Category Archives: Organising

Notes From the Sewing Room

Leave a comment

I finished the piece of patchwork I was working on and that is now with a lady who will quilt it using a longarm machine.

I then turned my attention to a bit more tidying up in the sewing room which seems to be a continual work in progress. I noticed a couple of pieces of Christmas fabric along with some fabrics which had a definite Christmas feel to them.

So, I made these two tote bags.

I am not sure where they will end up but I think they are rather gorgeous.

My storage space is definitely not well-organised but I keep living in hope. These cube shelves were repurposed from their original location in our walk-in wardrobe and a lot of fabric was simply unpacked from boxes and shoved in to spaces wherever it would fit. I know I can do better and I am working towards that goal.

The previous owners also left two unused glass shelves for these cubes and I added them which makes the size of the cubes more functional for small baskets and other items.

Here is a close-up of one of the glass shelves.

I have decided to get get 4 more of these from IKEA next time we are in Melbourne so watch this space for future improvements.

Meanwhile, I continue to work on various sewing projects with the goal of using up some of my stash.

These pieces will become a couple more tote bags for our local Community Pantry.

Work is Underway

Leave a comment

After almost 18 months of debating, wondering, planning and trying to find a suitable tradesman, the changes to the butlers pantry and walk-in wardrobe are now underway.

After one day this was the view.

Looking from the existing pantry you can see where the wall has been removed exposing the end of the walk-in wardrobe. The pantry extension will go right through to the wall in the background.

Looking from the door of the walk-in wardrobe.

Day 2 and things have started to take shape. The framing for the new wall is in place and I can start to imagine how things will look.

We now have a clear idea of the wardrobe space. It will be plenty for our needs.

I managed to buy matching tiles for the splashback in the pantry and today I sourced some more vinyl planking for the floor covering in the pantry. The particular colour/pattern I needed has been discontinued but thankfully there was some in the warehouse. The builder has matched the cupboard fronts, handles and benchtops so I am confident that it will all match up seamlessly when it is complete.

Planned Changes

Leave a comment

We have now been living here for 17 months so have well and truly experienced the full range of seasons. Despite having some basic ideas of changes we wanted to make to the house and garden from the time we moved in, we feel that it is good to be informed by the experience of actually living in the house for a full year.

There will be a number of changes over the next 6 months or so but the first one begins next week. I think this is the one I am most excited about.

The butlers pantry and the walk-in wardrobe share a common wall and make an L-shape on the relevant section of the floor plan below.

The wall between the pantry and the walk-in wardrobe will be removed and the wall behind the sink in the pantry will be extended. This will effectively double the size of the pantry and halve the size of the walk-in wardrobe.

The extended pantry will have a long bench on one side with 2 sets of deep drawers below it and the other side will consist of open shelving.

These are a couple of views of the current pantry. It is good but more space will be wonderful.

Looking from the kitchen directly into the pantry. None of this will functionally change. The extension will be on the right-hand side of the sink.

This is the wall that will be removed. The bench and shelving above will continue as will the floor-to-ceiling shelving on the other side.

I cannot wait to have more space and I will be able to rehome the storage buckets of bulk flour, seeds, nuts and dried fruit that are currently in the wardrobe of the spare room.

Of course, there is a trade-off. A smaller walk-in wardrobe is not an issue. The existing space is huge and could almost be regarded as a dressing room although we do not use it as such.

We have managed to spread things out to almost fill the space but we know that we can utilise the smaller space much more effectively as we will install modular hanging rails and shelving to easily accommodate our clothes. Additionally, there are 2 other bedrooms with wardrobes if we find that we need to hang out-of-season coats and jackets. The mirror will go and the shelving/hanging rails will be fitted on the side (about half the length) where the existing rails are as well across the end where the mirror is currently positioned. We have a full-length mirror in the hall near the front entrance so do not really need the second one.

During the next week we will need to move everything out of the wardrobe so that it does not get covered in plaster dust. The wardrobe and bed in the guest bedroom will accommodate most of it.

The pantry is not as much of an issue as everything on the open shelves is in sealed packets or containers but some of the things at the end near the wall removal will need to be moved out of the way. The builder has estimated about 10 days for the work so I am prepared for a bit of disruption. I am confident that it will be worth it when the job is completed.

Life With a List

7 Comments

Most of my posts seem to be fairly light on writing and tend to favour the accompanying photos. You know the saying, ‘A picture paints a thousand words………….’.

However, today is going to be somewhat the reverse of the normal pattern.

