Napa Packing List

I mentioned several days ago that we found time to go on a little family vacation. We actually took a long weekend and snuck off to Napa Valley.

When we travel, we rarely check bags. In college, we were both fortunate enough to study abroad and backpacking our way through Europe taught us how little we really need while traveling. For instance, the three of us were able to fit 5 days worth of clothes in a small roller suitcase and duffle bag for our trip to Napa.

I wanted to share how I plan my outfits while packing in order to travel with less.

I apologize in advance for the terrible pictures, my camera and I must have taken an awkward pill. Thanks for being patient as I am still new to blogging.

Here are the clothes I brought and how I like to lay them out when packing:

You'll notice that my clothes are all pretty neutral with the same accent color- turquoise. The best advice I have heard for packing light is to bring clothes that are all along the same color scheme. That way, you don't need a lot of extra accessories to coordinate outfits.

I also like laying my clothes out by outfit to ensure that each item I bring will coordinate with other items to make an outfit. Too many times I have just packed random tops and bottoms and ended up at my destination with a bunch of pieces that did't work together.

Another reason that I like my whole suitcase to match color wise is so that I have the option of mixing and matching pieces depending on my mood and the weather. It also allows me to just pack one bottom to coordinate with multiple tops.

For example:

See how both tops work with the one pair of white shorts?

Actually, all of my tops would  work with any of the bottoms.

I also brought a black maxi dress.

Simple, comfy- why would I not? The necklace in the picture above is one of my new favorite things. They are called Chewbeads and are made for babies and moms. My teething infant loves them and it was so great to have something accessible for him to chew on the plane.

Several things to note- It was pretty warm while we were in Napa this May. However, when we've been before in March it was cold and rainy. For that trip I packed several warmer items. Also, our experience is that Napa is pretty laid back. I usually wear to dinner what I wear during the day and we have yet to go somewhere where something nicer than jeans and a cute top was required.

Happy traveling!

Linen Closet

Huzzah! I am so excited to announce that I have finally finished organizing my linen closet. Warning- this is a long post.

Our linen closet was definitely one of those places in our home that I avoided because the chaos drove me crazy. I just shoved stuff in when I had to.  

Here is a progress shot after I half-heartedly tried to organize it a little while ago:

The two biggest improvements for this closet were adding a fifth shelf and a new overhead light. My fabulous husband made both of them for me :).

Here is a picture of the new light:

I'm going to write a whole post about how we transformed our hall way ceiling, but I wanted to include this picture to emphasize how adding light into your home can make a huge impact. Before, this portion of the hallway had no light. I couldn't even see what was going on in the linen closet; which did not help the chaos within. Now that I can actually see what is going on in the linen closet, I can see what we have in there.

The second biggest change was the addition of another shelf:

Before, for whatever reason, the shelves had stopped belly-button height. This left a lot of wasted space at the bottom, especially because the space is so narrow I was unable to find some sort of storage system to fit.

When starting an organization project, I like looking through Pinterest for inspiration. Seeing pictures of what others have done not only inspires me, but it also helps me visualize the outcome. Here is my favorite example of a linen closet:

Source

 

See how this linen closet has a similar shape to mine? It also includes many of the same items. Both of these are important when finding inspiration for an organizational project. Fortunately, I did not need any space in my closet for toiletries, so I had a little extra space to work with.

 

My first step was to empty the closet and sort everything into piles.

 

 

 

I know it looks crazy, but it made sense to me.

 

I then cropped all of my shelf liners to size.

 

 

See how they flop over the side of the shelf in the picture above? When we moved in I was so busy unpacking I just threw them in there. Now that I had everything off the shelves I just felt like it made the whole space look sloppy.

 

Next, I had the hubs add hooks to the back of the door.

 

 

My inspiration photo used rods, but our closet does not have enough space between the door and the shelves to allow for rods, so I decided hooks would work just as well. I picked these up from Target last weekend. I think they were under $5.

 

 

 

Simple and cheap. That's the way I roll.

 

When I was looking at all of my piles of things to put back in the closet I realized that we did not need to keep everything  I had in there. For instance- do I really need to keep my college dorm room bedding with matching pillow that I don't even like any more? Or my childhood bedding that has been used to shreds? After purging I ended up with 2 garbage bags full to donate. I was so excited I loaded up my car and drove to the closest Goodwill drop off that minute.

 

Once I put everything back, there was a lot more breathing room. Here is the after shot:

 

 

Sorry I can't get the whole thing in one picture- our hallway is a little narrow.

