Home decor giveaway

This giveaway is now closed. The winners have been contacted via email.

 

Hello and YAY for Friday! I tell you what, getting up early for school again about kills me. I’m very much a sleeping in kind of girl. I’ve been working on getting to bed earlier so I can function better throughout the day but it takes me awhile to transition. #firstworldproblems

Anyway, I’m back today with another giveaway from my friends at Decor Steals!:

DS has been a long-time friend to TDC because I love their site. They are offer one home decor “steal” a day, but you have to get it before it’s gone. The prices are always fantastic, but even more than that I love that the items are SO unique.

As always I like to share some of my favorites and I get to show you a couple of the  items coming soon! OK, so I saw this rotating hook and said out loud, “That’s brilliant.” Seriously:

Smart right? It’s like a coat stand without taking up the floor space of a coat stand. I want.

Decor Steals has offered different sizes of this awesome typography rug, and now there’s a runner:

I’ve seen these on the floor and they are really stunning, but I always say they would be awesome used as art too. Hang it on the wall and trim it out – art that fills a big wall!

The wire basket fixtures have been popular for a while and I don’t see this farmhouse/industrial look going away any time soon. I love these with candles:

Those would be SO cool outside!

Decor Steals always has Pottery Barn-like products for wayyyy cheaper:

Those would be cool hanging outside too. I’m so excited for fall evenings!!

One of my BFF’s got this cutie for me last year:

There’s so many possibilities with this one – Christmas cards, coupons, photos, recipes in the kitchen.

Today’s steal is one that I think works for any season – these cute preserved boxwood wreaths look great at Christmas of course:

But I realized this past spring that they look great any time of year. I still have mine up on the pantry door!

This weekend Decor Steals is giving away a $50 credit to two of you to spend as you wish! I promise you that it will go far!

Here’s how to enter to win one of two $50 credits to Decor Steals:

1. Leave a comment here. Easy. Anything fun planned this weekend?

2. Visit Decor Steals here and check it out. Which of the extended steals do you love the most? Let us know in a comment.

3. Visit their Facebook page and “like” it here. Let us know you did in another comment. (Or let us know if you already do!)

4. Subscribe to their email list here (you’ll get notices about the new deals) and if you do (or are already on the list), leave one more comment here.

* You can enter one, two, three or four times – it’s up to you! All options are not mandatory to win.

* Remember if you comment anonymously or you have a private blog, please include your email address in each entry, and spell it out with “at” and “dot” to avoid any spammy emails coming your way.

This giveaway is open to the contiguous US only. It will be close this Monday, August 26 at 9 a.m. EST.

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

Square foot gardening

Hello all! Since school is back in I’ll be going back to my posting schedule of four posts a week – at least most of the time. :) Some weeks get crazy but for the most part you’ll see one more post a week again.

I know, calm down. Awesome.

I should have really talked about this earlier this summer but the months just got away from me. I did want to mention it so you can prepare for next year if you are interested in gardening.

Thing is, we used to have way more of a backyard, but even then it was kind of odd, with a big slope. So we didn’t have a great spot to put a large garden. When I blogged about my desire to grow a garden years ago, many of you were so helpful and I learned a ton.

So a few years ago I started a small garden – I used the square foot gardening technique – loosely. I say loosely because I didn’t segment the garden out like a true square foot garden. I just kind of planted stuff in there and hoped it would do well.

And it did. :) That’s when I learned that you don’t have to have a large, perfect spot to make food grow. It needs water and light and the space doesn’t matter as much, in my opinion.

Since then we had the patio put in so a couple years ago I moved the garden to the only good spot we had left – right next to our air conditioner:

It wasn’t ideal and I didn’t know how everything would do. Before this everything had been in full sun. This area gets morning and some afternoon sun, but not the super hot late afternoon sun and it’s actually done really well.

I could have DIY'd the garden set up, but it comes in a kit at most hardware stores and it was super easy to put together:

I have taken it apart and put it away for the winter and I’ve left it out – it’s cedar so it holds up fine to the elements – at least for the next few years.