I want to share my thoughts about lists. Lists are part of who I am and I thrive on them. Shopping lists, to-do lists, packing lists, list of contents. The types of lists are almost endless. The ‘Notes’ function on my phone is my best friend. I have lists of groceries to buy, books to read, movies to watch, places to visit. Sadly, the topic does not really lend itself to lots of photos.

One of my most enduring lists is the sometimes maligned to-do list. I recently read that creating a to-do list puts you under unnecessary stress and/or sets you up for failure. This could be the case but I consider it simply as an ongoing reminder. In fact, it actually lightens my mental load since once a task is added to the list, I can easily remove it from my mind and the constant nagging feeling of remembering that I have to do something. Instead, I can simply refer to the list.

My daily ‘to-do’ list is more of a memory prompt of things that I need or want to achieve the next day. I generally write/update it before I go to bed and I can then sleep with a clear head and safe in the knowledge that I have recorded my plans (very loose) for tomorrow.

As an example, these were some of the items on my list for today.

Tidy up more emails
Send email to ………….
Book restaurant
Sweep hallway
Finish making bags
Deliver pamphlets
Walk dog
Clean shower
Quote for screens/security door

GMan did the hallway before I got to it. I have finished 3 of the bags and have 4 more to sew the straps on. I am making them for the local Community Pantry for people to use (and reuse) if they do not have a bag with them. I bought the material for $5 from the Bendigo Share and Repair Shed a few weeks ago. I do like creating bags using a variety of offcuts but a large piece of fabric certainly makes it easy to create a number of bags fairly quickly.

Everything else has been done with the exception of the shower which will go on tomorrow’s list. Of course, I did numerous other things besides what was on the list and this is usually the case most days.

I do not feel any pressure from creating a list and this method works well for me. Do lists work for you?

Where’s the Wine?

2 Comments

In our previous home we had a storage space under the internal staircase and several dozen bottles of wine. We had a large modular storage system for them but decided to sell it when we were relocating interstate.

Like many things, the wine collection has been downsized somewhat, however, it still needs to be stored somewhere. The cartons have been in the wardrobe of the 3rd bedroom but invariably the desired bottle is always in the most difficult box to access.

We had talked about a variety of options but the wardrobe remained the best location due to the maintenance of a fairly steady temperature.

A few days ago I found some wine racks advertised on Facebook Marketplace so we decided to check them out. They are the same style as what we had previously and are perfect for the space we have.

GMan is very happy with the arrangement as it will make finding a particular bottle much easier. Additionally, it is much simple to keep track of exactly what he has.

Choice Chutney

Leave a comment

I recently encountered a new ‘problem’. Here in central Victoria the weather had definitely turned quite cool. Summer is well and truly behind us and I was left with an abundance of green tomatoes. This never happened in Queensland as tomatoes literally ripened all the year round.

It was time to remove the tomato bushes so that we could reuse the garden bed so I harvested the tomatoes and found that I could use them to make chutney.

The first step was to wash them thoroughly.

I then sliced the tomatoes and layered them with the diced onion and sprinkled with salt. Then I covered the bowls and left them to stand overnight.

This morning it was time to make the chutney.

GREEN TOMATO CHUTNEY

Ingredients

2.5kg green tomatoes, sliced
500g onions, finely diced
1 tablespoon salt
500g sultanas
500g sugar
500g apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1100ml vinegar, I used half white vinegar and half apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
30g ground allspice
30g ground cloves

Combine all ingredients in a large stockpot/preserving pan. Simmer gently for about 3 hours. I used a stick blender sparingly to mash the tomatoes a bit more. I kept the pot covered for about 2 hours and then removed the lid for the final hour.

The mixture should be rich, thick and caramel coloured.

Spoon into hot, sterilised jars. This recipe yielded 12 jars so the pantry will be well-stocked.

A Month Later

Leave a comment

Well, here I am. Back again, finally.

The last month has been a bit of a rollercoaster. We headed off on holidays for 2 weeks to Hawaii and California. This was our first overseas trip since 2019 when Covid threw a spanner in the works of our (and many others travel plans). The trip went well and we enjoyed our time away although I was not particularly well for the second week. We still managed to do most of what we had planned but I did lay low for nearly a week once we were home. Consequently, the planned holiday blog posts did not all happen but I have the photos and stories and will update them one day.

We are definitely back into the swing of doing things at home. In fact, so much so that there has barely been time for writing. Blogging, like any other habit, requires constant, regular actions to maintain and I have let that slide a bit but hopefully tonight’s post will herald some regular posts in the coming weeks.

I began today by cleaning and sorting out the freezer section of the fridge/freezer in the kitchen. It is probably difficult to really see much change apart from the lack of crumbs in the drawers but at least I now know exactly what is in there.

