Food and philosophy

Close to oven, pots and pans it's good to have food stuff. We have one drawer for tomato sauces, other sauces, baby food, napkins, frozen bags and parchment papers etc. It might sound weird why all these items are together but for us it seems to work.. or maybe not..

Now that I organized the drawer I found an old tomato sauce and chips from year 2011. So my system, where I try to put new stuff in the back and old stuff in the front doesn't seem to work. When I'm in a hurry I just put the stuff in the drawer and not thinking too much of what I'm doing. I have started to notice that I follow a certain pattern:

1. I decide to do things according to my system
2. When I'm in a hurry I forget or just don't care to follow the system
3. I can't find my stuff
4. I buy the exact stuff at the store
5. I have to get rid of the old stuff
6. I spend money
7. I make money to buy new things, that I don't need
8. and the whole thing starts from the beginning

Although I recognise this pattern, I still haven't managed to break it. Luckily I have this "organize-my-whole-house-project" going on, so maybe there is still hope. Maybe it's just a fact that when you have so much stuff you just can't remember what you already own. But I would like to remember what I own, and use the stuff that I own instead of buying more all the time...


By the way we went to the library today, and it felt wonderful to loan all the books, because I knew I have to return them. So no clutter, that I don't need, and I don't have to find a proper place for it. I can satisfy my urge for shopping by loaning beautiful interior design books and magazines, and I don't have to pay a dime, unless I forget to return them or they will get lost in the clutter...

Bathroom closet

It's wonderful to have a little closet under the sink where you can hide stuff. Unfortunately it's usually so messy that I can't find anything from it. Although I have organized it before, it still felt a bit messy. So now I tried to organize better by making different zones for things.

Drinking glass is a great place to keep Q-tips

Hairdryer is something that I like to own, but I don't use it that often, so I don't want to store it in a visible place. And I think it's been quite hard to find a home for it. Just today I bought on sale this organizing thing for hairdryer. There is also storage for other things; I put there nail scissors, lip balms, dental floss etc.

Transparency is the key

When I reorganized the closet, I was able to put so much more stuff into it. Now I can see everything at once, so I can actually use them. I'm sick of doing the classic mistake: buying the stuff that I already have, because I don't remember that I have them already..

It might be that it still looks a bit messy, but now every item has its own place

Stuff to the flea market

There is so much stuff everywhere. Specially little kids clothes seems to acquire our home. The clothes are just so cute and good knows what other good excuses I have for them. Usually the most common excuse is that because it's such a bargain, I just have to get it. Luckily most of their stuff I buy at the kids clothes flea market that is close to us. It's actually a really nice flea market with kids stuff only. If I would buy all the clothes directly from the shops, I think I would have been already broke.

Anyways now is the time to get rid of some clothes that are either too small or just the ones that they don't wear. Our older lady (soon turns to three) is very precise with her clothes. Everything has to be exactly the right colour and style, which is super kitch and pink. Our little boy doesn't care what he wears, so I'm happy that at least I can dress him up the way I want, and enjoy it.

Check -It says in Finnish: Stuff to the flea market and stuff to recycling centre

I've already collected the stuff ready in bags. The problem has been that I haven't been able (read: not bothered) to take them anywhere so the bags have been in the attic for the last six months. Couple of years ago I sold some stuff at the flea market, where you sell your stuff by yourself and it was quite fun. We did it together with my friend and surprisingly we got pretty much money as well. But still I'm not into that at the moment.

About a year ago I took the stuff to the flea market, where you price your stuff, and then you just leave it there. But at the end it was quite a lot of work, thinking of the prices, putting on the price tags, cleaning the table (it got really messy after people digg into it). Still I had to go to the flea market every day to check that the price tags were still there and organize the table. Too much hassle compared to the benefits.

So now I'm taking the stuff to the flea market where they will take care of the pricing etc. and they will get 50% of everything that is sold. The stuff that they won't sell, you can get back or leave it to them, and they will give it to children foster homes etc. So that is a perfect solution for me. What more do you want. I can get rid of the extra stuff and even got some money out of it, and on top of that I have a good feeling that I can also make a donation to the charity I choose.

Some of the stuff I took directly to the recycling centre, so now I've done my good did of the day. Then I have one big bag full of children's clothes to my friend who is going to have a baby in the fall.


It's funny how easy it is to gather all the stuff, but to take them away seems so much harder. According to the organizing gurus you should always get rid of one item if one item comes in. But even now, when I took the stuff to the flea market I bought some cool stuff for the kids.. It's always when you think you won't buy anything, you will find something really nice that you just have to have, even though deep inside you know that you don't need it at all.