We back up to land with woods and a creek so we get a lot of wildlife. TONS of bunnies. Because of that I knew I wanted something to deter them from eating everything and I use that lattice stuff. I found it in the dumpster at hubby’s high school years ago. (I didn’t DIVE in the dumpster – just picked it up off the top.) ;) And I’m kind of surprised but it works great. They don’t nibble on anything. I actually think having it by the air conditioner may help too – the noise maybe?

So there’s some things I’ve learned over the past years that I thought I would share. I’m not an expert by any stretch but I’m learning more every season.

I planted a strawberry plant and blueberry bushes years ago – blueberry bushes need to be planted in multiples because they cross-pollinate. But the bushes didn’t do well – we needed to move them and never replanted them. Each one only produced a few blueberries total. Now I know I should have been more patient -- I think they just needed a few years to get established. I mean, we have a farm nearby that we pick blueberries at that has hundreds of big blueberry bushes, so I know they can do well.

And the strawberries are one of those I think I’ll just keep going to pick somewhere else:

By this time of year the plant is big and kind of sprouting out – I didn’t realize strawberry plants did that. It shoots off and plants itself in another spot, so I think in a warmer climate it would kind of take over. But for years now it’s only produced maybe a handful of strawberries each year. I know that would increase over time too, but I’d rather use the space for something else.

I like my garden foods like I like my flowering plants – producing all season instead of once. Strawberries produce for one month and then they’re done. I’d rather have more room for my beloved cukes:

Isn’t that funky? I don’t know what kind I got this year but they are long and skinny. I prefer a chunkier cucumber but these still taste great. A few folks warned me years ago about the cucumbers – they said they would take over the garden and they are right. :) But I love my cukes so I insisted on having them. Thing is, they are vine plant, so yes, they do go everywhere, but they don’t hurt anything. At least in my experience – they mix in with the tomatoes and stuff but not too bad.

I lean some of the lattice up against the house so they can work into that, but they prefer to stay low. It’s kind of cool to see how they grab on to stuff:

They do pretty well in this spot but I think they prefer full sun. My first year growing them it was out. of. control. there were so many. It was awesome. :) Then the first year I planted them on this side of the house I didn’t get one cucumber – but it was a super hot summer and it turns out it had something to do with the bee population. Crazy, but they weren’t being pollinated by the bees so they never produced.

This year they are doing much better, just not producing a ton like that first year. I don’t know if it’s having less sun or just the version I got.

My other favorite garden plant is tomatoes. This year I did three versions – regular tomatoes, romas and cherry:

The cherries always do well for me and this year they are mad crazy good. Like, I can’t even keep up. But I use them all the time – salads, in my eggs, for caprese salad…I love them.

The romas are doing incredible too – they just started maturing a couple weeks ago and they are coming so fast I can’t keep up:

My only disappointment this year is my regular tomatoes – I got a container plant this year to try to fit more into the garden and I should have just done a regular plant. I got two little bitty tomatoes off of that all season. There aren’t even anymore coming – kind of a bust. Next year I’ll just go with a regular plant.

There are seasons to what you plant too – early summer crops and late summer. If you love lettuce you’ll want to grow that early. It does better in the less intense heat of the early summer months. I’ve done a few different lettuce varieties and they all do well – almost too well. When they start to mature they do so fast so it’s kind of hard to keep up.

I planted three arugula plants this year and with all of the rain we got in May and June they exploded – I didn’t even get that much off of them because they went to seed so fast. (That means they grew flowers, which often will change the taste and make them bitter. Same goes for many herbs like basil.)

Some of the late summer bloomers are melons – this year I couldn’t find any watermelon so I went with cantaloupe:

I looked for weeks to see something and finally a few weeks ago this showed up. Man, these are sloooooow. It hasn’t grown much in the past week or so. But I’ll keep an eye on it – I’m not sure it’s going to get much bigger really. :)

In my little garden (I think it’s about four by four feet?) I’ve had ten plants growing this summer. As I mentioned, the arugula is now gone but everything else is still there. This year I planted my herbs in a smaller container by the back door so I’d have more room here. I do have my rosemary planted in the bigger garden though, and even with the cucumber vines all around, it does great.

