How To Build Vertical Supports For Your Garden

I've gotten a late start on getting some of my veggies into the garden.  I've already planted potatoes, lettuce, sugar snap peas, and pepper plants.  All that's left is green beans, cucumbers, squash, and cantaloupe. 

I wanted to grow the green beans and cucumbers vertically, so that meant that Hubs and I needed to decide on how to do it - and do it on a budget.  Here's what we came up with:

First, we bought welded wire (we bought vinyl coated so it will last longer). It was $48.00 for the whole roll and we have some left over for another project. 

 Then we bought 12 ten foot lengths of electrical conduit tubing ($2.00 a piece).

Hubs, pounded them into the ground with a fence post pounder.  That was the most practical thing to use because he had to do it while standing on a ladder.  We set the ladder on pieces of 1x4 for stability and also to keep the garden soil from getting compacted.  Each pole was topped with a mini clay pot for cuteness (it's all about presentation, you know).

After each pole was in place, we cut a piece of wire fencing, 7 feet long and attached it to the poles by wrapping the ends around the pole.  The fencing bent easily and we secured each side with a few zip ties.

We built a total of 6 vertical supports.  I planted 2 with green beans and 2 with cucumbers.  The other 2 will be planted with more green beans in a few weeks to lengthen the harvest. 

Hopefully, even though I've gotten a late start, we'll be picking beans and cucs in a few months. 

Wrensday: Rescued Plants

I love to walk around my yard in the early summer and visit all of the blooming plants.  One of my favorites is the Clematis vine.  This particular variety blooms every few weeks all summer long.  I don't know what variety it is because I got it from the clearance bin at Walmart.  It was a sad little thing, but with a bit of TLC, it has recovered beautifully.

Another one of my favorites is this peony.  Again, I don't know the variety because it was rescued from the clearance pile at Lowe's. 

The blooms don't last very long if a good rain storm comes along, but they

 are stunning while they last. 

I can't help but be reminded that it's not how you start out, but how you finish.  Like these flowers, I want to finish well.  How about you? 

My Mother's Day Gift - Brown Wren Acres Style

What accessory does every fashionable grandmother carry on Mother's Day?  

Take a look for yourself!

I had asked that Hubs and Son show me how to shoot our shotgun so I could get rid of chicken-eating critters when they weren't at home.  It was my mother's day gift!

I got lots of guidance from two very helpful men. 

This was my target - I was aiming for the large coffee can in the middle.

I finally got it on the 5th try.

I did a little bit of damage.

The chickens didn't seem to mind the noise one bit.

 

Next year, for Mother's Day, I want my own gun. 

Things Are Piling Up - But In A Good Way!

I'm not usually a fan of piles.  I prefer to file things away until I need them.

But some piles can be an inspiration. . .

This pile of skirts and dresses, gleaned from thrift stores and yard sales, is clean and ready to be made into purses, totebags, and aprons.  I'm just waiting for an opportunity to get into my studio and spend the day at my sewing machine. 

If you're new to Tidy Brown Wren and wondering what the white dish is all about, then read about my pin cushion holder here.

Walking For A Cause

Saturday was a beautiful day for the annual National Kidney Foundation "Kidney Walk". 

I was proud to show off my new kidney by walking in the 5K walk with my donor Cathy!

Last year, Cathy did the walk by herself.  In fact, she participated in the walk the day before she donated one of her kidneys to me. 

We dragged our hubbies along and had a great time. 

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't marvel at how selfless Cathy was with her gift, how God has healed my body, and how blessed I truely am.

A big Thank you goes out to all of you who sponsored me. Our area raised over $45,000 so far for research and education. Whoot!

The National Kidney Foundation still has their walk site set up and will accept donations for this walk until the end of June.

Wrensday: Beautiful

I was surprised by this photo in my camera.  I hadn't taken it.  Hubs confessed to using my camera and sneaking out to capture this beauty.  Our neighbor's horse, Spice, is in the background - another beauty.  

Enjoy a beautiful day.

Monday Motivation: Time To Clean Out The Closets

I hope you are able to take advantage of the Monday Motivation schedule to clean through your whole house this year.  It's May so that means it's time to clean out the closets.  Here are the posts from May of 2011 to help you with that task. 

Monday Motivation: Working On The Closets

Whenever I do a consultation with a new client, I find that nine times out of ten they have messy closets. The rest of their home might be tidy, but their closets are a mess. Why? Because closets are behind doors. I guess you could say "out of sight - out of mind".

 

Where do we start? I recommend starting on your neatest closet. Yes, start on the least messy closet because it will be the easiest and quickest and will give you instant gratification and prompt you to keep going.

