Small Space Industrial Open Pantry Yay or Nay?

A worn valve on our water heater flooded the utility, laundry, and kitchen after Husband started the dishwasher on Christmas Eve Eve morning.

Husband shut the water heater off while I called plumbers. Apparently plumbers are crazy busy with smart people who have plumbers do pre-emptive work on their pipes before overloading their plumbing with guests, cooking, and cold weather. It was a Festivus miracle I found a plumber during regular business hours that day!

That didn’t make my cranky feeling go way as I mopped the rest of the water, hoped we didn’t need to buy a replacement water heater (fortunately we just needed to replace a valve – whew!), and pulled a mountain of chaos out of the utility room so the plumber could find the water heater had room to work.

My 10 Best DIY Projects of 2014

Wow, 2014 was a great year for Condo Blues! I made a lot of changes behind the scenes to bring you the best projects and content possible. My hard work paid off because more of you have stopped by to my virtual home to say hello.

 

Let’s look at the 10 most popular posts on Condo Blues in 2014!

42 Homemade Christmas Gift Tags

I like wrapping a pretty gifts for Christmas. I keep a box of gift boxes and bags I reuse every year and another box of wrapping paper and things like silk flowers, fabric ribbon, and bows I recycle into clever gift toppers for the Christmas gifts I need to ship.

 


For the gifts I deliver in person, I made gift wrapping easier on myself by using the reusable cloth gift bags I sewed from my historical costuming scrap stash. I still get the pretty and fancy look I like but with a time and sanity saving green twist because I reuse my homemade gift bags year after year.

I sewed my cloth gift bags as a post- Christmas cabin fever project and used them the following year. Read my homemade cloth gift bag tutorial here.

With all of the attention I pay to buying meaningful gifts and their fancy wrappings, I’m ashamed to say I have long history of phoning it in when it comes to Christmas gift tags.

Outdoor Christmas Décor: Modern Lighted Tomato Cage Christmas Trees

For as much I enjoy looking at Christmas light displays you’d think I’d do something fancy outside of my own home.


Nope. I keep it simple.

Why?

Because it is always too cold outside to put up and take down elaborate Christmas decorations!

Peace, love, joy, and warmth. That’s what my outdoor Christmas décor is all about.

And by warmth I mean not freezing my legs off while I’m outside or in the garage building new Christmas decorations.

This year I made a few changes in our outdoor Christmas décor and especially in what I used to display them. I wore the right work pants for the job, my Duluth Trading Company Women's Fleece-Lined DuluthFlex Fire Hose Pants.

Did I mention these multi-pocketed wonder pants are lined with warm and soft fleece, one of my favorite cold weather fabrics? Oh yes, my friends. My new fancy pants kept me warm while installing Christmas decorations. They proved their worth later that evening on a walk with Lacey to look at Christmas lights a local park. We left early because Husband wore jeans and got cold. Me? Not cold at all.

The best thing about Duluth Trading Company clothes is they realize women need just as many pockets in their clothing as men.  DuluthFlex Fire Hose Pants have six packets: 2 front pockets, a zippered thigh cargo pocket, 2 back pockets, and a Pokey Things Pocket (their name, not mine) on the right back thigh.