A few years ago I picked up this book after many readers recommended it to me:

If you are new to gardening it is a wealth of information! Before I heard of this method I thought I needed a huge spot to grow my own food, but it’s so not the case. Many plants you can grow in containers too and they will do really well (tomatoes, strawberries, herbs), so space shouldn’t hold you back! My garden isn’t pretty, but it produces. That’s what matters!

As far as keeping them alive – just water them when they look hot and wilted. Other than watering I don’t do any upkeep with my garden at all. I don’t even mulch which I probably should. Pretty low key, just how I like it!

Do you garden? Do you use the square foot technique? What’s your favorite thing to grow?

Taming the paper clutter beast

So…there’s one thing that’s an ongoing struggle for me in this house. Every year I go through a decluttering process and try to figure out a better way to make things work in our home. And I think it’s normal that it’s an on going process – maybe?

I’ve mentioned a few times that after nine years in our home, I feel like I’m finally finding a spot for everything…slow but sure. Even with that there will always be stuff to purge. ;)

But for years I’ve tried to figure out the solution to my biggest nemesis, and that’s the paper. I’ve blogged about it numerous times and every time I think that solution is the one that’s going to work for me. And little by little it does help – but it’s never a perfect fix.

Here’s the thing – the older I get the more I know what processes I’m going to stick with. When it comes to the paper clutter, a perfectly organized routine is not one of them. And the older I get, the more I’m OK with that. ;)

If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a million times – the key to keeping the paper under control is touching it once. Getting it out of the mailbox or the back pack or the purse and dealing with it immediately. But it’s just not in my DNA. I mean, really. It’s just. not.

Now that the Bub is in school it brings the paper insanity to a whole new level – and even though my process is never going to be a perfect one, it’s mine and I own it. For me that means I have piles and I have hiding spaces (for the paper, not me) and I procrastinate. But I have learned some things along the way that I know will help some of you who have the same struggle.

Step 1. Stop it from coming in.

This is KEY for me. Muy importante! The biggie, in my opinion, is to cut down on what even comes in your mailbox. A few minutes on the computer will help quite a bit. First off – you know all those monthly bills for things like the mortgage, the utilities, the bills? Most of them would rather not send you something in the mail, honestly. It saves them money and makes things easier for you if they can email it. So mark that little box on your bill that says “stop sending me paper statements.”

Of course this one comes with the added stress of remembering eleventy billion usernames and passwords, but I can only fight so many battles. ;)

Another big one for me is cutting down on the catalogs we get in the mail. I mentioned this one years ago, but it’s worth telling you about again. The site I use is Catalog Choice – you sign up and then can search hundreds of catalog titles to unsubscribe. You can also do this by calling the company directly, but this is a much more time efficient way to do it, especially if you have more than one.

Yesterday I updated ours again – this time unsubscribing from American Girl (uhhh…I have a six-year-old boy) and Restoration Hardware (have you SEEN their catalogs? A bit crazy – they are SO thick, like a phone book!) I feel like I may have saved a tree with that one. ;)

And along the same note – you can opt out of receiving unsolicited mail (like credit card offers) by going to this site. It will take you to another site where you’ll have to enter some personal info in order to do so. We did this years ago and it helped a ton but we need to do it again.

Step 2. Find a spot.

So this is where I struggle. I don’t have a perfect spot to put all the incoming paper every day. It ends up on the island and on my desk, and that used to drive me crazy. Well…the island part still does. ;) But I’ve come to terms with the fact that having a small (key word) pile on the side of my desk is just fine…for me. Once I hide things away I tend to forget to deal with them.

I have a box on the dresser in my office where I keep a pretty storage box, and honestly I think I may just get rid of it. I’m learning the more places I have to put the paper the less I deal with it:

HELLO. That’s a big thing for me – I think I just had a break through. :) I used to have about five places to put the paper before I actually filed it away. I’m getting closer to that whole “touch things once” mantra and have it down to maybe two or three. ;)

Now if the pile is on the island I move it to the desk. If it’s in my car I move it to the desk. I just focus on keeping that pile under control. Once I’ve gone through it, it goes into one of two spots in my little hanging file folder I showed you here:

Our big file cabinet is down in hubby’s office, so when the folder gets full I know it’s time to take a trip down. (Which is every few weeks.)