 

Several things- firstly, adding hooks to the door was amazing. It's like getting a whole extra shelf. Never underestimate the impact of adding storage to the back of doors. Secondly, I love labels. I used Martha Stewart for Avery self adhesive book plates.

 

 

It's so wonderful having things labeled. When showing my husband the space after I was done, he walked up and said, "Great! Here are our blankets." No more him having to asking me where everything is in the house!

 

 

I'm so excited to have this done! Now I can reach for a towel without pillows tumbling down on top of me!

 

Laundry Time

Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed reading about our breakfast nook. Today I am going to scooch across to our laundry area which also lives in our kitchen, right across from the breakfast nook.

Here's a before shot for ya:

 

 

Before I go much further I have to admit that I used to hate this space. It is front and center in our kitchen, not to mention smack dab behind our back door. You can see the door in the picture above. Needless to say, this is a high traffic area as we use this door to go to the garage and our back yard.

 

To give you some perspective, here is a shot of the other side of the door:

 



 

 

However, over time I have come to appreciate the space for several reasons:

 

1. We are so blessed to just have a space in our home to do laundry. Now that we have a baby I am constantly doing laundry. I can't imagine having to load up my baby boy and laundry to go to the Laundromat every time I had to do laundry.

 

2. When I was in high school, we lived in a lovely home built in the1930s. The problem was that the washer and dryer were out in the garage. Actually, not in the garage, the laundry area was in a lean-to against the garage. And guess what? When it rained the space flooded. Plus, the lot was big, so the garage must have been at least 100 feet away. It was actually a very nice home, but for whatever reason the house had not been updated to include a laundry area. What I'm trying to get at is my mom used to trudge out to the garage in all sorts of conditions with her laundry basket in tow just so we could have clean socks. The woman is dedicated. With that in mind, I think I can stand having our laundry area in the kitchen just so long as it is in the house.

 

3. Lastly, I have a new appreciation for the location of our washer/dryer. Now that our baby boy is here I don't want to take my eyes off his chubby cheeks for one minute. Having the laundry area in the center of things allows me to wash our clothes without taking my eyes off of him.

 

Now then, here is an after shot for you:

 

By far, the biggest change to the space was also the cheapest- paint. It is amazing  just how much cleaner the space looks once we covered up all the scuff marks and painted the wood white. The pictures do not do it justice. The second biggest improvement is the shelf my husband built me. It so kindly covers up the hoses and outlets that are a necessity of washers and dryers.

Here is a close up of my storage rack:

It is just a simple 3 drawer rack from container store that I jazzed up with some leftover fabric to hide the chaos inside. The labels match the ones I have in the pantry and the jar is full of dog bones for our spoiled pup.

In addition to fun pictures, I also keep this piggy bank on my laundry shelf. He serves two purposes. The first, I can quickly pour pocket change into him before our pants go through the wash. The second, he lives right by the back door, so when I know I am going somewhere that has parking meters, I can quickly grab some change without always having to cart it around in my purse. I still haven't decided if I want to spray paint him or leave him as is.


Before  we moved in, I had big plans to build doors to cover the laundry area. But you know what?

 

 

Our dryer sticks out just enough so that there is no room to build doors. My next thought was to make curtains to hide the space, but I decided that they would be too visually imposing in the small space.

 

I hope you enjoyed my laundry tour! I still have big plans to add in some art and maybe a drying rack. There are so many fun laundry ideas floating around the web these days that the possibilities abound! Thanks for stopping by!

How do you like to make laundry day fun?



 



Breakfast Nook

Hello! I apologize for not posting in a while. We went out of town for a few days and I had to get my feet back on the ground.

My mom found me the most beautiful orchid and I thought while I was showing it I might as well share our breakfast nook. You will find the space right off of our kitchen.

Here is a shot of the area before we moved in.

Lovely brown wood, no?  This space is part of our kitchen. The kitchen is by far the room we have done the most to and I will get around to showing the whole room one of these days.

Here is the breakfast nook as it looks now.

The first steps we took were to paint the wood white and the walls this lovely neutral gray. The color is Behr's Silver Sateen for anyone asking.

Then we had to lose the dinky pendant light the previous owner had and replaced it with this light fixture. We found this light at our favorite consignment store for 30 bucks. He was originally brass so we just put our spray painting skills to work and turned him black. Sometimes I think I want to put a drum shade on him, but I can't decide if it would overwhelm the space.

The Texas flags are prints from a local artist my husband had before we got married. They are in barn wood frames and we think they work well in the space.

