BackGarage

From Michael Till’s Flickr photostream.

I love antique glass bottles, but I was starting to hate the way they looked in my bathroom: cluttered.

I’d already removed most of them and started using them in the kitchen, but there were a few stragglers, plus a stone Byzantine face sculpture that wasn’t doing much to enhance the potty decor.

I decided to hang the face outside on our porch.

I was amazed at how easily regular nails could be pounded into the tuckpointing with a hammer. But the face looked a little lonely.

Earlier in the year I wanted to hang most of our porch-based herb garden on the brick wall. But I didn’t have the appropriate equipment. Suddenly I got an idea for a wall garden: use the glass bottles!

I assembled the bottles, some fishing line and my tool box and strung a strand of fishing line around each bottles’ neck.

I ran out of fishing line and had to use floss. It actually worked better.

Soon I had amassed a small group of bottles.

Now I could begin hanging them.

It was easy to pound small nails right into the wall between bricks. You can also use fluted masonry nails if you’re hanging something heavy (like the stone face).

The bottles don’t swing too much when they’re resting against the wall, even in a storm.

I could have lined them up, but I decided to stagger them. What do you think? I still feel like there’s something missing. Maybe more bottles? Yeay, another excuse to collect!

Then I filled two of the bottles with water (Target floss sure is strong) and stuck a few Devil’s Ivy cuttings (taken from my indoor plants) inside.

Now I have a lovely porch wall garden!

What do you think? It is too ‘country’? Should I have lined the bottles in a line? Should I get more to add to the collection?

I’m trying a multi-city Craigslist search today to try and find some bargains on mid-century furniture. I’ve selected a number of cities where I visit often, have “people” (with cars), or plan to visit in the near future. Let’s take a look! (You’re supposed to say that in your best Reading Rainbow voice.

Vintage 40s 50s Mid Century Wood Folding Chairs - $15 (Ann Arbor)

How nice are these (probably)? (I wish people would start taking better Craigslist photos!) I already have enough seating in my house, alas. But what would you do with these? Paint them? Refinish them? Leave them as-is? Use outdoors?

Mid-Century Modern Upholstered Lounge Chair - $45 (Arlington, VA)

Jem’s like, “It’s a little ugly,” but I have a soft spot for armless chairs in mustard.

credenza - 1950’s; distinctive - $60 (East Falls Church, VA)

A steal! A steal! Did a family of four die in this thing? Or do mid-century credenzas just go for much less in “occupied” Virginia? Mom: go get this!

Mid-Century - Cosco Step Stool (white/chrome) - $50 (Grand Rapids)

I am always *in awe* at the wealth of mid-century furniture available in my hometown. Yes, it is home to Herman Miller and Steelcase, but growing up in Grand Rapids you learn more about the Dutch Christian Reformed Church than you do about Danish furniture. Anyway, I’m actually LOOKING for one of these retro step stools right now, so if I can convince my friend Sarah to drive out to Rockford….

Mid-Century - Rare Retro Cosco Swivel Stools (pair) - $60 (Grand Rapids)

$60 for the pair! We have to do Mid-Century Under $100 more often…

Vintage Herman Miller Eames Fiberglass Shells =Girard Wool= - $50 (Grand Rapids)

Sweet mother of God…. Look at these Grand Rapidian mid-century hoarders! An ad for Herman Miller shell chairs in Chicago looks like this:

Grand Rapids? This:

I guess that’s what happens when you live close to the source.

set of 3 Kartell/Stoppino nesting tables (Washington, D.C.)

Could these go with my mustard chair?

Antique Danish Modern Style Sideboard-China Cabinet - $100 (Peoria)

Get the van! We’re going to Peoria! Ugh, but I really don’t feel like lugging this up three flights of stairs in this July heat. Not to mention I don’t actually have a van. But if I did…

Anyway, look how much teak is in Ann Arbor!

Danish Modern Chairs - $50 (Ann Arbor)

Could use some new upholstery, but for $50? Nice.

Danish Modern Chairs - $35 (W.Side Ann Arbor)

The ad means $35 for FOUR of these chairs.