Step 3. Decide what to keep.

For years I kept a shredder by the mud room door from the garage and decided I would take care of junk mail before I even walked in the door. Well, when 90 percent of the mail coming in is stuff that needs to be shredded, that meant I was standing there for a few minutes, feeding everything in. (I shred anything with our name and address on it, even the back page of catalogs.)

Well, I got things to DO people. It wasn’t working. Then I would let the piles and papers add up and this would happen:

OK, well that time it was a little extreme, buy you get the idea. Ain’t nobody got time. For that.

So now I use a small recycling bin and fill it up and once every few months I spend $10 and take it to a local shredding place. It’s SO much easier, for me anyway. The ten bucks is so worth it – they take care of it and I know it’s secure and done and I only have to deal with it a few times a year.

And then of course there’s figuring out where the paper you’re going to keep will stay. Like I said we file most everything away in our file cabinet, and most household bills and statements we keep for a year. Anything tax related we keep pretty much forever.

Things like the Bub’s school stuff, magazine tear outs, blog stuff – it all goes into binders I keep in my office, just so they’re within reach and easy to access:

It’s helpful to have it right there when I need it – especially stuff for the kiddo.

My process has changed over the years and I’ve given up on it being a perfect one. I will always have piles of paper – it’s IN MY SOUL. I told you, I’m a piler. I guess the biggest point here is that someone else’s method may be pretty and organized, but you gotta do what works best for you. (Small) piles…they work for me. As long as I can stuff them in a drawer when company comes over. ;)

Do you have a method that works for you? Does it involve piles? Have you just come to terms with that like me? (It’s OK to pile, I swear.)

Bright basement bathroom (done!)

Good Monday to ya! How was your weekend? I was fighting a cold all weekend but managed to fit in two movies and plenty of DIY, so that’s a good one for me. :)

I’m continuing my no-spend August by wrapping up a HUGE project. I love the no-spend idea – not only do I save money when I do this (no impromptu trips to HomeGoods!) but I get a lot done. Stuff I’ve been putting off for months!

Our basement bathroom is one of those projects. It was thisclose to done anyway, and I had everything I needed on hand…so this one is checked off the list! WHOOT.

Let’s look back at how it looked a few months ago:

If you’ve been around for awhile you know we finished our basement last year. We did it slowly so we could pay cash and it took about six months total. The basics are in and everything is coming together beautifully, but there’s still a LOT we want to do down there.

So we had it finished but the basement bathroom was still incomplete, as you can see above. The floors were installed earlier this year, along with the main fixtures – the toilet and vanity. Then I showed you how I installed some storage in the form of DIY floating shelves:

I LOVE those shelves – I’m still so happy with how that came together.

But there were a few things left to do – back when I painted all the doors black in the basement I pooped out and didn’t do the back of the bathroom door. Soooo…I got that done:

Three coats and done!

Back when we had the electrical work done for the basement I knew I wanted two lights above the sink, so we guesstimated where the vanity was going to go. Well the outlet for that room ended up being right in the middle of the sink (right where the mirror went) so the guys came out a few months ago and moved the outlet (and one of the lights) for me.

They patched up the drywall and I just hung the mirror back over it and left it:

So yesterday I sanded it down and touched up that paint and a few other spots in the room. I also caulked the rest of the baseboards down there as well. OK, maybe I wasn’t thisclose to done. ;)

I used the mirror that used to be in our upstairs powder room -- it was shimmery brown so it needed a redo bad. I taped it off to prep for spray paint:

I’ve seen a lot of people not taping off and just using a razor to clean up on mirrors, but with spray paint that’s too messy (for me). So I covered it with newspaper, taped it all down and checked out my spray paint stash to decide on what to do:

I started with the satin nickel color and it was pretty, but when I got it down there it was so…boring. ;) The lights, faucet and mirror were all the same. Then I took it back outside and just went with a basic white – but, duh, that was pretty boring too. I wanted a pop of color on that wall and kept looking to my spray paint to find the right color (not spending money on DIY and all.)

