Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Tuesday Tip

Spring cleaning. The intense version. Since refinishing our floors required us to move everything out and dust  still made it's way into many places, I decided to use this opportunity to clean out every room, drawer, cabinet and closet. I have been busy doing this every chance I've had this past week. I gathered more items to be donated from this exercise and find it so therapeutic to take stock of one's "things" and keep only the most useful and very favorite items. My personal rule is that something has to perform at least 2 duties, preferably 3 and/or have real significance, either monetarily or emotionally to make the cut to keep. Afterall, storage space is often scare and quite valuable for most of us!

Coffee filters are great for so many things....
 Some of you may recall the quote on my old blog format from famed interior designer, Albert Hadley. It said in part,  "good housekeeping is part of the art of living". I fully believe this and feel it goes hand in hand with my philosophy of living beautifully everyday.  I have a fantastic cleaning lady who comes twice a month for the big cleanings. But even without her, it's my nature to keep on top of things.

And yet, despite her efforts and mine, when we moved the furniture to get ready for the floors to be done, ghosts of Christmas past were found under a low table!

Christmas tree bits and dog hair. Lovely. Quite fitting for the old ugly floors.

I still haven't put everything away and that created the perfect hiding place, in the buffet, for my daughter's birthday presents!

My daughter turned 17 today!
 Round two of work starts tomorrow. It involves carpentry and electrical work. Things will have to be moved again!  For the easier spring cleaning, renovations and client projects, I rely on all of these items:

Super slides. I'd be lost without these!!! Tiny tip: when using the soft side take the plastic disk
out, despite what the directions say, it works so much better this way.

No, this is not the tile pattern for a project.
New felt pads in every size went on all the furniture legs to protect the newly finished floors.
 
Coffee filters are perfect for keeping my antique plates safe while they are removed from the wall.
 Try doing this with any dishware you need to store. Better than papertowels and cheaper than felt!



6 comments:

  1. Great tips!! I have the felt pads on kitchen and dining room pairs but never thought of that clever use for the coffee filters!! Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your blog is great - a clear voice of real focus, real thoughts and feelings, real researched information and real style!

    ReplyDelete
  3. If I only read your blog today, I feel like i've learned something - using the coffee filters between china! Simple and brilliant. My kind of idea.

    I have been dropping things off at our local donation/thrift shop and also to the consignment shop. I'm trying to let things go and love getting those checks to put toward something new.

    Here's to the big Spring Clean!
    xo Elizabeth

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rebecca it is like moving inside your own home when your floors are being re-done, isn't it! I have used paperplates In between my china plates, I will have to try coffee filters, great tips!!Good for you for getting so much done. I need your ambition!! Kathysue

    ReplyDelete
  5. How exciting to get new flooring. We had ours installed several years ago and I remember the mess that was in here for over a week. They sawed it all outside, but the dust still ended up in the house. I put the felt pads on everything, too. We were obsessed about scratches at first, but now we just live with them. Added character, we say.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment!