Tiny House Organizing - Clothing Storage

More organizing at the Tiny House!

This week I went through my clothing storage. You may already know that we decided to capsule wardrobe our clothes. By going through our stuff and removing things we never wore, sticking to a color pallete, and pre-planning outfits, we have eliminated the need for a closet. I have 6 drawers, T has 3.

They started out nice, but over the time / washing / refolding / stuffing things where there was available space - it was getting hard for me to find the clothes I wanted to wear. That problem is now fixed and all it took was a little tape, a sharpie, and a pair of scissors.

How To -

Think: If you'd like to sort your drawers - first it is important to figure out what you have in there and what you want in there, and those may be two separate things.

Categorize: I thought about all my clothes and separated them into categories. The categories I ended up with were:

Skirts

Pants

Work shirts

T-Shirts

Tank Tops

Party Dresses

Work dresses

Athletics

Swimwear

Leggings

Sweaters

Jackets / Blazers

Special Occasion / Rare Use

Then I went through the drawers and made piles of clothes in each category. There was no need to dump things out, I left them folded but just grouped them into areas on my bed. For a while it was hard to separate Party Dresses from my Special Occasion clothes but then I realized Special Occasion would be better used as a category for things like Halloween costumes and my wedding dress - things I don't want to donate but that I really don't wear very often.

Group: After everything was sorted it became clear what groups of clothes would fit into a drawer. While it may make sense in my mind to put Work Shirts and Work Dresses in the same drawer since they are both work-related, there wasn't enough physical space to fit both of those groups into the same drawer. By grouping things according to how much physical space they took up I was able to find room for everything with out cramming and wedging things to fit.

Restore: Putting everything in it's place took a few tries. I had to sort which clothes I wanted to reach the easiest. I did that by deciding which category of clothes I wore the most - for me, that's work clothes, so I put them at the top. Then athletic / casual clothes came next. Last were party dresses, special occasion, and T-shirts.

Label: Once I'd swapped drawer locations a few times and made sure everything was in the right place I grabbed some masking tape and a sharpie and some scissors. Making the labels was pretty easy - just make sure your letters are facing the way you can read them :-) If you are not using wire racks but have wooden drawers - you may want to consider painters tape rather than masking tape so it doesn't hurt the finish. Another, and very fancy option, might be washi tape or printing out the drawer categories on return address label stickers. You could also use colored markers, colored tape, or even post-it notes.

Now, when T or I are doing the laundry it is easy to put stuff away - we know right where it goes. It is also easier to find specific items - if I need a sweater, I go to the sweater section etc. There is no more wasted time or stress over finding things to wear. Also, this has made sorting my outfits for the week so much faster!

Mustang - Starter Solenoid Replacement

My car ate someone!

Well, not really, but it certainly looks that way in the first photo.

 

The story: Musty has an appointment to get...well, less musty. We wake up early with lots to do -first thing being dropping the car off by 8am to the detailer's.

 

T starts the car and everything is perfect. I go to get my purse and T is in the car. Something happens and the ignition key gets pulled out or falls out from the ignition - BANG! The car makes a noise like a cannon going off - duck 'n' cover she's gonna blow!

 

Eventually, once my heart attack is over, T tries to restart the car. Heart attack morphs into heart break as we realize the car will not start. T feels horrible, I feel horrible, D feels horrible - and all of use are tired and cranky as it is so early on a Saturday morning.

 

Resigning ourselves to a very different day than the one we had planned - D changes into yard-work clothes and T calls the detailer, and I pop the hood.

D takes a roll under to see if anything fell or if there is anything obvious on the underside of the engine while I take a snapshot and poke around above the engine looking for things that would be an obvious break.

Unfortunately, we find no snapped cables or hoses. There is nothing clearly screaming at us to say, "hey, I broke just a minute ago!"

T goes to go get breakfast for everyone. Saint.

D and I go through the internet. Check the battery, check the connections, clean the connections, charge it - basically give the thing a backrub and a love letter, but the car will not start.

The battery is not the problem.

Next up, according to the internet, is the starter solenoid.

D and I walk over to the auto shop nearby (I love that there is a auto shop nearby) and pick up the part and I also find a new manual for the car. Yays! We also get drinks which helps to make everyone feel better.

Next, I get to play Dr. Who and fiddle with my Tardis using 3 sonic screwdrivers. Yes, I realize that's very dorky...but continuing on...