Well I finally found the color I wanted in my regular paints:

It’s the same aubusson blue color I used on this project:

It was PERFECT. And it only took three tries. ;)

The blue brings the color in the towels and shower curtain over to that side of the room:

You can see all the sources for these items in this post (most was from Target).

Originally I planned on using our pedestal sink from upstairs in this space, but when it came time to install it I realized I really wanted something more substantial and something with storage. So I shopped around and found a really inexpensive vanity at Lowe’s that worked perfectly:

It’s really shallow but the sink juts out so it’s still a great size. It’s perfect for this skinny bathroom. (You can find it here online.)

I’m pretty thrilled with how this little space came together! Well…it’s not exactly little -- it’s just long and skinny:

It’s about 11 feet by four feet -- there was no other way to set up the room with the beams in the basement and the rough in plumbing. Also we had to make it this long to incorporate a support column into the wall. When the door is open it goes right near the vanity so there’s actually not much room to spare.

I had a mantra in my head the whole time I was finishing off this space -- “It’s just a basement bathroom.” :) So I went pretty basic with the finishes – the faucet, shower head and lights were all basic, inexpensive finds. We spent a little more on the toilet since this is in the basement – we wanted something that will hold up well (since the plumbing down here has to work against gravity).

Even though we didn’t splurge on much, I think the space turned out beautifully. One thing I don’t regret at all in the building process – I made sure we had a TON of lights in this space. Early on I thought it may be overkill but since I’ve realized it’s a great thing in a room without natural light:

We have a total of five lights in this space – recessed lights in the shower and by the door, the light in the fan and two over the sink. I love the look of the two lights over the sink – I did the same in our upstairs powder room. :)

I do have one more thing to do in here – paint all the trim (baseboards and door trim). But I have to do that in the entire basement so I’m going to wait till I can knock it all out at once. (That will be a fun day. Want to come over and help?)

Here’s a look at the before and after side-by-side – my favorite. ;)

I’d still like to add some art or something to that big wall at some point. I have an idea in mind but for now I’m just thrilled to have this space done! I’m knocking things off the to-do list and it feels so good! I may do these no-spend months more often!! (Although I’m starting to get a HomeGoods itch.)

If you have any questions about this space that I didn’t answer, let me know and I’ll get you info in the comments!

Using ALL of the closet space

So remember last week when I said I was going to decrapify all weekend? Well, I did. Most of the weekend anyway. I got two rooms done – the Bub’s bathroom and our guest room.

It’s a little weird that I would start there – probably the two least used rooms in our house. But I started a painting project in the guest room too (I can’t wait to show you – still not done!) so it just kind of tumbled from there you know? One things leads to another?

Well, it led to some major decluttering and a little DIY. I’m SO happy with how it all turned out.

So here’s the thing – bedroom closets stump me. I think they are huge chasms of wasted space. You with me? I just think that unless you have a built in closet system, there’s SO much space that isn’t used well. So for years I’ve been trying to use these spaces better – and until I can put something fancy in there I think this solution helps!

Let’s check out the befores of this closet shall we? It’s not pretty. I warned you.

On the one side I had installed some pull out bins (that used to be in the Bub’s closet) awhile ago, then we had some boxes of photos and a pile of luggage:

You can’t see there but there are always a stack of random pictures on top of those boxes (because I’m usually too lazy to organize them inside the boxes) that come fluttering down every time I move something up there. :) I found a bunch tucked into the suitcases.

And speaking of, that pile of luggage was a little ridiculous:

The placement of all of that was less than brilliant on my part, since it became impossible to pull out them out when we needed them. Duh.