Vtg Teak Danish Modern Credenza - $75 (W. Side Ann Arbor)

What is this, credenza sideboard day in other parts of the country?

Vtg Teak Danish Modern Footstool from Denmark - $65 (W. Side Ann Arbor)

Wow, maybe I should move back to Michigan?

I’d call this a successful half-price Monday even IF Unique changed their policy so only THREE colored price tags are half off while the most recent colored tag is just 25 percent off. [Grumble.]

I fell in love with these vintage refrigerator crisper bins. (Just $2.95 each!)

They are big and enameled. Each one weighs nearly four pounds! I may not have thought twice about them but I had just seen this:

From PetitPoulailler’s Flickr photostream, “a salvaged Singer sewing cabinet - Organizing drawers.”

So I got an idea. To take this:

Messy fridge nightmare!

… and turn it into this:

Now it truly is “the Hydrator”!

There were two fridge bins so I used the other one with my metro shelving.

From this:

To this:

A handy, beautiful, portable root cellar!

Oh, but that’s not all!

More clear glass storage containers and the beginning of my all-white porcelain animal collection for the bathroom. I saw one of these quails on eBay last week and was actually watching the auction. Then I found one at Unique — how about that! This quail was just 45 cents. The glass jars were $1.75 and 25 cents, respectively.

So cute, I think!

Shake your tail feather!

Since the bathroom is now devoid of glass bottles (watch for Thursday’s post!), I’m going to collect all-white glazed porcelain animal figurines for the bathroom. I love freeing up space that gives me an excuse for a new collection. (Somebody sound the hoarding horn!)

Not to mention I found these items to add to the BackGarage etsy shop:

The office in “Emily” and “Brian’s” apartment. (Names have been changed.)

I’ve always wanted to be a professional organizer. But you know how those things go. It’s always “one of those things” you know you’re good at but never fully pursue (read: business plan) because you’re not so sure how to go about doing it. But it’s always been at the back of my mind: I have a knack for clearing out clutter.

The other day when I was walking the stray dog (Sasha), I ran into another couple out walking their two dogs and they became concerned about Sasha’s situation. Emily volunteers at a shelter so we exchanged email addresses.

In the course of our electronic correspondence, Emily and Brian offered to pay for Sasha’s vet bills in exchange for my organizing services. I hadn’t advertised the fact that I organize people’s stuff, but Emily read the blog and thought I might be able help her and Brian tackle the massive organizing project that is their apartment. I was more than happy to help, especially since Emily is a fan of my favorite celebrity organizer, Peter Walsh.

This weekend was our first meeting at their home, a two-bedroom apartment in the city. Before I arrived Emily and Brian had already cleared much of the surface clutter that was dominating their apartment. (Okay, I have to let my inner organizing geek come out here.) This is what Peter Walsh refers to as “lazy clutter”: the stuff you know has to go (a promotional t-shirt from a retreat that’s been on the dining room table six months), but you just haven’t gotten around to getting rid of yet.

A lack of closet space often leads to floor clutter.

With their “lazy clutter” mostly out of the way, we were able to take a look at what Emily and Brian think they want to keep (or are having a harder time getting rid of) and need to deal with somehow.

Here’s why they’re having trouble:

• This is Emily’s first apartment in the city. She is used to more space and easier access to laundry.
• Though they moved in together three years ago, they are having some difficulty merging their belongings (each thinks the other should sacrifice their items for the sake of space).
• Brian is seeking a job in academia but until then his “office” was being stored at home.
• Emily’s mom recently sold her house in the suburbs, and Emily inherited generations of stuff, from furniture handmade by her late father to heirloom ceramics and china sets. While Emily definitely wants to keep these things, they are having difficulty figuring out where.

Even Emily and Brian’s kitchen hacks are being overrun.

Before you judge them too harshly, keep in mind that city-dwellers have space issues that non-urbanites could barely imagine. You’re lucky to have a closet in each bedroom in most city apartments, let alone a coat closet, linen closet or pantry. Kitchens are shockingly devoid of cabinet space for both cookware and food (not to mention lacking drawers for utensils, at times). And forget about in-unit laundry.