Here we go:

1. Prepare a clean area near your closet to place items you'll taking out of the closet. This will be your staging area.

2. Gather together these supplies:
a. Solid colored (so you can't see through it) garbage bag.
b. Box/container to hold items to sell or donate
c. Box/container to hold items that you want to keep but that don't belong in that particular closet.
d. Box/container to hold items that need to be returned to someone one or someplace else (library books, borrowed items, hand-me-downs etc.)
e. Vacuum cleaner, cleaning rags for cleaning off shelves and floor

3. Remove items from the top shelf.

4. Immediately throw away anything that is trash.

5. Sort items into the other boxes, keeping out only those items you love, will use, and have a purpose.

6. Set those "keepers" aside in your staging area, placing like items together. Don't place them back on the shelf yet because you might decide to store them differently.

7. Continue on with items on the hanging bar and/or other shelves, following steps 4-6.

8. When every item has been removed from the closet and sorted into piles in your staging area it is time to do a bit of cleaning. First, vacuum the whole closet and then wipe down the walls, shelves, and baseboards with a cleaning rag and household cleaner. If you're very ambitious, now would be a good time to paint the inside of the closet and maybe add a shelf or extra hanging rod.



9. Before placing your "keepers" back into the closet, revisit each sorted pile and notice how many of each item you own. The first time I did this process in my own closet, I discovered that I owned 9 white blouses. Who needs 9 white blouses? Not me! I sorted the pile and kept 2 long sleeve blouses, 1 sleeveless top, and 1 three quarter sleeved blouse. I donated the rest and never missed them. I also highly recommend that you try on any clothes you haven't worn in a while. You probably haven't worn them because you don't really like them, they don't fit perfectly, or they are the wrong color. If you're not sure about what to keep, ask a friend to help you. True friends don't let friends wear outfits that don't flatter them.

10. Place your newly sorted items back into the closet, placing like items together. Place longer hanging items along the side of the closet that is nearest a wall to keep the floor space available.

11. To keep items on the shelves accessible, store them in fabric boxes and treat them like drawers. Use a shoe shelf to keep shoes in good shape and convenient to grab quickly. Belts and scarves can be hung on hooks or hangers so you can see at a glance what you own.

12. Remember those boxes/containers you filled? Don't put them back into the closet!! Take the garbage bag directly to the garbage can to be disposed of. Put the box of donations directly into your car to drop off at the thrift store. If you've decided to have a yard sale, place that box in an out of the way room that you'll use to gather other yard sale items (I usually use my garage). Place items that need to be returned to other people or places in your vehicle and make time this week to return them.

13. Stand back and enjoy looking at your newly organized closet. Tomorrow morning, you'll enjoy getting dressed quickly, without having to search for missing items.

If you get stuck, shoot me an email and I'll walk you through it. If you have a difficult closet to tackle, let me know and we can brainstorm together to come up with solutions for you.

Monday Motivation: Closets Galore

Last year, when we talked about organizing closets, I got a lot of positive feedback about critiquing some closet pics I found online. It's tempting to want to copy professional ideas, but as we've all discovered, some of those ideas just aren't practical.

While exploring the web, I came across some pics that I thought would be fun to give my two cents of an opinion about. Feel free to add your ideas as well.

First up is a fun children's closet. This is a hanging system available in a specialty children's department. It could be easily duplicated with hanging bars and shelves found in the closet department of of Home Depot or even Walmart. I like the way the lower rod and shelves make the clothes accessible to the little ones. Maybe they'll want to put away their own clothes?

My opinion about this closet is biased because I have installed a few of these Closet Maid systems in client's closets. They are easy to plan out on the company's website and can be purchased at Home Depot and installed in a few hours. It can be customized and switched around easily as your needs change. See, I told you I was biased. (by the by, Closet Maid doesn't know I exist and they aren't paying me to say this)

I couldn't find a source for the products in this pic, but I know you can find similar items to create this closet from The Container Store. The shoe cubbies, hanging shelves, and "skinny" hangers are all great items for organized storage. Notice, too, how some items are rolled and stored. Not sure I would do it, but if my son would roll his T-shirts and put them on a shelf, I wouldn't complain!

I had to include this photo because. . . drool. I mean, what's not to love. Sunlight, color, spaciousness, and adorable little stool. Fun, fun, fun. I don't know anyone who has this much extra space in their home for a happy closet, but we can dream anyway! The only thing I don't like about this is the window. I love the look of the window, but windows in closets make me nervous - sunlight fades clothing. Just sayin'.

source: Easyclosets.com



If you're in the market for a custom or semi-custom closet system, here are some of the companies I have used or have seen their products installed and in use.

