Simply on Sunday–Organization, Books to Read and More

 

Hi everyone, I hope you are having a great Sunday so far.

I have a bunch of things to share with you today. I have wanted to put together a post to share about some of the things I pre-ordered prior to our move to help organize our new house. Most of them have turned out to be just what we needed to help get settled.  I also have some books you should read and some fun sale finds to share.

We’re fully back in school mode and my daughter just finished Nutcracker tryouts which can only mean one thing–that the holidays will be here before we know it. Crazy! I am starting to slowly wrap my head around fall and transitioning to fall decor and fall clothes, blogging makes us think a step or two ahead so we’ll start sharing along those lines soon.

In the meantime, here are some of my very favorite recent Amazon purchases. The good part of building a new home from the ground up is that you have time to prepare and plan, which helps pass the time especially when it seems your house will NEVER be done. This spring, I spent some time thinking about the organizational challenges we’d have in our new home, either because this house is different from our last home or because there were areas like our garage that always seem to be organizational nightmares so I wanted to nip those spaces in the bud.

 

I ordered several of these large metal shelves from Amazon for our garage and had them delivered to the house the day before we moved in. We’re using one to store tools and DIY supplies and this one closest to the door to store extra paper products and sports gear. One of the things that drove me crazy in our last house was my boys’ sports bags, namely their huge bags that store their lacrosse gear.

Now there is a shelf for each bag, and whatever season they are in my boys can just stick their bags on the shelf rather than dumping it right in the middle of the garage floor or inside in the hallway. It is working out great so far. These shelves were super easy to put together, I plan to order several more once our garage is cleaned out to hold more “stuff” and plan to put one on the other side of the door to contain all the athletic shoes and winter boots.

 

 

Inside, I ordered several things for my kitchen including this in-drawer knife block–which is brilliant. I don’t have to look at an unsightly block on the counter or give up the counter real estate anymore.  The knives are still right next to our range, so still very accessible. I have not missed having the block out one bit.

 

 

Without a desk area in this kitchen one of our larger kitchen drawers has become the quintessential junk drawer, and I have been keeping pens, school supplies and plenty of chip clips in here. I love that I can order these clips in bulk, we mainly use them to close bags of chips but there are tons of other uses for these as well. It is a great deal to get 30 of them all at once and it is nice to have plenty of them right in the drawer. I also ordered several of these plastic drawer organizers and they have been perfect for getting everything in a place in our new drawers.

Last June my husband and I stayed in a hotel room that had a set of these LED lights around the bottom of the bed. So when your feet hit the floor in the middle of the night, a small light would turn on so you could see your way to the bathroom or wherever in the dark. I thought this was brilliant, and immediately ordered a set for our room. No more messing with a nightlight or leaving a light on all night, these are motion sensing and they just wrap around your bed.

These next two items have made my life SO much easier, I don’t know how I got by without them.  They make cleaning my new floors almost no work at all.

The first thing is the Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner Mop which is such a simple and easy way to clean hardwood floors. I store it in our cleaning closet off our mudroom (which I’ll show you soon) and can just grab it a do a quick mop of our floors. The cleaning solution is stored in the mop, and you can just throw the cleaning pad in the wash. So much easier than the process of getting out a mop and using water and the cleaner dries super fast. We were advised to never put water on our new hardwoods, and Bona products are highly recommended.

 

 

The second thing I absolutely love is a Dyson Cordless Vacuum. I know these are pricey but seriously, this may change your life. In a matter of seconds you can grab the vacuum and run it over your floors, the canister opens up so you can easily dump everything it sucks up (which is a surprising amount for a small machine). While it doesn’t have a long battery life, it is great for quick cleanings. I use it almost daily in my kitchen and bathroom, I am even considering a second one to keep upstairs.  Note: I did not pay extra for the Animal or the V8 and I have been fine, even with my labrador in the house 🙂 If you have a dog that sheds more than ours does, you might want to opt for the animal version.

 

 

Moving on to what I have been reading, these two are too good not to share. I did finally buy my own copy of Joanna Gaines’ cookbook. I wasn’t sure at first I really needed it, but now that I have it I am so glad I have a copy. I am just working my way through the recipes but for the most part, they are all straightforward family meals. Something I need as many ideas for as I can get!

 

The book Girl Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis has been all over social media and with good reason. I am halfway through it and it’s like getting life lessons from the coolest older sister you could ever wish to have.  I am loving this book, it is a great read. It’s not a ‘here’s how you can be a better parent or person’ type book, it’s more of a book about how you can live your best life, joyfully. I definitely recommend!

Finally, I can’t let a good sale go by without a mention. The Tory Burch Private Sale started this week and they have some nice discounts on classic, investment pieces. I think these gold (or silver) Miller sandals are too good of a deal to miss.

This tote comes in a ton of colors (including the pretty blush and blue that were popular during the Nordstrom Sale) but I liked this brown tone, it is perfect for fall. These are a great price for a classic bag.

Also, LOFT announced a big sale with free shipping starting today. It is always a good deal when they waive the $8.95 shipping fee and have a sale (use code FLASH). Tons of cute transitional sweaters for sale HERE at 40% off.

I’ll wrap up there, I am heading up to wallpaper my son’s room as part of his room makeover, wish me luck! I’ll have that to show you later this week unless I fail miserably at my project 🙂  Enjoy your day!

Don’t forget to enter to win a HomeRight Super Finish Max paint sprayer HERE!

 

XO,

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