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By eliza_cross, on January 30th, 2012%
 By PotteryBarn.com Organizing has many benefits. Along with the inner peace that comes from working and living in a calm space, organized living means less time looking for lost items and a visually pleasing, harmonious environment.
Clearing space is a gift you give yourself.
Today’s challenge is to organize one area. It can be a small or big project, depending on how much time you want to devote to it. You could simply take ten minutes to straighten up your desk and get rid of unnecessary papers. Or spend thirty minutes organizing the medicine cabinet. You could clean out your refrigerator. Unclutter the coat closet. Tackle one wall of the garage. Spend a day straightening up the basement. It’s up to you. Just organize a space, and bask in the rewards.
For inspiration, you might enjoy these websites — with tons of tips and information:
Unclutterer
Organized Home
Get Organized
Creative Organizing
If you clear a space and like the result, be sure to let us know about it!
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P.S. In case you’ve just joined us, the January Money Diet is a challenge to take a 31-day break from nonessential spending. Even though January is winding down, you can learn more about the money diet here — and jump right in!
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Win a Deluxe Happy Simple Living Gift Basket
In honor of the January Money Diet, I’ll be giving away a gift basket chock-full of home and garden goodies plus several books at the end of the month. On January 31, 2012 (that’s tomorrow!), I’ll draw one random name from everyone who commented during the month and that lucky person will win the gift basket. I hope you’ll stop by often this month and share your own ideas, thoughts and experiences about taking a 31-day break from nonessential spending.
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By eliza_cross, on January 17th, 2012%
“He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Today’s challenge is to think about how you could improve one space in your home this month. Perhaps you’d like to focus some attention on the room where you spend a lot of time, such as your bedroom, your home office or your kitchen. Or maybe the family room looks a little worse for wear after the holidays and you’d like to spruce up the space. Just pick one room to focus on in the coming two weeks.
Notice how the most appealing photos in home magazines and real estate listings show rooms that are organized and devoid of clutter. With that in mind, look at your room with an eye for eliminating Stuff so that you can highlight a few possessions you really love.
Deep clean the room. Mop the floors. Polish the furniture. Wash the windows. Tighten hardware. Dig around under the sink and use some of those specialty cleaning products lingering there (I’m just guessing.) Do what you can with what you have.
Organize the storage spaces. Professional organizers suggest removing everything from the drawer or shelf or whatever area you’re tackling. Next, envision only those things you need in the space to function properly. Carefully add only those items back in, and move or eliminate any things that are left over.
For a new look, rearrange the furniture and artwork.
Try to bring an organic element into the room; this was one of our tricks when I was the publisher of a home design magazine. Something natural instantly adds life to a room. It could be as simple as a beautiful branch, or a large seashell from your vacation, or a tray of found objects that you pick up on a walk.
For inspiration, check out some creative design sites like Apartment Therapy, HGTV’s Design on a Dime and these great tips from Country Living. If you get busy, be sure to let us know about your efforts!
P.S. In case you’ve just joined us, the January Money Diet is a challenge to take a 31-day break from nonessential spending. You can learn more about the money diet here — and jump right in!
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Win a Deluxe Happy Simple Living Gift Basket
In honor of the January Money Diet, I’ll be giving away a gift box chock-full of home and garden goodies including a signed copy of my newest book 101 things To Do With Bacon. On January 31, 2012, I’ll draw one random name from everyone who commented during the month and that lucky person will win the gift basket. I hope you’ll stop by often this month and share your own ideas, thoughts and experiences about taking a 31-day break from nonessential spending.
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By eliza_cross, on January 6th, 2012%
 Photo by Joe Photo “If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves.” ~ Emily Dickinson
January is the perfect time to tackle maintenance and upkeep tasks. Perhaps your garden tools could use a good cleaning and sharpening, or maybe it’s time to defrag your computer’s hard drive and update all the programs. Or maybe your bike could use a good tune-up, or you could wash the windows or polish the furniture.
Is there something in your immediate vicinity that could benefit from some maintenance or “spit and polish,” as Dad used to say? Take care of whatever’s calling out for a little extra attention from you today — and be sure to let us know what you do.
