This past winter I was asked by a new client to help her organize her garage. She envisioned some new shelving to get stuff up off the floor. I strongly suggested she start by working with a professional organizer to determine what she really needed and wanted to keep, and the best way to store all those items The client hired Judith Guertin of All Ways Organized. I returned this past week to help Judy and the client install her new ELFA garage organizing system. If you have never seen an ELFA system, check it out on line or at a Container Store. The system is very well engineered and manufactured. It is expensive, but you get what you pay for. In less than 3 hours I had hung all the parts and pieces on the walls and left Judith and the client to finalize placement of all the objects on the shelves. I will be returning this Friday to install a few more items on an adjacent wall. I'll take some pictures and post them here for you. If you would like to work with Judith yourself, she can be reached through her website at::
The sunshine has returned to Massachusetts, the water is receding and with the Spring comes a familiar feeling of hope. Hope that this year I will, in fact, complete all the items on my own personal "to do" list. I start each spring season optimistic that I can get a long list of outdoor projects completed during the warmer months. I hope that by next November, I can proudly report to you that this year, I was successful! My list this year looks like this:
1. Finish painting exterior trim (started 4 years ago)
I am often asked by clients about cleaning their dryer vents. I tell them it is a great habit to get into at least once a year, but lets get real here! How many people actually move their dryer, get the little round brush from the hardware store, a good shop vac and spend a Saturday morning cleaning the accumulated lint out of their dryer vents? Very few that I know personally. My own dryer vent was made of the accordion aluminum that is about 2 feet long when it is purchased and it stretches out to be about 10 feet long when extended fully. Mine had been in place for many years and I had not cleaned it out. It had gotten crumpled and bent in several places from being moved around during washing machine installs, and I don't really know what else, but it was pretty sorry looking. Also, I felt that my dryer was working at less than its optimal efficiency, which is a sign of a dirty or clogged dryer vent.
Fifteen friends and family were expected to celebrate Thanksgiving dinner with us so something needed to be done. My existing dining room table fitted with two leaves still wasn't going to be big enough to seat everyone comfortably. One of my favorite parts of big holiday dinners is having everyone seated around the same table. I always hated being put over at the "kid's" table when I was younger and I wanted to keep that from happening at my house. What could be done? Well I could become my father, and build a temporay table just for the day. My father has two versions of his temporary table one medium sized and one huge. I decided to go with the extra large variety.
Tell the truth now, when was the last time that you cleaned out your refrigerator coils? If I am going to be honest, I must admit that I can't even remember the last time. It is even easier to ignore this job than the gutter cleaning job. At least with gutters you can see the water overflowing the clogged downspouts. With dirty refrigerator coils, you can't really see any damage being done. Dirty coils make it harder for the cooling system of the fridge to do its job, which eventually takes some time off the life of your fridge. So, how hard is it to clean the coils? Not hard at all.
Marie's Blog