So those of us living in high density areas have to get creative with what we keep and what we toss, and how we store what we keep. I rarely see a city kitchen that hasn’t been “hacked” in some way: bookshelves used to store canned goods, wall-mounted shelving, tie racks used to hang pots and pans. (In fact, if you really want to see some awesome kitchen hacks, check out Forkable Blog. Andrea has tricked out her kitchen in a DIY style like none other. Some of her genius is visible in this Flickr photoset.)

Emily and Brian have taken to storing glassware in the bedroom now. They’re desperate to find a storage solution.

All this hacking and storing in apartments usually does the trick when it’s your stuff. But when you’re inundated with heirlooms and don’t have a spare closet, let alone basement, garage or garage attic, it’s challenge to fit it all. Which is where Emily and Brian find themselves.

After our meeting I gave them some projects to work on until we meet again. Brian’s going to:

• Pare down his book collection and re-shelve it on something smaller so Emily can use their huge red cabinet (pictured below) to store her favorite dishware.
• Reduce a closet-full of banker’s boxes filled with high school and college memories to just a few shoe boxes. (Each banker’s box = one shoe box.)

Meanwhile, Emily’s going to:

• Consolidate her serving ware to the red bookcase and two other pieces of storage furniture.
• Sort the remaining dishware and housewares (vases, etc.) into give-away and donate piles.

Together they will:

• Tame the plastic bag collection in their pantry with a wall-mounted plastic bag dispenser.
• Take CDs out of their jewel cases and file them into the CD storage files they’ve already purchased.

This huge red cabinet is currently storing Brian’s books, but could be used to store Emily’s collection of heirloom serving pieces and dishware.

We’ll see how far they get and I’ll keep you updated. See? BackGarage is just like watching TLC!

Vintage Milo Baughman Scoop Chair in need of TLC - $150 (Wicker Park)

Circa 1955 Dining Room Set - $300 (Crystal Lake)

Vintage Retro Mod Dining Kitchen Tulip Table & Chairs Loft Industrial - $275

Conversation Table - $65 (Evanston)

Heywood Wakefield Champagne Cabinet Awesome!! - $500 (Chicago)

Retro Vintage 50’s Kitchen Table - $75 (Logan Square)

This Saturday garage sale report highlights the awesome power of garage sales to girlify and beautify on a budget.

New purse: five dollars.

An awesome array of expensive brand-name beauty products. I purchased:

• Aveda Bonatical Kinetics Exfoliant [$23?] [$1!]
• Aveda Tourmaline Charged Radiance Masque [$26.50?] [$1!]
• Aveda Caribbean Therapy Body Cleanser [$24?] [$1!]
• Aveda Men Shave Cream [$12?] [$1!]
• Alba Pineapple Enzyme Facial Cleanser [$11.99?] [$1!]
• Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cleanser [$17.50?] [$1!]
• Kiehl’s Lavender Foaming-Relaxing Bath, Sea Salts & Aloe Vera [$18.50?] [$1!]
• Kiehl’s Pineapple Papaya Facial Scrub [$25?] [$1!]
• Physician’s Formula Muli-Colored Corrector Powder Palette [$10.36?] [$1!]

I have not purchased facial cleanser, facial scrub, shampoo or body wash at full price since garage sale season started, and I suspect the stash I’ve scored since the day after Memorial Day will last me until next season. Today was a particularly notable jackpot. However last year I bought enough garage sale Dove Foaming Facial Cleanser to last an entire year (at fifty cents a bottle) and the year before that I spent three dollars on three bottles of sunscreen (SPF23 Face, SPF15 Body and SPF30 Body) that have lasted me to this day. Ladies, if you have not yet found an excuse to join me on these garage sale excursions, let the eight dollar score above be your sole reason for not sleeping in next Saturday morning.

Other fun stuff today included…

Remind me to tell you about the Ceramic Puma Saga on day, okay?

Then we crossed the border to hipster-ville….

