Creative Salvage is Open Again

Hi everyone! Just a quick announcement that, after an extended sabbatical, I’ve reopened my Creative Salvage shop. I left it in vacation mode a month longer than initially planned, but it’s back up and running now. I’ll be adding new items soon (I’m working on compiling some vintage inspiration packs like I sent  for the shop swap!).

Here’s a sampling of what’s currently for sale:

{The Girls of Cleveland Ohio, black and white photographs | Creative Salvage}

{Blue and white tin canister | Creative Salvage}

{Early Frisbee “Flying Saucer” | Creative Salvage}

I’m back and ready to go. I even have a special blog promo code for you. Add BCDPROMO to your checkout to receive 20% of your purchase price for a limited time only. Thanks, and have a lovely day!

Home Tour Tuesday: The Laundry Room

Even as the organizational process is slowing down in our house for a variety of reasons, I still get bursts of inspiration here and there. Today’s Home Tour Tuesday is a testament to that!

Today I’m proud to introduce our laundry room. It won’t take your breath away with its beauty or special touches (… yet. We have plans!) but it has improved our lifestyle tremendously, even in the past few days that it has been organized.

We moved into our house about six months ago now, and we still had all of my dad’s supplies for cleaning and home repairs stored up on the top shelf in our laundry room. We piled the floor with our items. I had originally hoped the laundry room could double as a pantry, so I had added portable shelving and stashed oversized kitchen items on them. It was a bad idea. There was no room to sort or fold clothing, so our laundry inevitably spilled over into the kitchen.

Daniel prompted the beginning of the laundry room overhaul. He suggested we buy the sorting hamper we’d been eying for a couple of years. Done. We took the trip to the Container Store after church one day and came home with this beauty:

He assembled it for me and we began using it immediately. It’s fairly large, so storage in our room isn’t that practical, but the three large fabric compartments, sturdy frame, and casters make sorting laundry easy. We simply wheel it back and forth from our bedroom or bathroom hampers to the laundry room. (And once we cleaned out the laundry room, we could store it there, as well.)

On Friday, I decided that even that big help wasn’t enough. I was tired of having a messy laundry room that didn’t function as well as it should. I took nearly everything out, dusted, swept, and put only what we used or needed to keep handy back. I removed the pantry items (minus our huge bread maker that only gets the occasional use and doesn’t fit on either our counter or our cupboards). I threw out things we hadn’t used in the six months since I’d stored them there. I ruthlessly disposed of duplicates. (Since when had we had FOUR dustpans??!)

As a result, the laundry room went from this:

to this:

Yay! It’s inspired us to do more laundry and even sort and fold right away. I’m pleased, and I can’t wait to dress it up and make it “purtier” sometime soon.

Guest Post Time! I’m Over at Healthy-N-Balanced

Oops! I missed this by one day. However, I am excited to announce that my guest post, Finding Balance in Home Organizing, was featured yesterday over at Healthy-N-Balanced. I encourage you to check out that post (it’s pretty juicy … I dish about my deep dark secret I kept for years), as well as read up on all her incredible tips for living a healthy, balanced life.

See you there!

Q: Why is My House Messy?

{Image: Spectacles}

A: Because I just don’t want to deal with it.

Actually, while I do need to pick somethings up and put others away, my house isn’t in terrible shape today, despite my recent focus on writing over cleaning.

However, just as I was about to head out the door to buy more toilet paper and toothpaste (oh, the joys of our daily mundane existence), I looked down at the mail piling up on our makeshift landing strip in the hall and had a moment of unexpected pondering. (Sometimes the brain comes up with some brilliant ideas after downtime.) In this case, I realized my mail was still there because I just didn’t want to deal with it yet. I know. Brilliant, right? I’m a genius AND a psychologist.

The same thing is true of the dishes in my sink, or the muddy paw prints on the tile near the back door, or the pile of books and publisher’s catalogs and writer’s magazines on my dining room table, or the laundry in my room that needs to be folded.

Hmmm. Interesting. And how does that make you feel?

So basically, I have better or more interesting things to do, and those chores that I really don’t like just don’t get done right away and tend to occasionally pile up. (Those  chores, by the way, are washing dishes/putting them in the cupboard, folding clothes/putting them in the dresser, sorting papers and putting them in a file cabinet.) I know I need to get to it, I just don’t want to deal with it … NOW.

Ahhhhh. I see. Tell me more.

Yeah, I know. This isn’t exactly breaking news. It is, however, the first time I realized that on the whole I’m doing much better. It’s really only three or four chores that I have to work on improving. Yay! So, maybe if I come up with a workable system, or have more places to put things, or figure out a filing system that works for me … I’ll have clean counters and tables! Oh, to have horizontal surfaces be tidy 90% of the time. (I mean, let’s face it: occasionally you just need to make a mess. For instance, Christmas cookie baking and decorating time. Or birthdays. I don’t care who you are. You shouldn’t have to clean on your birthday. Just sayin’.)

Upon closer consideration, outside of pure laziness, the reason I probably don’t feel like “dealing with it” more often is because those tasks literally pile up on a daily basis and if they are ignored for a couple of days, it can seem overwhelming to tackle them.

What actionable steps will you take to address this problem?

Well … maybe I just need to find a better system so I don’t become overwhelmed. I know my junk mail pile has been conquered for good, since I automatically tear up flyers and throw them out without a glance. (Sorry, advertisers of the greater Nashville area.) It used to overwhelm me, too, before I had my little tear-and-toss method down pat. Maybe if I have an automatic response like that, but for folding and putting away my shirts and jeans, for instance, I’ll do better in my weak spots as well!

Here’s hoping.