JillFlorio

While wading through my pile of items to review from the Involvaholic perspective, I thought I would mention how important it is to like your tools.

Whether you are a cook, a construction worker or work from your home office, you need to like your tools. You should like the look and heft of your chopping knife, hand drill or computer mouse, for example. They should fit your hand and become an extension of your limbs.

What do you get from having the right tool? More productivity, less daily frustration from products that don’t work for you. Even a minor point of irritation, such as a stapler that too often mangles its staples, becomes a subtle form of water torture….wearing away at you in frustration every time you use it. You should literally LOVE all the things you own and use.

Sometimes the right tools cost more…but not necessarily. My new keyboard is not the most expensive (but not the cheapest either). I picked it because it had features I enjoy and because the size fits my little paws better than any other five or seven boards I’d tested. It is the same with my computer mouse - I went through half a dozen iterations before I settled on the one that feels like a part of me.

The principles of simple living dictate you own only what you need…but along those lines, don’t be afraid to own the right tools for the job.

Too often, we try to buy things that are on sale, or are…well…just cheap. This often ends up costing more in the long run. Cheap clothes unravel at the seams. Cheap sleeping bags will not keep you warm when camping. Then you end up buying more products to replace those.

However, expensive products don’t always equate quality. Sometimes you are overpaying for the status of having a name brand item.

The key lies in finding quality products at good prices…and in maintaining their quality as you use them. Sharpening your good kitchen knives. Repairing your leather boots and purse straps. Storing your winter coats properly over the summer.

Having high quality things that you own, love and maintain keeps junk out of the landfills, saves you money in the long run, and lets you enjoy a more frustration-free life.

Book hoarding is a very difficult type of clutter disease to cure. Everyone tells us books are good; they are indicators of an intellectual bent; they are clues to our inner personalities…blah, blah, blah. For those of us who really love books, it’s hard to let them go. Book clutter can get out of hand, to the point where a single person can own literally hundreds or thousands of titles.

If you have the room for a library area of your house, you may not be so concerned. Dust your books every few months, store them upright, and provide comfortable nearby seating to encourage book browsing. That DOES sound appealing. Make sure you have nice teas and mugs you can make quickly to enjoy your library nook.

Not everyone has the time, room or inclination to make a library area in our homes. I personally have moved homes too often to even think about that - and if you have moved a lot, you understand just how HEAVY boxes of books can be.

Not only are books heavy, but they are vulnerable things to keep around. Your pretty coffeetable books get scuffed when you move too much - another thing I have discovered. When you store books, covers can get creased and folded, books are easily ruined when wet, and can get chewed on by rodents. I have lost several stored crates of books over the years to moisture, mold, rodents and general improper care.

It’s an excellent goal to whittle down your collection to books you often use and love. Go through your books on a wet or snowy day and try to eliminate any book you have already read or KNOW you will never read. Decide which reference books you really want to keep. Pick out a couple of your art books (how many do you really use?). Keep your own personal classic novels (I would never get rid of my Lord of the Rings, Watership Down or Lonesome Dove copies).

When you go through books like this, it tends to take a LONG TIME. You get caught up in the fun of book discovery. That’s okay; don’t try to clear out your collection in one session. If you have lots of books, give yourself a month or a season to make your book collection manageable.

Don’t worry about missing the books you give away. You can always borrow those titles again from your local library, or download them online, or even grab yourself another copy later if you really feel you made a mistake. Chances are very good that you won’t even miss them, however.

How you get rid of your books is up to you. You can sell them on Amazon or at a used book store or at a garage sale. You can donate them to a library or to Goodwill. Gift them out to friends. Just let them go and you will feel lighter in life.

Index of Living Simply Articles

Having a garage sale? Here are some tips for setting up and displaying your goods to get the best prices and have a great sale.

Garage Sale Tips

First off, don’t go it alone. Have a spouse, partner or friend be your wingman, no matter how informal your sale. Bribe your friend with free pizza or a round at the bar, on you, to help out on your big day or weekend sale. Bribe your spouse with a big dinner and/or evening massage, for giving up their weekend to help you. Either way, you will have someone to help you set up and take down, someone to help you make sales, an eye to keep watch for those bathroom breaks, and, of course, moral support.

