The Interior DIYer
Mental health

Spring cleaning and decluttering roundup

This time of year inevitably comes with an urge to scrub and get rid of all of the things. Or at least it does for me. I’ve written about decluttering and downsizing a good few times, so this is a roundup of my favourite blogposts that [for me] have worked until this day to keep me organised and less hoardery. I figured I’d share it ahead of this month’s bank holiday weekend in case you need something to do to burn off a few chocolate calories or just want a valid excuse to hide in a storage cupboard for a few hours …

THE BASICS – my original spring decluttering blog post from 2014 is the best place to start. I write about my top 5 tips for staying motivated while decluttering and following through with your plans.

THE BASICS 2.0 – the following year in 2015 I wrote 5 more tips on decluttering to give you an extra boost if you’re feeling overwhelmed, as well as touching on the mental health benefits of decluttering.


THE EARLY BIRD – since writing about it in 2014, I’ve done my 10 minute morning tidy routine every day since. You may prefer to do it at night before you go to sleep [that’s what she said], but either way, 10 minutes of tidying a day will keep you on top of things and in the long run with save you time and energy. Admittedly, now that Cora is here and keeping me on my toes, our apartment isn’t as tidy as I’d like. But I’m learning to try to be less hard on myself but I still do manage to keep most of our apartment tidy, otherwise it will get out of control.

DAY-TO-DAY – my two tips for staying organised on a day-to-day basis and it’s something I strongly think everyone should practice; using an agenda and organising your email inbox. To this day I religiously use both every day and find them a huge help.

EXTRA READING – a few years ago I interviewed Sarah Reynolds of Organised Chaos for Image Interiors & Living and we got way too excited about organising and how being tidy and organised can help improve your mental health. You can check out the full article here – Cut the Clutter: six steps to a calmer, cleaner, happier home.

Uncategorized

Our secondhand Stokke crib

When I was putting together ideas for the nursery, one of the main pieces we needed was a crib. Cora’s room is quite small and whatever crib we picked would be a big deal, so I wanted to make sure it was something we really loved before getting one. We went to a lot of stores and looked at a lot of cribs, but my gut feeling was to see if we could find a secondhand crib. I wrote about it more in my Nearly New Wood Challenge a couple of years ago; how for the most part I’m not too keen on buying brand new furniture, especially wood. 
I spent a few days looking through the cribs available on Adverts.ie and that’s when I spotted a secondhand Stokke Sleepi crib in walnut. It was so different to any other crib we had seen that it immediately gave me heart-eye emojis. Before I replied to the ad I looked up more information on the Stokke Sleepi crib and my doubts were drowned out pretty much by how incredible it is. 

A couple of text messages later and a thorough cleaning, Cora’s new [to us] crib was home. We didn’t use the mini crib as it didn’t fit in our equally small bedroom. I don’t know if we’ll end up using the bed until Cora is 10 [though it’s a nice idea to not have to buy her a bed for 10 years], but being able to use the end pieces of the cot as chairs? Game changer. “Look how much use we can get out of it!” Robert didn’t need too much convincing TBH. 

We paid €200 for our secondhand Stokke Sleepi crib which was €20 over our budget. I didn’t have a problem going over budget as I thought it was just too good to pass on. It came with newborn and toddler conversion kits which if bought new, including kits it would altogether cost us over €1,000. That’s not why we bought it though. It’s a gorgeous solid walnut bed [and it looks like Stokke no longer sell it in walnut] with simple lines and a killer shape. And even better, for my conscious at least; it didn’t cost the earth. 

To find out more, you can check out my Nearly New Challenge and Nearly New Wood Challenge. 

Uncategorized

Not quite Home of the Year

In September of last year, an RTE researcher contacted me looking to have our apartment take part and be in the running for RTE’s Home of the Year for 2017. After much hyperventilating I pulled myself together, but I decided, however exciting it was to be asked, it wasn’t something we could do. At the very least, the show tours each home for roughly 10 minutes and as I later said to the representative, the camera man would pan our living room and filming would be done. It would take all of three and a half seconds to feature our apartment. Our apartment simply isn’t enough of anything. And TBH I didn’t know it I was up for scrubbing the entire apartment at 8 months pregnant, because there was no way I was going to allow a TV crew and judges into our home without scrubbing an inch off everything.

We had a lovely discussion, I thanked them many times and politely declined after explaining my concerns. As it turns out, we couldn’t have been featured in the end as we don’t own our apartment and that was one of the base guidelines in order to be featured.

It’s a slightly pointless blog post, but the truth is that I’m very proud of that offer and opportunity. Our home didn’t need to be on the show. Having been asked was more than enough for me. 
Happy Friday, homies x