OO: 6 Ways To Control Your Cord Clutter!

The desks around my household tend to get pile-filed. We do not have the best desk systems in the world working here. The next three Organization Overhaul posts are going to be dedicated to decluttering and organizing your desk! Let's start with that crazy crazy mess you have hiding behind your desk.

It is time to CLEAN YOUR CORDS!

Let's get this party started. It is time to break it down!

Hook a little caddy under your desk to corral your cords.

You can buy this grassy fella on Amazon for $21 buckaroos. He's the classiest charging station I've ever seen. 

What a great idea for all of those USBs that are always floating around! 

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Reuse those bread clips so you can tell which cord is which.

Here's a sneaky one... get yourself a pretty book; chop that book up and remove the insides. And thennnnnnnnnnnnn you get to hide whatever kind of cord mayhem you have going on! In the photo below, a wireless router is hiding its ugly face under the lovely book.

The double whammy! This one has labeled cords and a fancy little cord caddy! What more could you possibly want out of uncluttered cords and cables? 

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One more cord holder for you

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Before and Afters are the best!

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Did I hear you say you wanted another before and after?

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Uh oh... it is Wednesday! And, you know what that means, it is time for:

Wednesday's Weekly Rather Question:

WYR...

eat two watermelons

or

three quarts of ice cream of your choice?

This was a Scott WYR, but I had to pull it out of him.

It is time for a one day early birthday shout out to Mrs. "Yup, it's a bag" herself!

A New Post Is Up On "The Etc. Lists"

Today marks the exciting start of a new blog, The Etc. Lists!
This blog is for all of my random posts that are pretty much only of interest to my family and closest friends. 

Usually, I will just post to this blog on Saturdays and Sundays, but you might get the occasional Tuesday or Thursday post when NL is taking a day off.

Head on over to The Etc. Lists to get a bit of Cora and her animal buddies into your life!

Here's a sneak peak:

The Bonus Room Chronicles: Step 6: Change Out The Bi-Fold Doors

Welcome to a new week! I am writing this on Sunday night and I already have a case of the Monday Blues. Aside from busting up my internet, I was pretty productive this weekend. I have figured out that what I really need in order to light a fire under me is visitors. I don't like people knowing about my huge piles of junk in various spots around the house. So, I work hard to get things tidied up before they get here. We just had a couple of quick pop-in visitors, but it was enough to get me to workin' hard!

I remember when I was living in an apartment with some friends I used to have the messiest room on the planet, but it would only take me about 20 minutes to get it looking spotless. The key was that I had a bunch of boxes hidden behind my bed that I would throw everything in. Clearly that was a better solution than dealing with the clutter. 

Once my dad was visiting, and as always, I had waited until the last minute to clean up. So, I put everything on top of my bed and threw the comforter over it. I spent a few minutes patting things down so it didn't look like I had magazines and lunch boxes and whatever other random thing was floating around my room hiding under the covers.

Now, it is time to move onto the fascinating reason you are all here today: BI-FOLD DOORS!

This is probably the most boring step in any of the chronicle series. I am sorry about that!

The house came with louvered bi-fold doors and they just weren't my style. I think in the right environment they can look fantastic, but in this room they really dated it, especially with the "funky retro vibe" we had going on. Scott changed them out himself and the whole process was pretty easy. I didn't take any photos. Just follow the directions that come with your door. They know what they're talking about!

So, we went from this:

To this:

To this:

WHHHHAAAAATTT! Is that what I hear you screaming at your computer? Where did the funky retro vibe go? Well, we are in the process of de-funkying and de-retroing our house right now because....

THIS
LOVELY
ABODE
WILL
BE
GOING
ON
THE
MARKET
SOON!

Sorry, the one word per line thing may have been a bit much, but I think you liked the dramatic effect of it just a little bit. The cat is out of the bag. If you live in Charlotte or are looking to move to Charlotte, this tropical paradise of loveliness could be yours! I will tell you more about everything in another post soon to come. 

Back to the land of chronicles! Here are the steps that the Bonus Room Chronicles have passed through, along with the very last step. Yay! There is just one more step to go before we can cross this chronicle off our list.

The Bonus Room Chronicles Introduction Post

Step 1: Move in. Paint the walls. Put up curtains. Put up art. Paint orange design. Paint polka dots.

Step 2: Put up wire display.

Step 3: Put up wall of frames.

Step 4: Move furniture around. Get rid of TV. Add bed.

Step 5: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3: Build window seat and built in bookcases.

Step 6: Change out the bifold doors

Step 7: Part 1.  Part 2. Part 3. Finishing touches

Here are a few more photos of the bonus room where we left it last time.

Internet = Busted

In my attempt to get my house super organized I completely messed up my internet. I spent all morning trying to get it up and running instead of other fun and productive projects that I had planned. So, we took a family trip to the library just so I could write a post telling my faithful readers that there would not be a post today... not an interesting one, anyway.

The library was having a 5 for a dollar sale on kids books and you know I am never one to pass up a good deal on books for teeny tiny tots. So, I am leaving with The Best Christmas Hunt Ever byJohn Speirs. It is a Where's Waldo-type book. Baby Max And Ruby: Love by Rosemary Wells. We have plenty of Max and Ruby books, but not this one. It looks pretty good! I also picked up a Clifford Phonics Fun book called Clifford And The Bath. I bought Little Puff by Margaret Hillert and illustrated by Sid Jordan because the illustrations look awesome. I will give you a peak at them when the internet at my casa is back and running. Speaking of casa, the last book I bought is a Spanish-English book called How Can I Get There?/ Como Puedo llegar alla?