Gorgeous cherry blossoms

Some things you just can't fit in the picture. Cherry tree blossoms so beautifully that I just don't have words for it. Sort of have this japanese feeling. Although I don't understand anything about gardening, sometimes I get excited and do something in the garden, because the weather has been absolutely beautiful.

Cherry trees blossom

My potting sowing is going so-and-so. Some of them I already put in our garden. I don't like doing gardening in the ground, so we lifted up the growing place.

The white thing on top of it should protect from too much sun etc.

We have an old pot. Last year we had there only weeds. But now I put there some violets. I waited a bit too long before I put them in the pot. And I forgot to give them water, so they are a little tired already. They said it will rain tonight, so I didn't give them water now either. No wonder 90% of my plants will die..

Witch pot

I love tulips because they come year after year, and you don't have to worry about them. Or maybe you should, but we have tulips and weed growing in nice harmony.

Like a candy

I think taking care of your garden should be easy. I love watching at the beautiful garden, but I wouldn't like to work for it many hours a day. Maybe when I get older I'll change, but for now I'll do garden stuff for five minutes, and that's fine for me..

Beautiful colour combination

Wooden shed for the fireplace wood

Seen the shoe polish?

Went on a cruise with the girls and it was just wonderful. We enjoyed it a lot. Ship was empty, so it felt like it was reserved only for us. Little trip did good. I found this wonderful box from on of the shops in the ship. Now I have a proper place for all the shoe polish stuff such as old wool-socks with holes in it and the actual shoe polish. One more shelf organized in the little hallway.

One more shelf organized in the little hallway

Dirty laundry

Sometime it feels like everyday is a laundry day. We don't have a traditional Finnish type laundry-closet for different coloured dirty clothes. It would be nice, but we don't have it. We used to have "New York"-style trash-can that was used for dirty laundry. But I lost my patience with the constant organizing of dirty laundry by colour before you ditch them into the washing machine. Now the trash-can is used for recycling cans at the sauna, and I bought us new laundrybaskets.

We have three laundry-baskets. One for whites, one for blacks and one for colourful clothes. Now I save time, because I don't have to organize the dirty laundry before the washing but I can put it to the correct basket right away. There are holes in the lids, so with smaller laundry I don't even have to open the lid. I love simple little things that make your life a tiny bit easier.

I'm known in my family to take over any open space,  so it's quite a challenge for me to keep the surfaces empty. Luckily there are holes in the lids, so I can't put too much stuff on it.

I took over the chaos of gloves

We used to have gloves, caps, scarfs in the sleeves of the jackets and mostly on the floor. Then I had an idea, that I'll put a box for each member of the family where everyone can put their own stuff. I also put sunglasses etc. to my box.

Everyone has their own box for their stuff

It took a while before everyone got used to use their boxes. But now since their used them about a half of year or so, it's starting to work. I have a vision that our hallway/veranda would have a sofa, coffee-table and couple of chairs. The idea is, that when you come home, you would have this peaceful place to come to. Sofa is already bought, but waits to come home from mother-an-law's place. Sofa is not particularly my favorite colour but I thought I will put a new cover on top of it, once the kids are bigger and I have a thicker wallet.

We've had basic chaos in our hallway with the clothes and shoes lying everywhere. On top of that we have an air-source heat pump in the hallway so it's very convenient to dry our washed clothes there as well. You can only imagine the hassle, with all these multifunctions going on in one space.

The clothes drying thing will have a solution, because we will buy a dryer. We were a bit silly when we bought our washing machine, it has a control panel that is in diagonal, so you can't put on top of it a normal dryer. So there are only specific models that go on top of the washing machine. The model that we want, won't be in the stores until February.. we'll it's soon enough..

Inspiration

We visited library for a long time, and I got so excited about the books that they have there. It's so wonderful to browse books and just dream. This I should do more often, but normally you just forget to enjoy. So I took a nice hot cup of tee and browsed the books I borrowed and just dreamt.

Tea is always good (if you have good tea)

I bought in December a beautiful old antique sofa. The only problem is that it's about 700km away from our home. Luckily the sofa can stay at my mother-an-law's place until we arrange the delivery to our home. I dreamt that I would like to change the cover of the sofa with the similar fabrics that I saw from the Designer's Guild book. Now the sofa is kind of pee colour. Like my dear friend said that I should start up my own design show: "Here we have this beautiful pee coloured sofa, which goes well with the shitty coloured decorative pillows".

