present my garage:
If you have a large space between the tops of your kitchen cabinets and your ceiling (and many of us do), you can stash tons and tons of stuff up there. It's easy to rig a screen or curtain to hide it all, as I have above. Fabric, string, cup hooks. It's not my best work, but it's totally functional. It holds everything that won't fit elsewhere, and it's not out in the open.
You could make it more permanent if you like, with shelves and real doors with hinges, or a screen that slides on a track, but hey, I'm a renter on a budget. Cup hooks and string it is!
Posted by Lara at 06:11 AM | Comments (4)
February 02, 2005
A Lid for Every Pot.
I must apologize in advance. I'm going to mention Ikea for the second day in a row. I know you get it, everyone gets it. Wow, what cheap stuff! And some of it is designed and made pretty well! Fancy that. Now shut up about Ikea. I know.
A second preface: our kitchen is freaking miniscule, about 10x3, only slightly larger than the bathroom.
Here's my floorplan:
That's 10x3 including deep counters an enormous full-sized fridge, oven/range/hood, and dishwasher. We also have 2 tall garbage cans somewhere in there for trash & recycling. It's um, snug. At best.
Hey, designer of my kitchen? You suck.
So I bought an Ikea Rationell pot lid rack for about $6 this past summer, thinking, ooh, this will help out with storage in our tiny kitchen. Plus, pot lids are a pain to store. What do you do with them?
But the space was really too narrow to accommodate it on the wall, and I didn't really want to detract from the stripes or make the room look more crowded than it actually is. And oh, it is.
So I stashed it.
Anyway, last night, in a frenzy of cleaning and organizing in preparation for some houseguests, I found it again.
And thought, hm, hey, wait, forget the wall. Will this fit inside a lower cabinet?
It did.
Now all the oddly-shaped, unstackable lids are out of my way, and easily accessible.
These racks are available elsewhere too, and they will change your kitchen's life.
Posted by Lara at 11:30 AM | Comments (3)