And other side was waaaaay worse. A few weeks ago we had company staying and the Bub and I did a cleaning spree in here and quite literally stuffed things in this side of the closet:

On my last trip to IKEA I picked up a few (or seven) feather pillow inserts to use for a future project – and I just dumped them on the guest bed. So they had to go somewhere…of course stuffed into the closet (along with some others) made the most sense:

So I started pulling things out and organizing. The stuff in those pull out bins was mostly travel stuff (a few of the bins were empty) and I got rid of half of it. I disassembled the drawers and will be putting them into our closet next but that’s a whole other post. :)

My hubby used that steam machine a lot before, but now that he doesn't have to dress up for work every day he doesn’t need it nearly as much. So I closed it up and put it our closet for now.

Then because I was planning on rearranging the bed in there, I started pulling stuff out from under there too – I have the bed up on risers so there’s a bunch of space underneath. I keep other pillows and extra foam and stuff like that under there.

By the time everything was pulled out this is what I was dealing with:

Well the lamp shade wasn’t under the bed…but again, one thing led to another. :)

My husband came up the stairs at one point, stood there and said “Whoa.” Exactly. I’m pretty amazing that I had all of that in a closet and under the bed. I think anyway. Or something.

I counted 23 pillows that I found in that room – TWENTY THREE! Old decorative pillows, filler pillows and bed pillows. Twenty…three. I haven’t cleaned out this room in a long time, obviously.

So after the purging it was on to the next phase. I kind of hate that weird space to the sides of the closets – if you’ve got a lot of clothes then obviously that’s prime space, but in a space like this with no clothes it’s wasted.

To use it better I grabbed scrap wood from the garage and made some shelves:

I knew I wanted to keep that bin in there so I started right above that and just eyeballed the height of each shelf. This is so easy to do, really! I just used random pieces of wood as the ledge and screwed them into studs (mostly at the corners). Then I cut down pieces of wood for the shelf part and nailed them in to the supports.

You can see the how-to more in detail in my kitchen pantry post here or the wood shelves in the basement bathroom here.

I put some contact paper down to cover the rough wood – it’s easier and faster than paint in my opinion:

And then started filling them up with blankets!:

I could never get those blankets to stay up on the wire shelves above, so this is a GREAT solution. (Especially for that huge fluffy blanket!)

The other side looks better too – I only kept enough luggage for the three of us:

That bin in the middle is an old toy box from the Bub’s nursery and I put my extra fabric in there. I put it in that spot so we can still easily access the luggage and shelves. 

Here’s how it all looks, with before and afters!:

   

SO much better!! Ack. The great thing is, the fabric in that bin and the photos will all move to the loft when I get those built ins done. Which will be…??? But eventually there will be good spot for all of that too.

And did you see the EMPTY space on the upper shelf?? Totally awesome.

Oh, and the pillows I did keep (I took most to consignment and kept the fillers) I put back under the bed. :)

I’m off to work on my next room…trying to decide if I want to tackle the Bub’s room or not. It’s a little scary. (Shiver.)

No spend August is still going well – I can’t wait to show you what else I’ve been up to! Hope you have a great weekend! The weather continues to be amazing here so we’ll be outside quite a bit! (In between decluttering of course!)

(No dig) water hose organization

Hello there! It’s back to school time around here…I can hardly believe it. The weird thing is, now hubby is home with me during the day while the Bub goes off to school. I LOVE it. So far. ;) Seriously, it is so amazing that he will be home most days to help get him off to school and off the bus…it is truly a blessing and I’m so looking forward to this fall.

Today I’m sharing a super easy project that I didn’t think was going to be quite so easy – don’t you love when it works out like that? It’s my first project on the True Value Blog Squad this year and I’m so pleased with how it turned out. This isn’t a pretty project necessarily, but it’s an organized one…and that makes my heart sing, truly.

We have two water spigots on our house – one on each side. We added one in the building process and I’m so glad we did. But one is in a weird spot near our air conditioner on the side of the house – actually right behind the air conditioner which is just seriously brilliant planning. (That’s sarcasm.)

It’s an odd little spot that also houses the gas meter and other ugly stuff and years ago I installed pavers back there to clean it up a little bit. I didn’t put any weed blocker down though, so we’ve got lots of weeds that come up through them and a lovely tree that started growing right by our foundation. It was impossible to kill but we finally did it…but little sprouts come up every year so we have to keep on top of those. Who knew how invisible trees are??

