Neat Features

I never thought I’d be using the words “pet” and “neat” in the same sentence.  Yet here I am looking at a Wall-mounted Pet Organizer, thinking that it’s definitely one Neat Feature.  One that I might try and find a way to adapt to cats as opposed to dogs.

I don’t know about anyone else, but it seems to me that the moment I walk into my house I lose stuff.  And while my current theory involves black holes (or possibly garden gnomes), there’s a very small chance it’s because I don’t put things away when I’m done using them.

This is especially the case for things that don’t have a “landing zone” of their own.  So how about it?  Would you use a pet organizer?

image from This Old House

When I lived in an apartment I always knew where my keys were.  I just didn’t have a lot of space, so the keys always went in the same place.

Then I bought a house.

Suddenly there were so many tempting places to set my keys on the way to their “home” location.  Would I leave them in the back room?  How about the kitchen on the way to the dining room?   And if my daughter was excited to see me, maybe they’d just get left on the mantle in the living room.

So many places to lose my keys.

That’s what I love about this light switch cover.  If I could just turn off the light and hang my keys at the same time, I’d be set.  As long as the light was off, I’d know where my keys were!

If you have any crazy key-losing stories, feel free to share them in the comments.

Design by Jake Frey

Have you ever wondered why you can’t keep your house clean?  It’s easy to blame your schedule, the kids, or maybe the family dog.  But it’s probably something more personal.  And according to Fugen Neziroglu, a clinical psychologist, it may just be your house.  “When people walk into their houses, they enter a comfort zone.  Work is over and done with, and your immediate reaction is to let go of everything from the outside world. And that includes the things you’ve been schlepping throughout the day.”

So in other words, while some of us may be slobs, a lot of us are just letting go of the outside world.  It just happens to mean we leave piles of junk for the inside world to pick up!

If you live in the Cincinnati area (like me) you’re probably a bit tired of the crazy weather we’ve been having. Well after this week between snow storms, freezing rain, back to snow, I realized I had a fundamental problem in my house (besides the leaks in the basement.) I realized I don’t really have any place to put muddy shoes. During the summer and spring this wasn’t that big of a deal. We had a room in the back that was large enough to comfortably fit a few shoes without feeling cluttered.
However once boots, gloves, hats, snow pants, and coats got into the mix, the room just feels a bit too claustrophobic. Sure the room’s still big enough to hold all that stuff. It’s just that there’s no (current) way to organize all that stuff!

Which brings me to a good ol’ fashioned mud room. Personally I’m a fan of a clean and simple room. After all, their purpose is to contain the mud, and anything too “fancy” would make me feel obligated to clean it all the time. (Which kind of defeats it’s purpose.)

That’s what I liked about this submission by Salsastyle on HGTV.com.

So what about you? Do you have a mud room? Do you wish you had one?

I’ve mentioned before that in my old house I’m on an eternal quest to find space to store stuff.  We don’t have a ton of things, but even without a lot of stuff, we really miss having closets.  But with a lack of closets comes a lack of places to put coats, shoes, keys, gloves, etc…

And as winter becomes, those things become more important!

That’s what I love about this design by Rambling Renovators.  They’ve taken something that was non-functional, from a storage standpoint, and built upon it by adding some convenient storage.  (Check out the before and after pictures.)

It’s a simple, yet brilliant design solution to an all-too-common problem for older homes.

Images come from Rambling Renovators (a really great site by the way.) Do you have a Neat Feature of your own? Consider submitting it, and we may post it.