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Win a Deluxe Happy Simple Living Gift Basket
In honor of the January Money Diet, I’ll be giving away a gift basket of home and garden goodies plus several books at the end of the month. On January 31, 2012, I’ll draw one random name from everyone who commented during the month and that lucky person will win the gift basket. I hope you’ll stop by often this month and share your own ideas, thoughts and experiences about taking a 31-day break from nonessential spending.
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By eliza_cross, on October 17th, 2010%
When I arrived home today, an evil surprise was waiting for me – a yellow plastic bag with a Denver metro area telephone directory inside. Since I just recycled another vendor’s unwanted phone book two weeks ago, I was not especially tickled to receive this book. I keep the Dex white and yellow pages in my office and use them occasionally, but I generally go online to look up telephone numbers, don’t you? Besides, how many phone books can one household use?
After visiting this particular directory publisher’s website and opting out of future deliveries, I discovered a link to a wonderful one-stop website to easily deal with this challenge. You can opt out of any U.S. publishers’ yellow pages directories by visiting YellowPagesOptOut.com. Enter your zip code and you’ll be given a list of the companies that publish books in your area plus directions for opting out of any directories you don’t want to receive. In Canada, visit the Yellow Pages Group for opt-out directions.
It’s great that the companies collectively provide a way for consumers to specify their preferences, but unfortunately many people don’t know about this service. Think of all the gazillions of unused directories that end up in landfills and recycling centers each year. According to BanThePhoneBook.org, up to 5 million trees are cut down each year to create the white pages phone book. The directory publishers only utilize 40% recycled materials when they print new editions, so the environmental impact of all these companies printing unwanted phone books is truly staggering. The good news is that we can really make a difference by spreading the word, especially since most of these opt-out programs are permanent.
How You Can Help
Here’s a simple link you can ‘tweet’ or use for a Facebook update:
#GreenerYellowPages – How to stop delivery of unwanted phone books: http://su.pr/1gMKIr
If you’re a blogger, I created this little banner that you can post on your blog to take readers to these instructions so they can opt out. Just copy and paste this HTML code into the desired location on your blog or website:
Are you receiving multiple editions of phone directories you don’t want or use? I’d love to hear your comments and experiences, and if you blog or tweet about this issue please let me know.
P.S. Plastic and paper can’t be combined during the recycling process, so do your recycling center a favor and take the book out of its plastic bag before putting it in the bin.
Also, if you find magnets glued to your phone directory don’t forget to remove those before recycling the book. Want to repurpose the magnets? Our friends at A Girl and a Gluegun, Baby Brainstorm and AHC Arts & Crafts have some very creative, crafty ideas.
By eliza_cross, on May 19th, 2010%
Here at the Urban Homestead, we try to use CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs) wherever possible. They save energy and last for years, and the technology has improved so the light color is warmer and the bulbs no longer flicker — athough we do have one old CFL high in an upstairs fixture that makes the hallway feel a little like a cheap hotel.
Anyway, I could never bring myself to install CFLs in the few recessed lights we have here; they just looked too weird in the fixtures. Perhaps because I’ve worked for homes and lifestyles magazines for so many years, my design sensibilities do overrule my green sensitivity at times. That’s why I was excited to find glass covers for can lights at Lowe’s. The covers are designed to cover recessed fixtures in a shower, but I used them to retrofit several can lights in other rooms. They do a nice job of hiding the CFL bulb and cast a soft glow in the room. I paid $15 for the cover, which fits snugly over the recessed opening:
 Recessed light with incandescent spotlight  Replacing the incandescent bulb with a CFL  The frosted glass cover snaps in and conceals the bulb If you’ve discovered any creative solutions for blending good design with sustainable choices, I’d love to hear from you.
By eliza_cross, on January 2nd, 2008%
2008 begins with a terrific improvement here at the Urban Homestead - a new bamboo floor in the office!
Our journey started when I read Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan’s compelling book, “Apartment Therapy: The Eight Step Home Cure.” Along with some great ideas for simplifying one’s home environment and paring down one’s possessions, the author suggests indentifying the room in our house that bugs us the most; he then gently guides readers on how to “cure” the space. In my case, the room with the most problems happened to be the space where I spend at least 50% of my time — my home office. For starters, the floor was covered with the grungiest, worn, dog-hair and lint-laden, impossible-to-clean shag carpeting. Think I’m exaggerating? Take a gander at THIS:
When our professional carpet cleaner said Continue reading A New Bamboo Floor
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