I also have an upright freezer in the shed which has lots of packs of grated zucchini, mulberries and stewed nashi pears at the moment. It certainly tends to reflect what has been happening in the garden.

I made a batch of chilli con carne and we had some for dinner and there are now another 9 serves in the freezer.

When I cooked the rice to serve with the chilli I cooked a bulk amount and froze enough for 6 more serves. If I am going to use time and energy cooking food I think it makes sense to cook extra for another night.

There are a few other things happening in the kitchen but I’ll save those stories for another day.

The Hub

Leave a comment

The kitchen is often referred to as the hub of the home but for us in this house the hub is definitely the office.

The office space is perfectly located as it is a walk-through space between the hall and the laundry, has an internal opening through to the informal family room and kitchen as well as having a view of the back garden and being within speaking distance of the the back patio.

This space is also the last to be properly organised and is finally done 9 months after we moved in. There are a couple of reasons for the delay. There was an assortment of paperwork and brochures relating to the house and the local area which the previous owners has kindly left for us. Some are useful but others are no longer relevant so we really had to sort them all out. Secondly, we had an assortment of peripheral equipment for the computer which I was unable to neatly position due to the layout of the desk.

Last week I found that the holes in desks for managing cables are not confined to bought furniture. So, we bought a couple of what are known as desk grommets and borrowed an appropriate-sized hole saw from the neighbour.

GMan created a hole in the desk and another in the divider under the desk so that we could feed the cables through to the power point.

This meant that we could set the equipment up on the desk with the power cords neatly tucked away rather than trailing over the front edge of the desk.

This is the view behind the monitor with the cables all tucked neatly out of sight.

Under the desk.

The other side of the divider.

The power board and cables are completely hidden by the shredder and bin of paper/cardboard to be shredded. I do this on a regular basis and add it to the compost. The covered item on the shelf above is the printer which we use very occasionally so we store it here when not in use.

We also finished sorting out the random piles which had collected on the desk and the addition of a shallow basket for paperwork that is ‘in progress’ or ‘to do’ keeps everything much tidier.

On the wall opposite the desk are these IKEA cupboards. Although they are not true built-ins they are attached to the wall and were here when we bought the house. It is great to be able to have our books behind the glass doors, mostly on view and accessible without gathering dust as they do on open shelving. One of the lower shelves stores stationery items.

I am happy with the result. Despite being quite compact (2m x 1.7m) it is now a much more useable space.

Buying Blinds

Leave a comment

Today I can unveil the latest addition to the house.

A couple of weeks ago we ordered some blinds. The first was a roller blind for the front door which is glass and faces north. It does not get any direct sun on it because of the overhanging porch but the blind offers privacy as there is a direct view from the porch to the full length of the hallway as well as assisting with temperature regulation in both summer and winter. The was a previous blind in place, however, it was not made to measure so no an ideal size. The colour was not to my liking either.

The new blind.

When it is open we still have a view of gorgeous roses and the rural outlook across the road.

There is an opening between the family room and the small office which allows for plenty of natural light and creates a feeling of spaciousness. However, on cold winter nights when we are trying to keep the family room warm, it is a problem as much of the heat tends to drift up the hallway through this opening and the nearby doorway. We are waiting for the carpenter to install a door between the family room and the hall but that still left the issue of the opening which is about 1m x 1m.

So, we ordered a honeycomb blind to fit the opening. It fits neatly inside the recess.

When it is open it is barely noticeable.

We did notice that the movement of air in the family room means that the blind does tend to move back and forth in the opening so I intend to make a small draught stopper to lie on the ledge behind which will eliminate that problem. I am looking forward to the difference it will make to keeping the warmth in the family room in the colder weather.

Tomatoes – A Test Run

Leave a comment

I am always looking for ways to store the inevitable summer glut of home-grown tomatoes. I make tomato sauce (ketchup) but there is a limit to how much of that we need. The recipe is here if you are interested. I also used to freeze cherry tomatoes whole for use in casseroles and other cooking. I have dabbled in making tomato paste and tomato powder. These have all been reasonably successful but somewhat labour intensive.

Our tomatoes are not ready yet but the neighbours have generously shared their harvest.

I had these spread out to ripen and today I selected the reddest ones and cut them into quarters. I placed them into a round cake tin with 2 large cloves of garlic and a handful of basil leaves (all homegrown) and a drizzle of olive oil. I cooked them in the airfryer for 25 minutes at 170C then blitzed them in the high-speed blender.

I now have a couple of jars of delicious sauce which will be perfect for pizza bases, pasta dishes or adding to other dishes for a rich tomato flavour. This was super quick and easy and I will definitely be doing it again in the future. I choose not to process the sauce but simply store it in the freezer.