I disconnect the battery, grab a towel and a storage container lid and make myself a little operating tray. Perhaps its because I don't know the names of all the tools and I don't know where they all go or where they can all be found - but I'm much more organized than the others when it comes to taking things apart and putting them back together.

I like to take photos of things before I remove them - even better if I can take a picture of the tool that removes the thing AND the thing in it's original position before I remove it. That way, when I'm going backward trying to put things back together, I have a detailed map of the directions to follow.



2 Things I learned:

Did you know - battery cables come in two colors - a red and a black one? Since both of mine are red AND black, and I didn't know which side of the battery was which, and neither did D, we spent some time poking around the edges of the battery box looking for markings of any kind to show us which was the 'kill-me' wire and which one would 'let us live.' We wrapped the 'let us live' wire in tape for future car adventures.

You can make yourself feel better (ie, I have no idea if it actually helps) by capping the battery ends in a cut-up dried sponge? I grabbed a sponge and a drill and made a hole to fit over the battery nodes because I kept envisioning myself fried on the side of the car. Not sure if it would actually protect me - also, don't care 'cause it let me work on the car without freaking out. (no, that's not steel wool on the top)

So, eventually I replaced the solenoid. Yes!
Unfortunately, that wasn't the problem. Boo! :-(

Next, in the internet and the manual (engine tips chapter) is a faulty / damaged starter. The starter is a chunk of metal about the size of a 2 week old dachshund puppy but is weighs about as much as a 2 year old dachshund. Thanks to the internet, and gentleman Mustang-enthusiast, I've been gifted one.

Don't worry Musty- we'll fix you yet!

Before - old solenoid

After - new solenoid

 



Mexico Trip Photo Bomb - Part 2

More Mexico photos from our New Year trip! This will be the last photo bomb from this trip - we have more projects and plans coming up - more house photos, Musty projects, motorcycle trips, camping adventures, foodie feasts, and lots of other news for the New Year!

My duffle bag! Earlier I made a post about what I had planned to bring, and I ended up bringing even less. I ditched the blue dress in favor of another tank top, and ditched a pair of leggings. Wrapping up my outfits with hair ties helped keep things organized and save space, and wearing my sneakers on the plane made it so I only packed my flip flops for alternative footwear. Most of my duffle was empty :-) 

My duffle

Clothes and personal items

Dr. Bronners, toner, and face wash in little squeeze bottles - perfect size! 

Best breakfast in Cancun

Xcaret adventure park - orange helmets and all!

Inside the caves

At the top of the ziplines

Stalactites 

Valentines Update

Hubsy is Mr Amazing - and I'm the proud new owner of a BMO necklace! Yay Adventure Time and fake holidays!
For my gift to the guys for the fake-holiday we went to see the new release for Deadpool - which was awesome! Fantastically, blood 'n' gore, and amazingly debauched hilarity. Not for the squeamish or those who get motion sick easily - but if you like Deadpool you will not be disappointed.

Also this week - the outside of the house is sided! They tore apart the old and horrible siding, replaced a bunch of rotten boards from before the roof was repaired, and repaired the brace over the garage. They also replaced the gutters...but they need to fix a few of the seams on them as they aren't quite working at the moment. Good thing - they'll be back this week to take away the dumpster and do those minor adjustments.

We still have the landscaping to do outside, although a lot of the hard-scaping is already complete. Enjoy the pics below!

Mexico Trip Photo Bomb - Part 1

Long awaited photo bomb from my recent trip to Cancun and Playa Del Carmen and Akumal.

When I wasn't wretching, I had a lovely time!

All photos get bigger if you click on them - enjoy!

Beach at Playa

The View

My bathroom friend - little gecko!

Snorkeling

Underwater with the GoPro - selfie

Snorkeling at YalKu Lagoon - D going for a closer look at something

Chasing blue tangs in the lagoon

Baby needle-fish in the lagoon, also a striped sergeant major in the bottom center

Another blue tang, a little school of sergeant majors, and some male stoplight parrot fish

Silver fish!

Tiny fish protecting his turf...on the ladder to get in / out of the water

Another shot of the territorial tiny fish - so brave!

I found an moray eel! I followed this guy for a while as he swam along the nooks and crannies of the rocks in the lagoon. No one else noticed him as they were all distracted by the flashy stoplight parrot fish and blue tangs. Highlight of my day.

Unidentified fish - maybe a dusty damselfish? - who was very interested in the shiny GoPro.