Manolo for the Home

How’s this for a slick little set-up? A certain Leah and her husband Will created this chill kitchenside bar using a bunch of bits of shelving. That’s actually all I know — were the pieces meant to be used this way? Beats me!

Who cares? It works, and it’s replicable. You want to talk about an easy DIY project? Hit up Target, score some shelving, and line up your booze. Voila! Your liquor is conveniently out of the way, and you can brag to your peeps that you have built yourself a bar in your closet-sized apartment.

If you, like me, have more books than you know what to do with but aren’t willing to donate them to a books for teachers program, then you may just have more than a passing interest in bookshelves. You’re missing out if you’re not stopping by Bookshelf now and again. It’s the blog for booklovers, bookshelf enthusiasts, and everyone else who gets off on storage solutions.

Alex Johnson, creator of Bookshelf and author of Shedworking: the alternative workplace revolution, also has a second blog, Shedworking, which highlights the best in tiny little dwellings meant for so much more than storage.

It doesn’t get much simpler (or cheaper) than the DIY $10 hanging pot rack! I found this easy instructional on Wise Bread ages ago while searching for kitchen storage solutions. We weren’t sure how our landlord would take to us drilling onto the ceiling, so we planned to implement the idea in our home. Now that we have said home, we’ve discovered that our ceilings are just a tad short for hanging kitchen gear without risking black eyes and bumped heads

Materials necessary include:

• 1 piece of 4 foot re-bar
• 1 package of black chair tips
• 1 can of el cheapo black spray paint
• 1 package of eye hooks
• 2 packages of s-hooks
• Spray paint in whatever color you fancy
• A little bit of duct tape

Have you ever used surprising materials to create something fab in your home? Tell us about it in the comments!

I like all things rustic, though I can’t rightly say why. When I was growing up, the dream home I envisioned in my head looked just like something out of a modernist furniture catalog. My maternal grandparent’s home may have been somewhat of an inspiration, as it was filled with triumphs of Danish Design. Long story short, my mother’s penchant for wood and so on mortified me beyond belief. Why I thought that any of my peers would be giving thought to our home and its trappings is utterly beyond me.

Buried somewhere in the books The Beard and I have not yet unpacked is a short work discussing the French kitchen. In my youth I spent a great deal of time hanging about German kitchens, but never had the opportunity to visit a French one so I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the book’s assertion that the kitchens in France’s countryside don’t typically have built in counters or storage space. Maybe it’s a regional thing?

After reading that, I was sorely tempted to rip out all my counters and cabinetry so I could start fresh with all manner of wonderful tables and cabinets. I might begin my kitchen re-imaging adventure with this antique pine and Vermont soapstone island. It comes complete with two roomy drawers with brass pulls so we’d have someplace to put all those odd little kitchen doodads The Beard’s mom insists on buying for us.

According to a recent NYT article, clutter is just as psychologically damaging as it is ugly. I tend to agree, but I’m a chronic organizer rather than a chronic clutterer. While I can accept that one man’s clutter is another man’s collection, I’m firmly of the mind that if something is neither useful nor beautiful, it ought to be chucked, repurposed, sold, or given away.

Excessive clutter and disorganization are often symptoms of a bigger health problem. People who have suffered an emotional trauma or a brain injury often find housecleaning an insurmountable task. Attention deficit disorder, depression, chronic pain and grief can prevent people from getting organized or lead to a buildup of clutter. At its most extreme, chronic disorganization is called hoarding, a condition many experts believe is a mental illness in its own right, although psychiatrists have yet to formally recognize it.

Getting organized is unquestionably good for both mind and body — reducing risks for falls, helping eliminate germs and making it easier to find things like medicine and exercise gear.

Makes sense to me. For those wondering how to begin, I recommend starting with some decorative trunks:

In a pinch, you can stash your stuff in these babies without having to organize it, and you can come back to it later for organization purposes when you have more time.

For many, the new year means new furniture, new appliances, and a new decor scheme. I know that I definitely get way more into the whole new year thing when I’ve made some outward changes in my existence, a la moving everything I own around and donating anything that hasn’t seen the light of day in, oh, six months. The keyword is organization, a.k.a. shelf shopping! I’m contemplating the one you see above, but only in a ::wouldn’t it be nice if I had $700:: sort of way.

I hope you have a most prosperous and beautiful new year!