Woe of Saturday

We took the subway down to Wall Street and boarded the Free Boat Taxi.

Going to IKEA you usually know you are about to fall-out with your partner. You are going to want to stab this person or yell at them in the textile area because times get really tough there. You definitely want to shove teetering old ladies out of your way and I definitely curse everyone who brings their little kids because who melts down in Ikea more than husbands? Children. Yep.

But we were super prepared with a diagram from Laura Cattano and a list with sick detail thanks to Mr. JPH. We got it done!


Things were super sweet until our TAXI GOT IN A CRASH WITH ANOTHER TAXI ON THE FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT EXPRESSWAY. We had to wait for the cops, clog-up traffic for everyone... talk to the cops...

But we recovered. We needed to rest up for a night on the town & B-I-N-G-O, but I did one tiny organizing thing...

BEFORE - Tiny tiled ledge in bathroom where my hair stuff lives.


And AFTER with a cheap little tray. So tidy.


The specific measurement of how much room was there aside from the pipes were drawn out in my little book where I've been writing all this stuff down.

I've got a page/s devoted to stuff needed from Ikea, Cb2 and West Elm. Ideas anyway. In my dreams I'm getting some table lamps from Jonathan Adler.

375, Ya'll.

A dream came true for me, and Laura C. the professional home organizer came over on Saturday. We actually used up the entire 3 hour appointment. It was a very active time of jumping around from corner to corner, explaining things, learning and measuring.

She's going to make a report for us, which I'm going to refer to as The Official Report because I've learned so much from her blog and her Flickr, but this document is going to be her Official Report for our approximately 375 square foot apartment. Yes, she confirmed that our apartment is about 375 square feet! We've always said "Oh, we think it's about 500..." So, wow. Yep.



She also said that my photos make it look bigger. Ha!
She also said that I don't have that much clothes, and how my shoes are stored is fine.

Since we will be working on her advice for a very long time... Get ready to observe this process and metamorphosis extensively.

I did 2 really Good Things tonight. I did what I referred to as Phase 1 on the Utility Closet.





Phase 2 will be after we find out recommendations for wall-hooks for hanging more stuff in there and getting things off the ground.

I also got the laundry hamper in there! That's really exciting for us. Big achievement right there!


This closet has been pissing me off really bad, like making me angry and bitchy, and wrestling with all the crap inside was the straw that broke me down and caused me to email her for an appointment. Seeing it all tidy and nice and not trying to fight me and bruise me up makes me so happy:


Matt said the only thing LC "Shamed" me on was the amount of cleaning products I had.
She gave me the challenge of boiling it down to ONE BUCKET by Sunday night and of course, the mission is accomplished.

Here's the starting lineup:

We decided to put this official bucket in a sneaky little corner under the pedestal oven. This angle is great for hiding this. No one can spot this down here, except for Bonnie the dog.


In addition to cleaning up this closet - she pointed out that the pie safe:

is shallow enough to move out from the wall and hide some skinny, ugly metal things - The clothes drying rack and the wheeled garment rack are now tucked away back here. Hallelujah!


She said she has a big floor-mirror that is hiding things for her in this way too.

So- Laura Cattano came over and it was an awesome experience. I'm so glad we did this. I learned so much. It's like there were "Humps" and she kind of pushed us over them and got us on track for solving the issues. I've already hooked the utility/linen closet up! And I haven't even gotten her Official Report. It's going to have links & stuff for economical solutions. She also sketched a floor plan and took tons of measurements so maybe there will be diagrams in there.

Good stuff! There will be like 1,000 more installments related to this experience and the action plan/s to come.