I have a DIY power tool battery station hanging on the wall on my workbench and little else. All of my tools, hardware, and empty tool cases are stored low to the ground – like me! – in my DIY kitchen cabinet workbench where I can easily put everything away after I finish a project in my shop.
Short girl problems, yo.
But man, those empty molded plastic power tool cases are taking up some variable storage real estate in the workbench. I don’t want to keep shuffling them around the workbench to get to things I needs but I don’t want to get rid of them either. The cases are nice for those occasions I Handy Ma'am it at someone else’s house.
A dead space the wall over my workbench is the perfect place to store my power tool cases. I put my recycled pallet wood stash to good use and built a storage shelf with built in bookends (for lack of a better term) so my tool cases won’t fall off the end of the shelf.
Pin this idea for later!
How to Build a Simple Shelf with Built in Bookends
Oh friends, I have a confession. I have a new obsession.
Antique crystal glasses.
It started innocently enough. I bought these sweet and versatile Bubble Champagne Coupe glasses (aff link) as a wedding present last spring and I've been going back and forth about how useful owning coupe glasses would be ever since. Which is somewhat silly yet somewhat practical given my lack of extra storage space in our condo.
The coupe hunger got worse after seeing a friend's recent antique mid century modern chair purchase followed by seeing cut glass coupes while thrift shopping for Halloween costume pieces. The clouds parted from the sky, a rainbow appeared, a unicorn slide down it and encouraged me to poke around one of my favorite thrift stores instead of just turning around in their parking lot.
Husband and I have a tradition with our next door neighbors to sit on our front porches and chat, candy bowls and food allergy treats at the ready for the neighborhood trick or treaters.
It's nice to have a festive drink with us to fill the lull in between Beggar's Night groups and there is no better option than a big glass of Harry Potter inspired Pumpkin Juice!
As all Harry Potter fans know, pumpkin juice is a non alcoholic treat served hot or cold in the wizarding world.
It was one of many things Husband and I couldn't wait to try in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter section of both Universal Studios Florida parks. Universal set up a test kitchen in England
so JK Rowling could select what she imagined when she created pumpkin
juice and all of the other fantastic wizard food and drinks that appear
in the series.
When I read the Harry Potter books I imagined pumpkin juice to taste like pumpkin spice. Unfortuantely, JK Rowling's recipe is full of apricot juice adn waaaaaay too sweet.
So I decided to create a pumpkin spice pumpkin juice recipe myself! Pop on over to my food blog Lazy Budget Chef to read the recipe:
Decorating the outside of a duplex for holidays is usually more miss than hit since neither side coordinates with the other (at least in my experience.)
I have this visually dead corner on my front porch. Trying to find something either practical or pretty to fill it gives me fits.
Storage space for new autumn decorations is practically nonexistent in our condo. So I did a little summer and fall decoration shuffle from backyard fall patio decorations (take the fall patio decorating tour here on Condo Blues) to the front porch now that it is too chilly to eat dinner outside on the regular.
Killing one of the mums I bought for the backyard actually worked in my favor. I used the pot of dirt in the metal planter to anchor the wood flagpole I used to hang the quilted scarecrow I made forever ago and haven’t found a good use for until now.
I traced the metal container and cut a circle to fit inside the metal planter with a hole in it for the scarecrow pole to keep it centered in the planter. The flower pot isn’t as deep as the metal planter so I chucked a couple of Husband’s empty protein powder containers in the pot to keep the cardboard from sinking into the planter so I can cover it with decorations and hide the cardboard lid.
Keep reading for more decorating ideas and pin this post for later!