Editing My Make-Up Bag

I've been on an editing mission lately! I decided it's ridiculous to give up precious real estate in our house for things that I don't ever use (or even for the rarely used things). 

I used to keep my make-up in a huge zippered case. It was large and awkward and I only used a small fraction of the products that I was keeping in there. I did this for years! So silly! Case in point: Somehow I had two of the exact same green eyeshadow in that bag. I mean, what? I can't even remember wearing sparkly green eyeshadow post high school.

Then a couple weeks ago, around the same time we decided to paint the laminate cabinets, I found this pretty leather pouch at American Apparel and it inspired me to simplify.

After going through and tossing all the stuff I didn't actually use, I was left with a small collection of make-up that I really do love.  One of my latest favorites is the Beautyblender (the pink sponge in the corner of my bag here) - it was a bit of a life-changer for me. Have you tried it? I use it to apply my favorite tinted moisturizer and I use the flat bottom of the sponge to smooth out my blush when I wear it. I've been trying BB cream too, but I think I like the feel of my tinted moisturizer better than the BB cream. I do like how the BB gives you an airbrushed look though, and I was pretty shocked the first time I tried it! It's really amazing stuff. I ran out a couple weeks ago and decided to try the l'oreal version from the pharmacy and I like it just as much as the fancier brands.

Anyway, I still have a small drawer of cosmetics that I use less often, but it's nice to have my daily make-up bag edited down to the basics. I'm annoyed that I waited so long to make this happen, but now I am pumped and feeling ready to attack the rest of my house this weekend. Clutter, be gone! My closet will be hit especially hard and I'm determined to get it more edited and organized for spring.

Speaking of spring, I wish the weather outside right now would cooperate and help me get more into the spring cleaning spirit, but it's snowing again, so... mostly we're just combating cabin fever at this point. I hope you have a fun, warm weekend ahead of you! xo

How to Paint Perfectly Crisp and Straight Lines on Walls

After this post, some of you emailed for tips on painting really crisp and straight lines on walls. I have a simple approach, but it works every time for me! One little disclaimer though - stripes don't work well on highly textured walls. The lines just never look perfect, which would bug me a bit. So, best to attempt stripes only if you have smooth or close to smooth walls.(Oooh! An update from the comments section: If you have textured walls, use caulking to seal the tape and you lines will be straight!!) 

To start, use a ruler to make your registration marks. My stripes are 8" wide, so I made a little mark with a pencil 8" above the floor board, every 18" or so around the wall of the closet, making sure to mark at the corners and turns especially. Then just measure and mark 8" above every one of those marks, going all the way up the wall.

Then use painters tape to connect the marks. Try hard to not bend the tape. If you pull the tape out gently and straight, you can trust that your lines will also be straight.

You can see here that the stripes don't look evenly spaced (because they're not). You'll need to tape above the registration mark and then below the registration mark to block out the full 8" for the stripe.

Then go back over the tape with your thumb and really smooth out and lay down the tape, just on the edges you'll be painting.

Here's the real trick for perfectly crisp lines: seal the edges of the painters tape with some of the base wall color before painting on the contrasting color. Don't paint the whole width of the tape. Just a bit along the edge of the tape on the side where the stripe will be painted.

Let that dry before you paint on the stripe color.

For my stripe color, I wanted to do a gray that sort of coordinated with the gray I just painted in my powder bath, since the doors are across the hall, only about three feet apart from each other. I didn't want to do the exact same color and I wanted something much lighter, so I mixed about one part BM Chelsea Gray with two parts White Dove.

You can roll or brush on the stripe color, and then I like to pull the tape off while the paint is still wet. I don't think it matters either way though, if you prefer waiting til it's dry. (#impatient)

Check out those lines! Not a bit of paint bled through because that extra little strep of sealing the edges with the base coat paint. I've used all brands of painters tape before too, and none of them give me the same results without doing the sealing step.

It's one of those completely satisfying projects that moves pretty fast. I busted out this closet in about two hours.

PS Some of you asked about the citron boxes I have on the shelf here. They're shoe boxes from Crewcuts! Ha! J. Crew is having an additional 40% off sale items plus free shipping, so how could I resist picking up some new spring kicks for the girls? The cute, sturdy boxes were a little bonus though, for sure. :)

dot oxfords
neon t-strap ballet flats
neon zipper boots
sven clogs

Cleaning Up My Recycling Closet

In the past, I've always tried to recycle, but that usually meant just sorting the obvious things - plastic bottles and cardboard boxes. We were never all that diligent about sorting... until we moved to Brooklyn Heights. People really care about recycling here (including and maybe especially the people that live next to us).  :) There might have been a situation where they tattled on us for not sorting good enough (whoopsies).

