Wiggle Room

I started purging in 2016 and I thought I was done in 2019, but most of the purging came from the attic and I still have too much stuff.

I need "wiggle room" in my cupboards so in February, I got serious and asked myself if I was really going to use each item.

I started the process with our dining room plate racks.

Everything came off the racks and I either put items back on the rack, into a cupboard or in a donation pile.

Once the racks were decorated, I moved onto my grandma's step back cupboard in our entry.

I emptied everything out of the cupboard - remember that arrow because it led to yesterday's project.

I posted a pic of the cupboard on Instagram on February 20, when I began writing this "Wiggle Room" post, but life got in the way of finishing up the cupboard.

When I first painted the inside of the cupboard blue, I only had the top part of the cupboard and when I painted it, I didn't even notice that I had left the ceiling unpainted.

I literally didn't see the problem until this feature came out in Cottages and Bungalows magazine in 2017 - yes, it's taken me that long to fix the problem.

Health and the lockdown (couldn't get the paint) kept me from finishing the project, but yesterday things came out of the cupboard once again.

After I finished painting the ceiling, I decided that to make the cupboard more functional and give myself a little wiggle room in the hall cupboard I would add runners and tablecloths to that top shelf.

If you are wondering what those red sticks are on the second shelf,

they are the sweetest vintage utensils sent to me from Rita of Panoply.

I put everything back and planned to wait on the bottom cupboard until today, but there were wind warnings so I stayed inside and tackled the rest of the job.

When I painted the top part of the cupboard, the bottom half lived with my daughter in San Francisco and she painted it yellow- notice the remnants on the open cupboard door.

It's been organized since February, but finally the interior is painted white and that is checked off my To Do list.

Now that I am finishing the post, I must show one change I made in the plate racks.

I had Steve hang cup hooks -

 removing the cups from the cupboard gave me a little more wiggle room.

I didn't want the before photos of the dining room and entry to look exactly like they did to start with so I made my first visit to Trader Joe's in 11 weeks.

It was wonderful to pick out flowers in a nearly empty store

and to come home and create arrangements for both the living room and the entry.

What I mean by wiggle room is that I have space in the cupboards and on the plate racks for that perfect piece of ironstone I can't pass up

I just need thrift shops, vintage shops and pop up markets to fully open.

An Extra Foot

We have limited space in this little cottage, but I love having things on display.

In January I spotted a beautiful plate rack on Pinterest and knew it would be perfect solution to our limited space.

  I searched online and found a few more plate racks for inspiration before I spoke to Steve

Rooms For Rent

At the Picket Fence

- he absolutely hates to hear the words, "I have an idea...".

A neighbor said the racks would be a fun project for him so Steve designed the racks

and I found new places for the ladder and shelf

while Joe built the racks.

Last month Joe hung the racks and even before they were painted I had to to throw together a quick display.

After I painted, I took much more time in my styling, adding little bits and pieces here and there.

I felt that something was missing above the shelves so I moved our street sign - we scored the sign when the city changed all the signs at the beach to blue.

A little blue mixed in with the white is perfect for summer.

I love that I can create vignettes on the wall and grab plates quickly when I need them all without taking up any valuable space in our tiny dining room.

I could live with the crisp blue & white all year long,

but I look forward to using fall colors

and can't wait to see them decked out in red, white & greenery at Christmas.

The title of the post is "An Extra Foot" - the amount of space we gained for walking through the room.

I loved staging the ladder against the wall, but it stuck out about 15"

and the shelf was 12".

The plate racks are a mere 3" in depth

so our walking space is 12" more than we had before and believe me, that space makes all the difference in the world.

The dining room isn't the only room where we have gained a few inches of space, but that's for another post.

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