Beyond enlisting a good buddy, you also need to plan out a few things before the sale:

* Will you use tables or lay items out on blankets? Maybe a combination of the two?

* Can you group any things out thematically? Sporting goods together, tools off the the side, kitchen wares on one table? Try to think ‘department store’, not ‘junk pile’.

* Can you spread out everything the night before in the garage? Then you can just open the doors and get going in the morning. Don’t feel bad if your garage is already packed to the gills with stuff. Remember, each garage sale you hold will help get you to that Holy Grail of a roomy, organized garage.

* If you can’t spread out in the garage, try to have all your stuff in ‘like boxes’. Dishes together, toys in a sack, games in one box, and so on. Set-up’s a breeze when you have it semi-organized beforehand.

* Set up your coffee, tea, or other wake-up brew, ready to go, the night before. Trust me, no one likes a grouch at 7AM.

* If you don’t like people swarming over your belongings before you set-up, don’t hesitate to shoo them off. Simply say, “I’m not open yet.” It’s really okay to do this. It’s your stuff, your property. I’ve found I set a better pace for my day if I can set up the driveway area in peace. Don’t stress over what you COULD HAVE sold. You’ll eventually sell everything anyway.

Tables, Boxes and Blankets

How to display your wares? Table-height is best, but you can still sell well with things neatly laid out on blankets, tarps and sheets. If you have some big boxes, you can drape a sheet over them and have a makeshift table. You could place a board or old door on sawhorses or crates and make a table that way.

Setting the Tables

Make sure everything you put out is clean and labelled. Having dirty junk mixed in only brings down your whole look. Remember that you are trying to create a ‘retail’ appearance to get the best price for your goods.

Have plenty of space between each item. At my first garage sale, I piled everything I had right next to each other, figuring people would like more stuff to paw through.

I learned this is incorrect thinking: individual items get lost when there are too many things available. Ever hear of the ‘tyranny of choice”? Having empty space around each nicely displayed item lets people actually look at what you are offering. When you sell something, you can always replace that empty spot with a fresh, new item from your reserve.

The Free Box

It’s always nice to have a bunch of free things available for people to pick through. But if your free things are just a tiny step above garbage, it’s better not to have a free box at all. If you do have one, label it well with your Sharpie as “FREE”.

I admit it – I’m drawn to people’s trash. When I see interesting mounds outside on the curb, I slow down in the car. I’ve even been known to flip around for a second drive-by. Shameless? Well, not really. I see rescuing perfectly good furniture and housewares as a service: I’m recycling.

You can furnish your home on the ultimate cheap (and even nab some free antiques) if you just keep your eyes open. Starving students, newly-emerged adults and new homeowners can pick up a sly starter set for a song using these techniques:

1. Call your dump first. Some landfills will have an area set aside for cast-offs, which you can wander through and make legal selections of lots of things: couches, loveseats, end tables, coffee tables, bedframes, what have you.

My town not only forbids anyone from entering the dump for a look-see, but immediately crushes all and sundry to oblivion with a masher. This really offends my reuse and recycle mind view, so I have to be a little ballsier in my salvage approach. That means checking out salvage yards, demolition sites and curbs. Let’s start with the easiest angle - picking through salvage.

2. Check into Salvage Yards. Don’t write off even the most unpromising-looking yard-o-scrap. I must have passed on one such lot hundreds of times on my way home from town. Iron Mike’s, in Flagstaff, doesn’t even have a sign out front – the tiny notice is only visible from inside the yard itself. It looked like a metal salvage heap from the street, but I worked up my courage to park and walk into the back. A bunch of grease-encrusted guys looked at me strangely when I asked if this was a salvage yard.

“Sure. What do you need?” they politely asked.

“I’ll know it when I see it,” I replied. “Mind if I look around?”

They decided that was fine, so I made friends with the junkyard dog while scanning random heaps of rubbish. I hit the jackpot when I opened the creaky door to a ramshackle shed. Peering inside, I saw boxes of filthy housewares and piles of odd, miscellaneous goods heaped in the corners. Promising myself I’d bring along a flashlight and sturdy work gloves next time, I rummaged through the boxes and piles.