I have to say though, I'm actually sort of grateful we got busted. We were pushed to figure out a solution where we carved out some space to quickly and easily sort out our plastics, glass and paper. And now, recycling is a breeze, truly, and I feel less guilt-ridden. Like we are doing our part.

Here's how we did it:

We have a little closet right by the front door on the parlor level. It's across from the powder bath and around the corner from the kitchen. I think it was meant to be a coat closet or maybe even a pantry at one time. Mostly it was just disgusting. (seriously)

 

The painters the landlord hired to paint the brownstone before we moved in did a pretty shoddy job. They didn't paint the insides of any of the closets. I mean, what? Weird. So slowly I've been tackling one closet at a time to fix the situation, but I hadn't had a chance to do the recycling closet until recently. See that gross cream color? That was the color of the entire house before we moved in and it just looked dirty. (doesn't the Cabbage White look much more fresh?)

Gross. I'm am totally disgusted by the state of this closet and I live here. Apologies. No wonder I was no good at recycling! Who would want to open the door for this view:

30+ years of cream paint in a garbage closet is bound to look bad, even after a few scrubbings! So a new coat of paint in the closet was added to the to-do list. But probably the biggest issue we've had with the recycling situation is the girls had trouble figuring out how to sort items in the identical bins we had in the closet.

So on the fly I primed and painted just the outsides of the bins with chalkboard paint. Then I went outside to the recycling bins in front of our house and snapped photos of the two sorting guides.

I'd been dying to put my chalkboard pen to use again (they are so cool - totally recommend picking one up at an art supply store or you can buy one here). Gracie and I chose a couple of items to display on each of the bins and talked about layout and then she got to work with the chalkboard pen.

Claire was a little bummed she missed out on the illustrating action this time, but that's the good news about chalkboard (pen) recycling bins - the pen wipes off with a wet rag, so she can have a turn as often as she likes. Whatever helps them to learn their sorting, right? :)

Also, don't the walls look about a million times better? They got a fresh coat of white paint, which  was a huge improvement on its own, but horizontal stripes make every space more fun. Especially in tiny little secret spaces, where the stripes surprise you every time you need the broom or go to throw away an empty olive oil bottle.

And I'm happy to report that the mini-makeover and the new recycling bins have totally improved our recycling habits, and by a lot. The girls are just about pro-level recyclers now and it's so cool to see them excitedly taking ownership over what used to be a chore for us all.

I'd love to hear what you guys do to make recycling (or anything to live a more green lifestyle) an easy habit for you and your family. I'm working on adding more eco-friendly cleaning products into my housekeeping routine. My sister in law is a budgeting super-star and an all-around phenomenal housekeeper. When I mentioned this post to her, she says she uses and completely loves Green Works, and I'm excited to take her word for it and try it myself.


This post is sponsored by Green Works. You don't have to compromise to be clean when you use hard working, plant-based cleaners by The Clorox Company.

Check out this quick video to learn more. :)

Organizing Books by Color AND by Genre

We love books and have a little bit of a book-buying problem in the Komenda family. It goes without saying that it doesn't cut it for us to organize our books only by color - that way it would be impossible to find a specific book! And anyway, I think it can look a little forced when huge amounts of books are strictly placed in severe blocks of graduated color. You know what I mean? So while I appreciated the strict by-genre organization in the bookshelf wall in our loft, with our new bookshelf wall in the brownstone, this time front and center in our living room, I decided to experiment with the organization a little.

I've decided I have found the perfect-for-me way to organize books - and it is so, so simple. Here are the steps:

1) Decide where you want the biggest, chunkiest books to sit on your shelves.

My biggest books are art and design books and a couple of atlases and an old family set of encyclopedias. I went with most of these flanking either side of the fireplace. The atlases and encyclopedias went up on the highest shelves, since they are rarely looked at. (Except for one giant atlas that we keep on the coffee table.)

2) Before shelving anything, make piles of your books by genre.

We wanted our genre sections to be pretty specific so we could easily locate a book. We had to go past the fiction/non-fiction route. Our genre piles went like this: Classic Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Art/Design, Religion, Lifestyle (cooking, hobby, crafting, gardening), Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Law.

1 - Contemporary Fiction  //  2 - Art and Design  //  3 - Lifestyle  //  4 - Religion

3) Organize the individual genre piles by color and while shelving, pay attention to size.

