Nest NW

paper and bills and files oh my!

Melissa — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:24:58 +0000

I’m currently working with a woman who is downsizing and moving into a smaller space…and she doesn’t want to take all of the paper with her! I’m helping her to decide what to get rid of, consolidate, reorganize, etc. She wants to take what she has and be able to put everything in one filing cabinet. I think we can get close! Check back in, we’ll be completing this in the beginning of July when she moves and we get her all set up.

for the lego obsessed

Melissa — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:02:58 +0000

A recent client of mine showed me this awesome product she got for her Lego obsessed 7 and 8 year old boys. She says it works pretty good and they can do it on their own. It is a set of nested trays that have different sized grids on the bottom. You place all the pieces on the top (largest grid) and shake. The pieces sift down and the smallest pieces end up on the bottom tray. Pretty cool!…a little loud maybe but cool. Makes me really miss my lego’s. Hmmm, I wonder where those ended up anyway?

photo wall and art placement

Melissa — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:40:20 +0000

I love these! I’m currently working with a family that has tons of amazing artwork the kids have done and beautiful framed photos…. all currently sitting in boxes =(. We are in the process of planning placement throughout the house, selecting photos, buying new frames, etc. This is a work in progress so stay tuned!! Here are a couple before pics..

sheet sets

Melissa — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:05:27 +0000

Ok, my friends make fun of me for this but I know they all do it now! It’s a very simple thing but I thought I would share… and then you can make fun of me too!

This is great way to fold sheet sets together for easy and organized storage. I’ll describe this as if the sheets are laying flat. Start with your fitted sheet (sleep side down) and tuck the bottom corners up into the top corners (seem sides together).

Fold the left side over and tuck those corners into the right side corners.

Fold the right side over to meet the edge on the left. Don’t worry, because you’re working with rounded corners edges won’t meet perfectly.

Starting from the top fold down onto itself about three times so you get a little square package.

Moving on to the flat sheet, fold bottom edge to meet top edge. Then fold right edge to the middle and then left edge to meet what is now the right (folded) edge.

Again, fold the bottom edge to meet the top. Place the folded fitted sheet on top of the flat sheet with the clean, folded edge of the fitted sheet aligned with the bottom of the flat.

Place the pillow cases on top of the fitted sheet and fold over the top half of the flat sheet to cover the fitted sheet and cases.

Now you have all the pieces of a sheet set folded together in a way to easily store with other sets in your linen closet! No more wadding up that crazy fitted sheet or searching for matching pillow cases. Voila!

great idea for renters!

Melissa — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:06:19 +0000

I just found out about a great trick using fabric as wallpaper that is easily removable and doesn’t ruin your walls! You basically apply fabric, like you would wallpaper, using starch instead of glue. I haven’t tried this yet but I have a feeling I’ll a few fabric covered walls soon. I’ll let you know how it turns out. In the meantime if you want to try it for yourself, here is a culmination of some of the instructions I have found. Good Luck!

Wash the wall to remove any dirt or film.
Be sure to measure the right amount of fabric and allow for pattern matching. Light weight fabrics are the easiest to apply.
Mask edges of ceiling and floor to avoid any over spray in these areas.
Spray starch stiffener on the top half of the wall (mask ceiling and floor to avoid spraying where you don’t want it)
Smooth fabric into place with the help of the paint roller or sponge.
Keep it in place temporarily using push pins until you are finished
Be sure to and leave about one inch at all edges that meet another wall or window or floor to be trimmed when fabric is dry.
Keep spraying starch on the wall as needed until you finish to the floor level.
Remove any wrinkles on the fabric by applying more starch to the top of the fabric and smoothing it out.
When fabric dries completely, cut out all the overlaps. This allows for shrinkage in the fabric before trimming.
Fabric overlap should be cut when the fabric is completely dry. It will then cut clean and easily and any shrinkage will have occurred before you trim.

To remove, dampen the fabric using a wet sponge. Peel one corner loose and then keep peeling off the fabric gently, panel by panel, while dampening it as needed. You can then simply wash the fabric and use again for another project!

a new bedroom

Melissa — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:01:04 +0000

The best part about doing this kind of work are the changes that I can make in peoples lives. I was able to work with an overwhelmed, working mother of two to create serenity and peace of mind by organizing her and her husbands bedroom. She knew that she needed help but had no idea the great affect it would have in creating such a calm and peaceful environment!

Before….

After…..

photo project - final!

Melissa — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:27:19 +0000

We did it! The photos are all hung and in photo albums and it looks amazing. Family photo projects like that this can take a while and can be an emotional process as well but with that comes a huge satisfaction when it’s complete! And my client is satisfied and very happy!…and so am I!

photo project part 3 - the home stretch

Melissa — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:02:45 +0000

We’re almost there. What you haven’t seen between now and the last post is what it took to get from those boxes of organized photos to this stage. Deciding on photos for the wall, finding the negatives, scanning, printing, shopping for frames, having some custom framed, ordering photo albums…phew! But that is the fun part. These pictures show how we decided on placement, by measuring our wall space and laying all the pictures out on the floor first. Then we made a ‘map’ on the wall to finalize spacing and placement without making swiss cheese out of the wall! Next you will see the final stage, stay tuned…

photo project part 2

Melissa — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:58:38 +0000

Getting organized! These pics are the result of sorting and organizing the boxes of random photos shown in the previous post. It’s hard to tell but the pictures are sorted cronologically and then tagged by ‘keeps’, ‘duplicates’ and ‘toss’. My client can now go through her photos easily and choose the ones she wants to have enlarged, framed for the photo wall and have duplicated for the photo albums. The next step is too do just that….

photo project

Melissa — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:04:24 +0000

This is going to be a great photo project! Here we are starting off with a few big boxes of a lifetime of photos thrown in randomly over the years. Don’t most people store photo’s this way? No really, I think it took my mom at least 40 years to get our pictures out of boxes…and well, into smaller ones. So the plan here is for me to sort cronologically, set aside duplicates, seperate ones that should be tossed (with criteria set by my client). Then together we’ll pick the best ones and create a picture wall that is along the staircase and create photo albums for members of her family to have in their homes. So, stay tuned to see how the process unfolds!