Scott and Cora are now here to encourage me to get the heck off the computer. Cora is repeating "mom" over and over. Luckily, their arrival scared off the kids who were gathered around my computer reading what I was up to.

I looked through the photos that I had online on this accound so I could have something to put up for you. I found this one of my Grandma's very serious elementary class. I guess it was a different time back then because, these daysm, I cannot imagine having that many kids together and only one of them is smiling.

And, here is my dad when he was little.

Tada! That's what I have for you today!

My Favorite Cora Photos: Months 8-9, Part 3

Happy Saturday! I hope it is just what you want it to be- productive? relaxing? filled with a 90210 marathon? I am going to start the day out in one of my favorite ways... with a look at some photos of my sweetie babytoddler!

Aww she is not sporting nearly as much chub these days and I have to say I miss it a little bit.

Spoons were her favorite toys for a while. 

 Mandatory monthly photo of silly time playing with dad. 

Family photo.  Professionally taken, obviously.

I realize now that the huge flower clip on top of her head looks a bit silly. For some reason it made sense to me at the time. In my defense, she did need something of the sort to keep hair out of her eyes.

Silly girl! 

Everyone needs one of those super upright flattest-bill-in-the-world baseball caps from the 80s. This one is from my dad's old company.

A little smile! And a baby who looks a lot like her daddy.

Lookin' good with your sweet potato, Cora! 

Park blanket time! 

Another of her favorite toys: keys! 

Cora was not a star with the baseball bat at this point so Scott showed off his skillz. 

Cora showed off her grass-eating skillz! 

And her toy-eating skillz!

I cropped a lot of this photo out to minimize your Scott-rear exposure.

It might not look like it in this photo, but Scott and Cora were having so much fun here! #thebestmoments (shhhh just let the subconscious hashtag usage happen). 

More Cora time:

month 0-1, month 1-2, month 2-3, month 3-4a, month 3-4b, month 4-5a, month 4-5b, month 5-6a, month 5-6b, month 6-7a, month 6-7b, month 7-8a, month 7-8b, month 8-9a, month 8-9b

The Living Room Chronicles:Step 3: New Coffee Table

Heyyyyy you crazy people! I knew you couldn't stay away from the world of coffee tables and pallets!

If you remember correctly, 2 living room posts ago, I showed you the best Craigslist deal this side of the Mississippi River! After my new sofa showed up I knew I was in need of a new coffee table.  The only ones that I could find to fit the space were black or white and I really wanted a wooden coffee table. I tried to think of ways I could make a coffee table myself, but you can't really use a coffee table made out of cardboard and I couldn't figure out a way to make one out of old kitchen cabinets. So, I turned to the most logical thing I could think of... shipping pallets. They were almost exactly the same width I wanted. 

So, I went on Craigslist and sure enough someone was selling them. He also happened to be selling them not far from my favorite fabric store (Mary Jo's) and right around the corner from the only drive in movie theater near Charlotte. Did you put together what happened next? I talked Scott into turning the pallet party into a fun trip.

When we went to pick up the pallets I went a little overboard and bought as many as would fit in the car. The wood was pretty unique looking to me and I figured I could use them for all sorts of weird projects. We stopped and picked up some lovely fabric and then headed to the drive in movies in totally packed car that smelled like a lumber yard. 

When we got there we realized that we could not recline our seats even the slightest. Who wants to watch a double feature sitting as straight backed as you possibly can. So, with all of our new drive-in neighbors watching and secretly judging us we unloaded pallets until we could recline a little.  Then we had to prop a pallet against the back door so the trunk wouldn't be up the whole time (that would have been against drive in rules). The whole thing was pretty awesome.

The next day I started playing around with how I was going to put this beautiful table together.  

I was trying to keep it simple. But he said he would help me turn it into a legitimate table. I gave him a drawing of what I was hoping for and sent him home with some pallets. 

Apparently the wood was really dry and the nails that were used to keep the pallets together were rim shank nails (not good if you are trying to get them out and keep the wood in good condition). Because of this he ended up using most of my pallets just to get the necessary wood out of them. It turns out that my simple plan changed about 100 times and required him to completely take apart the pallets and rebuild them. It would have made a lot more sense just to buy new wood. I bought a cedar mail post to use for the legs. My awesome handy man spent many frustrating hours and finally returned with my very unique new coffee table!

I sanded it, stained it and polyurathaned it and put it in the living room.  It was perfect.  It was better than what I had envisioned!

Now, you can check out that pretty pallet paradise in its new home:

The 7 Steps That Made My Living Room:

Step 1: Move in. Put in whatever furniture we had. Hang art.

Step 2: The Craigslist deal of a lifetime

Step 3: New coffee table (Step 3 Introduction found here)

Step 4: DIY remote control holder. A tiny, tiny step, but we are still calling it one.

Step 5: Should we change out the fireplace?

Step 6: The plant table and the plants

Step 7: Finishing touches