When you're dealing with a large number of books in one place, you can give the eye a chance to rest when there are blocks of just a few colors.  So it became rare for a single shelf to see the full ROYGBIV spectrum - most of the time each shelf was only two or three main colors. And I tried to be loose about the colors. I cared a little more about matching sizes than color shades, and I think that helps the overall look feel a little less uptight. If I had been really strict about keeping the colors in the exact right spot, the spine lengths would have been all over the place, which looks sloppy to me. Also, by being a little flexible with color, I could easily alternate the piles between horizontal widths and vertical stacks.

5 - Classics Fiction  //  6 - Political  //  7 - Design and Travel  //  8 - Economics and Philosophy  //  9 - Law

And that's it! I am so sold on these simple steps to artfully and functionally organize bookshelves. I've tried the tricks on two more bookshelves since doing my own, and I've been just as satisfied with the results. Isn't it the best when form and function work together?

Organizing a Desk with No Drawers

Some of you asked if it was tricky to keep a desk organized without any built in storage. I actually love that my IKEA desk is leggy and open, but I discovered pretty quick that some drawer storage was going to be necessary. I use my old aqua lacquered drawers for smaller office supplies (tape, stapler, paper clips, etc).

I looked for a while for a decently priced filing cabinet that wasn't completely offensive looking. Finally this little filing cabinet showed up at the Chelsea Flea Market for only $20. Sold!

It looks like four drawers, but it's actually just two deep drawers for hanging files and it fits perfectly under the IKEA desk. I thought about painting it, but I'm sort of digging the wood. (and you can't tell that the top is scratched when it's under the desk)

You can also see in the photo above that I use an antique wire basket for magazine storage. I get a lot of magazines and catalogs, so I like having a place to keep them that's off my desk top. They sit here safely until I have a chance to read them and then I recycle most or pass them on to friends. I also have a couple acrylic folder trays from the Container Store for rounding up loose files and papers at the end of the day.

On the other end of the desk, I keep two seagrass baskets for corralling trims and loose fabrics I pulled from the shelves of fabrics on wall behind this desk. I keep another acrylic tray here too for my husband's magazines. Isn't that glass ball so cool? It was another flea market find and wish I knew more about it so I could buy more!

I'm finding it's pretty easy to keep this desk clean. If I can't fit all the loose paperwork in my tray at the end of the day, then it's time to file. There are no 'black hole' drawers here. It forces me to be more organized and then my desk stays tidy. Kind of necessary when my work space is approx. 5 feet from the living room.

Acrylic Shelves

Celerie Kemble used pieces of acrylic as shelving in her Kips Bay Show House room and I loved how modern it made the built-ins feel.

It reminded me of this photo from Domino, where they used acrylic shelving in the kitchen. It's a great way to add storage without all the visual bulk.

PS I bet my friends at Plexi-Craft could help you if you'd like to do something similar in your home...

Gold Hangers

Our closets are getting reorganized this month too. Is it strange that I want all new hangers? The interior of my closet is getting painted a bold color, so I really want hangers in a brass or gold tone, but they need to be slim.

image

I almost bought these gold hangers from Gracious Home (here's another source). They are heavy gauge aluminum wire - not cheesy dry cleaners hangers. While I'm sure I'd love these forever, they are pricey at about $2 each. Do you know of any good subs?

My friend here in the city swears by the huggable hangers line and says her blouses never slip and she has much more room in her tiny closet now. I like that these ones are in a brass finish.

Lateral File Tool Storage

Living in an apartment again, with no garage or basement, has reminded me how important it is to have a place for everything. I have a bad habit of small scale organizing - where I organize things sort of wherever they happen to be, rather than designing an organization plan.

We have two areas in our loft mostly dedicated to storage - the pantry and Evie's room. Right after we moved in, I painted out an old bookcase and stuck it in the pantry/laundry room and sort of filled it with whatever had been put in the room during the move.

Somehow all of our tools got put in Evie's room, which is super annoying because I usually need the tools when Evie is napping! I don't know how I lasted this long, but I'm finally get our house really, really organized. I made a game plan last week:

Evie's Room:
Sewing machine and supplies
Crafts
Linens
Bedding
Musical instruments
Suitcases

Pantry:
Tools
Paint
Laundry supplies
Stroller
Cleaning supplies
Accessory kitchen appliances

I want the pantry to sort of act like our garage. I considered getting a big tool box to organize everything, but space is pretty tight. I found a 36" wide lateral file cabinet on Craigslist that I think will work perfectly for tool storage with very easy access. And I like that I can lock the drawers to keep the girls out of the sharp stuff.

Buying a tall file cabinet reminded me of this project from Mary McDonald's office featured in Domino years ago. She photocopied a sample of her favorite wallpaper and had kinkos blow up the image to fit the drawer fronts.

A version of this project could be fun for my cabinet, but I'd maybe go a little more subtle with the pattern.