The Final Days: William Morris Project - Days 28 through 31

This is the last of the 31-day William Morris Project Challenge. 

I'm really glad this is done. Thankfully, I managed to find four very easy projects to finish off with, because I had completely lost the drive. I like the idea of continuing on Thursdays like Jules did last year. If nothing else, it might help me keep areas from getting re-cluttered.

Now, to show you all what was accomplished these last four days:

Day 28: Different method for storing important papers

Before: "Bill Bag"

After: Binders & vertical file tray

I've lamented about my bill bag before. Basically, all important papers and (theoretically) the most recent two months worth of monthly bills get thrown into this bag. Once a year, usually while doing taxes, I go through and thin it out. I'm horrible at staying on top of it throughout the year.

Last weekend, Sweetie and I were at a second-hand store and I spotted a vertical file tray for $1. I had the perfect use for it and grabbed it up. The vertical file will hold the monthly bills. My thinking is that I will see it filling and it will be easy to grab the old stuff and shred without having to sort through the whole bag.

While I was at it, I went ahead and divided the contents of the bag into 3 binders. I will probably further arrange and label those binders come tax time. They are good enough.

Day 29: Clean out corner by bookcase

Before

After

This corner is where the bill bag used to live. It seems to accumulate crap. It's one of those spots that just bugs the bejeezus out of me so I just avoid walking in that area. Now I don't have to avoid it anymore, LOL

Day 30: Different method for storing recipes

Before: 2 boxes & books

Before: commonly used are hanging by stovetop

Before: scraps attached to fridge

Sweetie accesses her recipes through her phone now so all recipes are here for my use only. I tend to look up uses for specific things (like the black-eyed peas I got recently). When I find a recipe I want to try, I jot down the jist of it and tack it to the fridge so it's accessible while I'm cooking. If I like it, I leave the recipe there so I can use it again.We both have a few recipes that we use on a regular basis which we've hung with magnets to the copper tile backsplash of the stovetop. Then there's the two recipe boxes and a few cookbooks in the cabinet above the stove. Since I'm the only one who uses the printed recipes, I had pretty much free reign on how to organize them. I decided to type them up and save them to my Dropbox folder. Eventually, I will have a newer phone that I can install the Dropbox app to and view them on my phone. In the meantime, all the recipes will be in one folder and I can search with keywords for existing recipes when I'm stumped on what to make.

I didn't take an "After" picture, but just imagine that cabinet less the two recipe boxes, a refrigerator without scraps of paper randomly attached, and the copper tile with only one index card (recreation of Little Caesars dough - which we happen to LOVE and make often).

Day 31: Attach pull-down to attic access

Before

After

Our attic access ladder (and pull-down cord) were damaged by the first person we ever hired to do home maintenance. We learned many lessons from that experience and we were lucky we didn't have to deal with more than just a broken attic access and a few botched sheetrock patching jobs. I have since purchased an extension ladder which can double as a way into the attic, however I never did reattach a knob so that the door could be pulled down.

Just last week, I threw away a finial while purging the junk drawer. It would have been the perfect knob-pull! Such is life, I suppose. I ended up using a long bolt with some twine tied around it. If the twine breaks while attempting to open the access door, the bolt is long enough to grip and pull. If I come across any discarded finials though, I will be replacing this! We don't use the attic for storage so we really only need to be able to access it if there's some house-type problem. 

I'm very glad to have participated in the challenge this year. It's no joke - it took a lot of willpower and dedication. There are still plenty of areas that need work - and plenty of things that can be done without money that really have no excuse. There are some holidays coming up which means days off work so here's to hoping I keep this going!