Worth getting dirty. What I uncovered: two large Fiesta platters in mint condition (except really, really dirty), a perfect Roseville crock, three Depressionware plates, several Anchor Hocking kitchen items in great shape, a Transferware Currier and Ives collectible plate, a heap of vintage Pyrex treasures, a handmade quilt, a bird feeder, some tarnished sterling silver flatware, a crystal water pitcher, a handmade 1880s rolling pin, two 1950s framed prints, a three-foot candle pedestal in iron, some Deco-era draperies in need of a good cleaning and several old lamp bases sans shades. I also found an old door frame that I plan to staple sheer gold fabric to, to make a colorful and movable wall panel.

All in all, I piled a half a dozen boxes with things I liked and could use. The proprietor was more than happy to move these old things out of his shed - he only charged me $35 for everything. If I’d had cash on me, I’m sure I could have bargained him down. He trusted me enough to accept a check, but I don’t recommend relying on anything but cash at these places.

Jill’s Salvage Yard Hints: Wear sturdy closed-toe shoes and your grubby clothes when you go to a salvage lot. Bring work gloves, a flathead screwdriver and a Phillips, a working flashlight, sunglasses or a sunhat, and make sure your tetanus shot is up to date.

I like to have a bottle of water in the front seat, too – recycling is hard work.

Shove a few crates in your car for your finds, since these yards don’t usually have amenities for your goods. And it’s worth saying twice: bring cash.

An ounce of creativity. Look beyond the dirt and state of dishevel. Does that cool old lamp base need a harp and shade? JoAnn Fabrics sells lamp harps for 3 bucks, and you can pick up shades almost anywhere, or make your own. You can dry-clean interesting vintage fabrics, reupholster chairs and sofas, and wash the antique dishes lying on the ground.

Remember that a bit of creativity will go far, too – old cabinets can be reused in the garage to store sporting goods and boxes of holiday things. Old drawer pulls can be removed from anything you find and brought home for your own bureaus. Rickety shutters and orphaned doors can be turned into those oh-so-trendy and expensive movable screens by screwing on a few hinges. Wrought iron gates can be set in front of mirrors, cut to fit, to become a one-of-a-kind, gorgeous “heirloom” showpiece.

Want some more ideas for creating salvage treasures for your home? Here’s a good read, available from Amazon.com, with lots of pictures to set your imagination ticking:

Salvage Style How-to’s.

If you’re like most people with a digital camera, you store your images in a photo file, on your computer. Have you really looked through this file, lately?

Chances are good there’s a lot of pictures in there, all clumped together without rhyme or reason. After all, that’s how most of us kept our paper photos, before we got digital-happy; in boxes or envelopes at the the top of some closet.

This isn’t very useful or even handy, if you want to show anyone your pictures, or find a certain one to print out. Take some time to better organize these files - set aside a rainy day to rediscover your photos. Or take these tips in stages if that seems overwhelming.

Organizing Your Digital Photos

• Scan your photo area. Are there certain themes? You can organize that way, or by timeline. So for example, you can store your digital images under subheadings like “Grand Canyon Pictures”, or by “2004 Trips”, or even “Thanksgiving 2004.” Think like “Photo Album” instead of “Junk Room”.
• If you need some help and want to make a more professional or classy presentation out of your treasured images, there are kits you can buy to help you create a nice digital photo album.
• Rename your photo files from those numeric titles to something meaningful, like who the picture is of, or where it was taken.
• Are there any pictures duplicated for some reason? You’ll have more storage space if you don’t have needless copies. Make sure you don’t delete copies that you might have edited, however. You might want both the original and the edited version for something later.
• Speaking of duplication, you WILL want a backup of your photos. Just store it elsewhere. Make a copy on someone else’s computer, print out copies of each photo, make several CDs of your photo files…better safe than sorry! All computers will crash eventually.
• Are there pictures that you think are terrible? Accidental pictures of the floor, underexposed interior shots, whatever? Delete them. No reason keeping them around. It’s just clutter - and probably bad feng shui too.
• Consider making a Photo Gallery website of your own, for anyone to view, using Shutterfly, Yahoo or Ofoto.

Reuse Idea
How can you use some of these images? Think about sending some of these pictures out as Christmas Cards. Print them out and tape to a folded card form, or send them online as digital postcards. You can mess around in your photo editor and add words like “Happy Holidays From Us”…be creative!