Beautiful fabrics in the Designers Guild book

Outside have been wonderful weather - fresh and sunny. I thought I put some pictures from outside as well here. I got from my mom this old sled. We haven't tried it out yet in practise. So it's just been left outside in the middle of the snow..

Beautiful snow

Outside it's so nice to burn candles. Except that to this lantern I don't reach to put a candle in, so there we have a light couple of times a year when I can get Sami talk into it.

Recycle hallway

We have a super tiny hallway where I have been able to put lots of stuff. I'm really excited about it. On the other side we have a wardrobe, which I have to re-organize. One shelf I have already organized and I love the outcome. The only problem is that I always keep putting stuff on front of the closet, so I can't get open the doors. So I don't use it that much, which is ridiculous. Why buy a closet, that you can't use, because you put so much stuff on front of it, not inside..

The tags I attached with a sticky tape

On the other side I have made a recycling point. There we have a place for things to burn, bottles to be returned, papers, cardboard and glass. The texts I just printed out with our home printer. The order of the boxes I chose with the balance of what we recycle most frequently and what are the heaviest. So glass is on the bottom, because we don't throw away glass every day. Next we have papers, that we have a lot, but since papers are quite heavy I don't want to put them on top. On the higher box we have stuff to burn, so they will go to the sauna or fireplace. There we have card boards, visa bills, etc. what you don't want to through away necessarily to public bin and we don't own a shredder. On the second box we have return bottles and cans. Idea is that all the recycle stuff is close to our front door, so you can take them out as you go. So that they won't pile up.

On top of that we have a little key holder on the wall. I should make little notes, which key is which, but I haven't got the excuses why I haven't bothered to do that. On top of the recycle boxes I have a tiny basket with the bird's food, and old batteries recycle box.

So I have to admit I'm pretty proud of myself, that I was able to put so many activities in a such a tiny space. Now I should still come up with the place where to put stuff that goes to sauna or the basement. Because now they are on front of the closet and also blocking the way on the front door. Some basket thing would be nice but I have to think a proper place for that.

Stuff that goes to sauna and basement are blocking the way

One shelf is organized, now taking the gloves feels like shopping

 Now I started thinking that if I had more room, I would put the recycle boxes under some table, so that then I could easily take the whole box with me and put it behind the trunk and empty it on the real recycling point. Now it's a bit annoying when first I have to transfer the stuff into bags if I want to take them away.

Living room's old vinyls

We still haven't had a time to set up the vinyl player to the living room. I have an old chest that I bought from my first summer-working place back when I was a teenager. Now it is a safe place for vinyls. They are safe there from little toddlers and greasy fingers, and also away from the dust. I don't know how practical it is yet, but since we don't play the vinyls that often I think it's a good solution for us.

Our treasures - Sami's vinyls

I got an idea to put vinyls on the wall from the series "United States of Tara" (good series by the way). First I wanted to frame them but I couldn't find any appropriate frames. All were either too big or too small. I didn't want to customake them. I once customade one frame and it cost me 150€ (that's about 185$ and 120£). Then I had an idea to put those little selves on the wall were you can put for example pictures. I just tossed some of the vinyl covers there.

Now we have some color in the living room

I chose the cover purely by the looks (couple of covers Sami didn't let me put on the wall, even though I thought they were good looking, oh yeah and the Strokes cover is surprisingly chosen by Sami). If there is a need you can easily get the vinyls and if you get tired of them it easy to change the look.

Little toddlers hands won't get on these treasures

Lock is broken but it's a nice nob..

Enjoy home

For a longer time I have wanted to put my home in order. Simply so, that every item has its own home. Now I have so much stuff homeless and when I'm busy I can't find what I'm looking for. I have read many self-help books, even taken courses on how to be more organized but for some reason my stuff just don't find their home. Maybe I don't have enough decepline so that I would put things in to their correct places. Now I have decided that I really give it a go and start getting our home organized step-by step. I try to put up photos of the ready made changes. First I have to find my camera, load it, and take the birth pictures away from the camera to a safer place.

Reason why I want this change is that I'm sick of trying to find things, I want to be more organized person, so that I could concentrate on something else than all the time cleaning and looking for stuff. I read somewhere that if it takes more than 5 minutes to clean one room, it means there is just too much stuff laying around. So I'm trying to get ridd of stuff, use them and at the same time enjoy life.