As far as the table goes, this is a pretty small space and we have toyed around with several different table locations. We rarely eat at this table so we opted to push it against the wall to make room for our barstools. Also, we like having a table in the space, because we can turn it into a serving station when we entertain.

Here is a shot from our most recent shindig where we pulled the table out and used it as a drink station.

Our back door is just to the right and you can see our little key rack on the wall. The rack is comprised of three little turtles that I bought at Anthropologie several years ago.



Lets step closer to look at the table, shall we?

How about that orchid, huh? Thanks, mom!

The two picture frames are from Target and the S&P shakers are from Anthropologie. My napkin holder is a super cute wooden rooster. Sorry, I've had him too long to remember where he is from.

Remember this bucket from my Home Goods run?

Well my husband is a hot-sauce-loving kind of guy. So I stocked the bucket full of hot sauce and put him front and center on the table. Now the hubs always knows where his Tabasco is.

Another orchid pic.

Anyway, we love our little breakfast nook and I hope you do too! Thanks for stopping by!

Home Goods Goodies

Hey guys! Today is going to be a quick post, but I wanted to share with you some of my new finds. Last weekend I escaped the house for a few hours and found myself at Home Goods. For those of you who may not know, Home Goods is a great store that sells everything from dog beds to rugs at a fraction of the retail cost. Anyway I kind of got into trouble and found way too much cute stuff to bring home!

Yes that is a wood chicken and he was on clearance and I love him. I thought the picture frames were a steal- $4.99 and I didn't have to paint them because they were already in my colors. Home Goods is also a great place to stock up on staples like candles. Also, I don't have any in the picture, but Home Goods is my favorite place to buy gift wrap.

Stay tuned to see how I integrate all of these fun finds into our home!

What fun shopping secrets do you have to share?

Debugging the Yard

Today I'm going to talk about one of the not so fun parts of home ownership- dealing with bugs. With the beautiful weather we've been having in Dallas, my family and I have been spending a lot of time outside. We live in a beautiful area of Dallas with a lot of creeks and lakes. Unfortunately, we also have the mosquitos that go along with such things.

Several times a year I try to make it outside to spray our yard for bugs.

I like using Cutter because I find it easy to use and it kills other critters besides mosquitos.

 

 

It helps if you have a curious feline to assist you in your efforts.

 

 

 

Using it is as easy as attaching it to your hose and spraying your yard. Voila! Now you can enjoy the beautiful weather in your bug free yard!

 

What methods do you use for keeping your family and pets safe from bugs?

 



Pantry Organization

I've found that about once a year I need to revisit the organizational functionality of the high traffic areas in our house. I've found that about once a year is often enough to purge, rearrange, and assess how efficient are such high use areas in our house as the pantry, the bathroom, and the linen closet. After having a baby recently and living with the controlled chaos that ensued as we caught our breath, our pantry was in dire need of some attention. I really wish I had taken a picture of just how crazy it was. Not only were items starting to invade the countertops, just because there was no space left in the pantry, but because I could not see what I already had, I found myself buying multiples. It was time for a change!

I found inspiration from some of my favorite blogs. I love Elementary Organization's finished pantry as well as I Heart Organizing's pantry. I also found this great label template from Better Homes & Gardens.

With my inspiration in mind, I purchased these Avery address labels that fit the template:

 

 

I have also been accumulating Oxo pop containers for a while to use for this project. The best deal I have found on them is the 12 piece set at Sam's Club.

 

After emptying the pantry, purging it of anything expired, and filling up my containers I came up with this:  

 

 

 

On the top shelf I put all unopened boxes with their labels clearly visible.

 



One thing I have always found challenging about our pantry is how deep it is- 2 feet!

Items always seem to get lost at the back so I had to get creative with my placement system. I decided to put the tallest boxes at the back with their labels visible. I also got a under shelf rack to make the most of the vertical space.



On the next shelf I put all of our canned goods on a 3-tier expanding shelf. Since we don't use our canned goods too often I put our cereal containers right in front because we access them every morning and a little basket with snacks. I've found when organizing spaces it is important to keep the things the hubs uses front and center. The labels also help him find what he is looking for.

 

The next shelf down has all of my bulk baking  goods such as flour and sugar, as well as a basket with all of our oils and sauces.

 

There you have it! I love this system, because everything has a designated space and the hubs can actually find what he is looking for!

What pantry organization techniques do you use for your family? Do you find you have to reorganize high traffic spaces often to improve on your system?