Living in a studio apartment - our sublet here at Belle Arts is all of 414 square feet - we have to economize on storage. One little thing I’ve discovered is that Cottonelle Triple layer toilet paper is a great compromise between storing lots of toilet paper, and having to run out to the store.

My old routine was to buy large, economy amounts of TP when they go on sale. You know, those packs of 20, 40, and even 80 rolls at Costco or something. I just don’t have the room for that any more.

So my next plan was buying those tightly packed Scott Tissue single-ply rolls and only buying a few extras to store. Those suckers last forever, but my husband doesn’t like wiping his rear with what he calls scratchy paper. He likes the quilted stuff.

So enter Cottonelle triple layer. It cost me $6.99 at the Factoria Mall Target store.

It’s thick, which Dan likes, and dense enough to last and last (which I like). It’s not quilted; it’s “rippled”. Okay, so same thing, really. They call it their longest-lasting roll. I have to remember to use less of it, since three layers is far more absorbant than I am used to from my old scratchy-butt Scott single ply.

My 8 pack is, thus far, lasting as long as a typical 24 pack. I’m quite pleased with my cleverness.

The upshot - less waste (less paper needed per use), less toilet paper rolls to find reuses for, cheaper price than a 24 pack for the same amount of rear-time, and - HUGELY important - takes up less space in my tiny Bellevue studio.

There’s a little bit of sensory deprivation between the brain and nature when you live in an urban environment. If you have a window that looks out into another building, or a wall, or like me you are trapped under plastic tarps and scaffolding (some kind of window renovation here at Belle Arts Apartments), then you need a bit of artificial nature to soothe the soul.

That’s my excuse for spending extra money, anyway.

Start with the sounds of nature. You can buy consumer items to re-create nature’s little moods and play them after work or all night long.

I went to the Bed, Bath and Beyond at Crossroads Mall. Bought a HoMedics Nature Alarm Clock - $29.99. It plays the radio, sure, but also gives me choices of Thunder, Summer Night, Rainforest, Rain and Ocean. There’s also a button for Waterfall, but everyone who has heard it agrees it’s really just White Noise. Which is fine if you like that. I enjoy all the other choices tremendously. Summer Night reminds me of my childhood in Upstate New York.

We also have a nice big, slim profile fan that oscillates. There’s a setting for breeze, which is odd, since the sounds that emits is really more like Wind Storm Blowing Outside in the Fields. I like it anyway - there’s a cozy feeling to it, plus you get the sensation of an actual breeze (it IS a fan, after all).

Couple the Breeze sound with the clock’s rain and you have a the opportunity for a real cozy evening. I would even go so far as to buy a Negative Ion Machine to create that clean, rainstorm feeling. Then turn off the Breeze and the rain and play Summer Night with it’ cricket noises and drift to sleep. Ahhhh.

HoMedics Sound Spa Classic Deluxe Clock Radio and Sound Machine

One thing I’ve discovered from living in the city is that many apartments make great use of small spaces. I always had a full-size washer and dryer. Now, while temporarily in this studio apartment sublet, we have a stacking washer and dryer. And I LOVE it.

It’s so much more appropriate to an urban lifestyle. For one, we don’t have the room for a lot of clothes, so I have to do more frequent, smaller washes. This is both water and energy wasting in a large washer/dryer set. And if I decide to wait until I have enough clothes for a full load, then I don’t have enough clothes left in my wardrobe to wear!

Also along these lines, I don’t have the room for a full-size laundry basket anywhere - it simply takes up too much space. I can handle storing a mini-basket for my mini-loads. I just use a 2.5 gallon Readi-Tote from Rite Aid (it was $2.99).

Lastly, and very nicely, is that the dryer is on top of the washer. I never realized how convenient that would be. I don’t have to hurt my back bending over, and it’s actually far, far easier to actually get the wet stuff into the dryer without dropping anything.

Anyway, it was amazing to realize I prefer a smaller, stacking W/D to the full-size set. I don’t have children nor huge laundry loads, and this is the perfect set of conservation-friendly appliances for my husband and myself.

Now I need a mini-dishwasher to wash our four forks every few days…