Closet Maid

California Closets

Easy Closets

Closet Tailors

So what's your two cents worth about these closets? Have you been working on your own closets? Do tell!

Monday Motivation: How Do I Decide What To Keep And What To Throw Away

If you've been hanging around this ol' blog for awhile, you know that I love to clean out closets. And as a Professional Organizer I love to help other people clean out their closets.


Whenever I help clients work in their homes, I have to put myself in their shoes and remember that they most likely Do Not Like To Clean Out Closets. That's why they need me. And actually, I don't clean out their closet for them. I coach them through it. It is impossible to clean out a closet for someone and have the closet stay organized and customized for that particular individual.

When I'm coaching clients through the purging part of cleaning out a closet, we invariably come across several items that are really tough to make a decision about. That where gentle prodding, perspective checking, and sometimes, tough love comes in. If you're working through your closets as part of the Monday Motivation schedule, then I hope you'll find this list of questions helpful in making those decisions.

As you pull items out of the closet, ask yourself these question:

1. Have I worn this item in the past few years? Set a time for yourself. Some people say 6 months, some say 5 years. I usually say 2 years and that works for me. The reasoning is that if you haven't worn it in awhile then it's not one of your favorite things and you'll probably never wear it. Give it away so someone can use it before it dry rots.

2. Do I have multiples of this item? How many white shirts do you have? Stacy and Clinton of What Not To Wear fame also tell their clients to get rid of items that are of the same style but different colors because they are too similar and predictable.

3. Does this clothing item look good on me? If you don't have a helper to give their opinion on the matter, then take a picture of yourself - the camera doesn't lie. Your closet should only contain what you love and what looks good on you.

4. Is the clothing item in style? Several years ago I helped a client who had lost close to 60 pounds. She was in fabulous shape. When we went through her closet, she had a hard time getting rid of her "fat" clothes because she had paid so much money for them. They were also 8 years old and terribly out of style. With tough love I told her that her body was too fabulous to hide behind those awful, saggy clothes. Those clothes were her old life - not her new, healthy life. She dumped them right in a bag and I whisked them off to the thrift store.

5. Do my shoes fit me? Are they in good shape? Really, life is too short to wear painful shoes. They will eventually cause some harm to your feet. Only wear what makes you feel good.

6. Do I have other clothing items to wear with this item? Do you have clothes you've never worn because you don't have anything to wear it with? It's time to let it go.

7. Where will I wear this? If you only imagine yourself wearing this clothing item for a fictictional occasion (like a hoped-for cruise or a in-your-dreams-hip-hop dance class) then it's time to let go of the dream and live in the present.

8. Is this item appropriate for me to wear? Just because you can squeeze your body into something does not mean you should. Just because you're 40 and you still have great looking legs doesn't mean you should wear the latest teen fashion. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I know, I'm meddling now!

I hope you didn't mind this little bit of tough love! It's all for a good cause.

Now, GO FORTH AND ORGANIZE.

New Use For An Old Rocking Chair

I love turning discarded trash into useful items.  Take, for example, this decorative wheelbarrow.  The metal base was given to me by an older lady when I helped her clean up her backyard (it was hidden behind an old shed).  The wooden part is from a broken rocking chair. 

This is what the wheelbarrow looked like just a few days ago.  It had some worn out exterior grade plywood nailed onto the frame.  U.G.L.Y.

After I took off all of the old wood (except the handles), this is what  had left.

I figured I would just grab some wood from the barn and cut it down to size to replace the old plywood.  But then. . . my son (whom I've trained very well) came home with this.

Can you tell it came from someone's roadside resource pile?

It even came with teeth marks and some kind of weird, shiny spots.  After I was done using my (I mean Hub's) tools, it looked like this:

I salvaged the seat, back, and arms.  I attached the seat, smaller side up, to the vertical frame and the chair back onto the horizontal frame.  Everything is nailed into place, but I know Hubs will want to use screws to make it sturdier.  That shows the difference in how we think - I like it to quickly look cute and he likes for it to be sturdy first and cute second. 

I'm working on a way to use the arms of the chair as decorative trim, but I think I need Hub's expert advice before I mess with it.  Maybe he'll help me out this weekend.

Oops, I forgot to tell you that I painted the rocking chair (after cutting it up) and all of the wooden parts of the wheelbarrow with interior/exterior Krylon Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint.  I left the metal parts alone with all of their glorious rustiness.

I like this little welcoming arrangement that sits in the island in the middle of our gravel driveway.  I wonder if my guests will recognize where the parts came from?