Look for these in the BackGarage Etsy shop!

And since Ed and I had a particularly successful day, we took our traditional lunch somewhere interesting, fun and new.

It’s Friday, time to talk about the things I love and things I want.

Well, I went back to that old house and snapped a picture of the deer on the front porch, since I just couldn’t find a picture similar enough online.

Isn’t that just tres cool? Speaking of super-cool deer, can I add this to the list of deer-related items I want?

You can get it here.

From like, totally’s Flickr photostream.

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. Maybe it’s that way with other large cities, but where I come from — Grand Rapids — we only talked about sides of town. Where do you live? The northwest side. Maybe we’d say, “by Lake Michigan and Collindale,” or “over by Union High School,” so people had a better clue just where we resided. But we didn’t get to say anything fun like, “Back of the Yards,” or “Saint Ben’s.”

When I first moved to Chicago I lived in Printer’s Row, which is part of the South Loop. Then I moved north to Edgewater, then further north to Rogers Park. I lived in the R.P. for many years before moving back to Edgewater (or was it Andersonville?) before moving where I live now.

Which is sort of a mystery.

One of my favorite Chicago design blogs, Strange Closets, recently called this neighborhood a “slightly commercial stretch of North Damen in a neighborhood I can’t quite identify.” Which is think describes it well. My neighborhood is stuck somewhere between Lincoln Square, Bowmanville and Ravenswood. Various maps, realty associations and chambers of commerce describe my exact location (5200 N, 2000 W) as any of these three neighborhoods. I like it because it is somewhere in between.

I recently took a walk around Raven-owman-Lincoln-ville-wood-square and took some pictures that highlight my favorite parts of this no-man’s-land.

Industrial space just steps from my apartment.

My front door.

Rather than lasso, I’m going to teach you about another awesome Craigslist tool. As for as I know, this is for Mac users only, unfortunately.

This only works with Firefox, but you should be using Firefox for all your web-browsing anyway, right?

Download Squad’s Craigslist Image Preview — Firefox Extension.

The other day when I posted about multi-city Craigslist searches you may have wondered how those Herman Miller pictures appeared beneath my search results.

Thanks to this handy extension, Craigslist users don’t have to click into the ad to see the pictures — they’re all displayed directly under the ad heading on the main page. It makes skimming the furniture or free section so much easier on the eyes and brain.

Anyone using any other fun Firefox extensions to make their thrifting life easier?

My mom brought some great books to share on her recent visit. And where do you think she got them of course? Garage sales.

This is just one of those cast-off remainder books you get at the front of the Borders, but it’s a nice oversize picture book with deco images from visual art, architecture and design.

I found these generic books on period style to be quite helpful when I was listing items on eBay for an estate liquidator. Having a cross-disciplinary collection of images from a particular period helped me describe and date other pieces from that period, from jewelry to teapots.

I have a love-hate relationship with shabby chic. I know it’s so 1995, and at its worst it’s cluttered and country and rather Anne Geddes-ish, but there are so many elements I still like: mis-matched porcelain serving plates, painted wrought-iron chandeliers and of course, bright white. Rachel Ashwell is the go-to lady for sha-chi (do you like that “abbreve” I just coined?), so if you’re going to get a book on it, it might as well be hers. There’s also some decent info in here on how to make slipcovers.

Interesting eye-candy. While some of the stuff pictured here is inexcusably tacky (and this is coming from me — but seriously — a lampshade decorated with glued-on vintage buttons?), the sheer volume of stuff collected in this book makes it worth checking out, plus it has a section on thrift store paintings (”Junk Masters”). Also some great ideas for how to display collections… or how not to.

The last book I’m adding to the library is Peter Walsh’s clutter bible:

The absolute best book I have ever read on clutter-taming. I’m going to be needing it this weekend when I help a couple in my neighborhood tame their stuff. I met them a few weeks ago while walking the dog.

By the way, in case you were wondering what happened to the famous Second-Hand Canine, Jem and I donated her to another blog. I’m sure you’ll see pictures of her popping up there soon.