Coat Hooks, Herb Storage and Electric Screwdrivers

When you’re surrounded by box upon box and bag upon bag of your possessions it’s easy to feel a little overwhelmed. Or at least that’s what I’ve been saying to myself over the last couple of days. While it would be wonderful to wave a magic wand and have everything tidy itself away in my new home, the reality is not as exciting and considerably slower.

I have been trimming my library and so far I’ve offloaded 3 boxes of books, with plenty more to follow. Until I get the new shelving installed I won’t be able to get all the books out of boxes, but I should be able to get the mountain under control.

As I mentioned before, the old house had very deep cupboards in the kitchen, which was a double-edged sword. For the first week I was in the new house all the herbs and spices were a chaotic mess. They’re now under control:

I picked up a simple two tier storage rack in Home Store & More the other evening and was pleasantly surprised to find that it would take most of my herbs and spices. Sure, I’ve still got a few jars that end up in the cupboard, but with the bulk of them in the little storage thing I can easily get at them and over time the volume of jars will reduce anyway.

Yesterday I picked up a few coat hooks in one of the local hardware shops. In the end I went for a bronze style, as I thought it looked a little bit more interesting than the rather cheap looking modern brass. Don’t get me wrong, I love old brass, but the cheap modern stuff just looks wrong. It lacks that nice warm patina as it ages.

It might seem a little nutty, but the sense of achievement in getting those aprons hanging on the hooks was wonderful. It’s a small victory, yet I’ll take it anyway!

Of course I’ve since realised that I need more coat hooks, so I’ll have to go out again this afternoon to get another few. I also found out that the upstairs bathroom needs some kind of lock, so I’ll see what I can get that is functional and not too ugly.

To re-assemble my bed I borrowed an electric screwdriver from Paul. While I still haven’t actually assembled the bed (it’s a work in progress) I have been making good use of the electric screwdriver. Getting those hooks up took a couple of minutes last night with it, whereas doing it using a normal, manual screwdriver would have taken quite a bit more time and effort.

I’ll try to get the bed assembled this morning, as trying to do it in the evening isn’t really an option as the light in the master bedroom is pretty bad. I usually rely on bedside lights in bedrooms, so I don’t really want a strong central light.

The only piece of furniture I rescued from my aunt’s house up the country is a nice little cabinet with glass doors. The glass needs to be repaired and some of the glazing replaced, but for now I’ve re-assembled it and will probably use it to hold some of my whiskey and the corresponding glasses that I was given as presents.

It’s a nice piece that has quite a bit of character:

Amusingly some of the larger 1 litre bottles are too big to fit in it, but I’ve got enough bottles of the more standard size.

Now to see if I can get the bed back together..