Crafted

A few weeks ago, I watched this video by Morgan Spurlock at the prompting of my husband.  I enjoyed the stories of the five artisans he interviews and portrays.  This morning the video came to my mind because of the contrasting portions of my day.

In the morning, we traveled to Annapolis, Maryland, and spent part of the morning walking around downtown.  We enjoyed window shopping though we didn't buy anything until I purchased a small pair of earrings at our last stop.  My family's favorite stores were the Woodcraft Artisans store and Nautical North.  Both were stores where we appreciated what someone had made.

I didn't make anything yesterday.  But, I did reuse things already in my house so that I ended up only spending $7 to rearrange part of our bedroom.

I began by going to Target and buying a shoe rack and a belt hanger.  I returned home from my trip to Target and began trying to rearrange our bedroom to make it simpler.   A friend of mine were discussing organization this week.  She had been working on her homeschool room and I had been purging my books that I store in the basement.

She and I both agreed that...
a) purging happens multiple times.
     The first time you purge, you are able to let go of a few things.  The next time, whether it be a few weeks or months later, you are able to let go of a few more (sometimes many more).
b) simplifying means less clutter
c) rearranging sometimes takes multiple attempts before one gets it to the best arrangement

In the case of my bedroom, the belt hanger (which was cheaper and better than all options available on Amazon) worked great.  I remembered once I got home that I had a second shoe rack being used as a shelf in our basement.  I rearranged some things down there and brought it up stairs to the closet.  I rearranged the shoes and finally was able to remove an extra shelving from our bedroom.  Over the years, I see more and more that less furniture is More--more space, more breathing room.  Next, I pulled out a 3 drawer wooden organizer that I had bought at a garage sale a few weeks ago for $3.  It was just what my husband needed to put on top of his dresser.  I pick up organizers all the time at garage sales and am always surprised at the purposes I find for them.  In this case, IKEA doesn't sell this organizer in the states anymore, but it is about $24 overseas.

Voila!  Just what we needed and finally our bedroom feels like it has what we need after 4 1/2 years.

One of the accidental things that happened along the way was that our air conditioning vent is finally open to a larger space.  It hadn't been covered up, but it was boxed in by dressers on two sides and a wall on the third.  Now, it's open on two sides.  When I woke this morning, I realized that my bedroom felt more comfortable.  I hadn't realized what a difference this one facet of the rearrangement would make, though I had hoped.  Earlier this week, I had rearranged our laundry room and uncovered the air conditioning vent that was under a table.  That room has felt cooler ever since.

I'm very thankful this morning.  I get to return the shoe rack and save $25!

Do you do this?  Do you rearrange rooms periodically?  Does it make you smile when it's done?  Do you reuse things in your home in a new way?