Anyway…that corner is always a hot mess. We have used a hose holder thingamajob that you roll up and it’s a total pain in the butt. And somewhere along the way another huge lawn hose got added in (ask hubby, no idea), so we had, like 150 feet of hose there:

I think the deal was that one wasn’t long enough, so we needed two, but two won’t fit on the hose reeler-inner-thing. And, can I just say, that black hose ALWAYS looked like a snake to me? Not cool.

Seriously, I can barely look at it in that picture. Ick.

So…I had an idea to tidy up that corner, and it first came in the form of a little spot at my True Value that I stop at every. time. I visit:

They have a huge selection of iron plant hooks and holders, and I always admire them but don’t really need another hanging plant, so I keep on walking. Well, this idea allowed me to pick one up on our trip there a few weeks ago – but more on that in a bit.

First of all, I needed a four by four post. I had one already, but ended up cutting it too short, so picked up one of those at TV too.

At first I was planning on digging a hole about a foot deep and using quick drying cement to secure it. Then I was told I really needed to go about THREE feet deep, and use one of those hole digger things. I was like, whoa. Not what I had in mind. And the more I started thinking of it, the more I realized I wasn’t sure I wanted to have this thing permanently in that spot.

So when I saw this option, I knew it was the solution:

So it’s a post holder and normally you’d use it on a deck or other wood surface because you can drill down into the holes to secure it. But it’s super heavy steel so I figured it would be heavy enough to hold it upright all by itself.

And I was right:

I cut the post at about 40 inches with the saw and then put it inside. Those bolts on the sides tighten up and make it super secure – it’s not going anywhere.

You can see that I just pulled out one of the pavers and it fit right in there…like it was meant to be!

Next up was the hose holder part. That’s where the iron plant hook comes in:

I just installed it upside down so there was plenty of room for the hose to lay in there. It’s perfect!

OK, let’s talk about that hose, shall we? You’ve seen these on TV right? Well, I’ve wanted one forEVER now, and last month while at the Mall of America, we came upon the As Seen on TV store…also known as the Greatest Store Ever.

We found one there and decided to try it out before we got another one, and I have to tell you, they ROCK. Because it rocked so much, I picked up one more at True Value:

 

I think each one grows to about 50 feet long, but they stay scrunched up when not in use. I’ve used it a ton and so far it’s held up great. I LOVE them. We now have two connected on that side of the house, so it reaches around all the way to the front or all the way to the back of the patio easily.

I highly recommend them! The bonus is that they are super light and don’t take up much space. And they don’t look like a snake. Triple bonus.

Because I can’t leave well enough alone, and because I love adding a little bit of pretty when I can, I also picked up one of these planters at True Value for the top of the post:

I can’t remember what that plant is, but I had it in two planters on the patio and one just completely died for no reason (well…it could be the whole I didn’t water it enough reason, whatever). So I transplanted the others into this planter -- they were needing some sun and water but they’ve already perked up since these pics. It’s a beautiful, full plant when it’s happy.

All in all it took me maybe 20 minutes from start to finish – the not digging and no cement certainly helped!:

I’m planning on doing this to the other side of our house too, since we have the same mess over there most of the time.

Now if you are using a regular hose (that’s a little heavier) you may need to secure the post into the ground better…but I’m actually thinking it would be OK as is. You could also put some stakes through the holes into the ground to help.

Like I said, it’s not a beautiful after…but it’s much cleaner and organized:

OK, that’s beautiful to me. ;)

We can now walk right over to the spigot to turn on the water for the first time in years. It’s the little things. I love it! Of course the little planter on top is optional, but I think it’s cute. I also found it’s useful for holding extra sprayers too, so that’s an option.

How to do you keep your water hoses under control? Does your husband collect them like mine? :) Next up I need to redo that whole paver area, but for now I’m just enjoying the clean space!

 

I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments. For more DIY inspiration, take a look at True Value’s Pinterest boards!