Mockingbird Hill Cottage — Page 1379 — Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Small Space Storage: Toilet Paper

November 1, 2012 at 9:45 am by Claudia

There. I said it. Where to put your supply of toilet paper? Those of you who have read this blog over the years know that I have never lived in a big apartment or house. Never. Indeed, many of my domiciles were one or two rooms. This little cottage seems positively palatial compared to those spaces.

So, storage is always an issue. In the years I lived in the city, I would just stop by the neighborhood corner shop and buy 2 rolls of paper as needed. That’s all I had room for. Now I have one and half baths, but neither space has room for a cupboard or any other behind-closed-doors kind of storage.

I see a lot of bathrooms where the toilet paper is piled high in a basket. But, let’s be real here. Bathrooms are damp. There’s a lot of hair floating around. Items can get covered in that sort of damp/dusty stuff. Do you know what I mean? (I don’t have a better way to describe it.) So I came up with an idea for storage. Several years ago, I haunted eBay until I found what I was looking for:

(Bathroom photos are so difficult, aren’t they?)

This is a tole hamper. You can find these on eBay fairly often. Here’s what it has going for it:

It doesn’t take up much space. It’s vertical, rather than horizontal.
It’s pretty. The hand-painted flowers suit my style and my bathroom.
It holds about 8 or 9 rolls of toilet paper and keeps them under cover.
I don’t have to keep running out for a roll or two.
It’s pretty (had to say it again) and shabbily vintage.

If you live in a small space and love the vintage look, this might be a solution for you. It keeps the toilet paper hidden but easily accessible.

It’s become one of my favorite touches here at the cottage.

Happy Thursday.

Riveted

October 31, 2012 at 9:21 am by Claudia

We’ve been camped out in the den, watching our local stations out of NYC. They’ve been preempting regular programming with coverage of the hurricane and its aftermath. I couldn’t stop watching yesterday as I tried to comprehend the damage to the infrastructure of Manhattan, the horrendous damage to the shoreline of New Jersey, the loss of life, the fire that destroyed over a hundred homes in Queens, a tree falling on a young couple walking a dog – it just goes on and on. It’s really all I can think of right now. We were incredibly lucky. Millions of others were not. This tragedy has just stopped us in our tracks. My sense of humor isn’t working very well at the moment.

Finally, we stopped for a while and played Scrabble. The previous night of very little sleep may have blunted our Scrabbley-wordy skills, but we had fun. I won. I tell you, it’s all in the tiles you draw. I managed to draw Q and Z and that made all the difference.

I really can’t think about anything for any length of time other than those who have lost so much and the heartbreak I feel for this part of our country that is so dear to me. It has been ravaged, stripped and forever changed.

But I try. I took all the plants back outside to the porch, stowed all the flashlights and lanterns. We ate food that Don had precooked the day before when he was worried that all our frozen food might spoil if we lost our electricity. It makes for easy meal prep, that’s for sure. I may keep this alyssum inside for a bit longer. I like the way it looks here. Has anyone ever kept alyssum as a house plant?

And in the ‘Duh’ category, when I was preparing to bring all my potted plants in before the hurricane hit, I cleaned out a few pots that held all-but-dead plants. One of them had a sweet potato vine in it. As I took it to the compost pile, I had trouble dumping all the potting soil. My fingers kept running into something beneath the soil. What was it?

Am I the only one out there who was surprised to see an actual sweet potato underneath the soil?

I felt like an idiot.

I’m charmed by it. It’s sitting in a place of honor in the kitchen right now.

Hey, sometimes the simplest thing can bring a smile to my face. Or make me laugh at myself.

Thank goodness. I need that right now.

Happy Wednesday.

All is Well

October 30, 2012 at 9:19 am by Claudia

We are fine. No trees down. No damage. We went through a rather harrowing 14 hours with constant high winds; very fierce, terrifying winds. Amazingly, we never lost power. The lights flickered several times during the course of the day and each time we thought, this is it. But the power stayed on. We are very lucky. During Hurricane Irene last year, the metropolitan NYC area escaped with very little damage while Upstate NY (including our little area) sustained major, major damage. This time, the positions were reversed. Upstate NY seems to be okay, but New Jersey and NYC have sustained the brunt of the damage.

We had the television on most of the day. Our local news comes out of Manhattan and we watched in horror as Manhattan was flooded, transformers blew up, trees fell and power was lost. Atlantic City was flooded. The amount of damage is astronomical. Millions of people are without power in NY, NJ and CT. As of this morning 90% of the homes on Long Island were without power. Homes have burned to the ground, subways are flooded. It’s heartbreaking. My heart goes out to everyone whose home has sustained damage and/or is trying to cope with a loss of power. This storm was a monster.

And we keep hearing that these are going to occur more and more in the coming years. Little did I think we would be dealing with hurricanes when we moved here.

I slept very little last night – I think I was too keyed up from the tension of the day. But I’m very, very grateful that we are safe, that our house is safe, that our trees are still standing. Thank you for your prayers and good thoughts.

Scroll down one post for my book review (I wrote it and scheduled it to post today, not knowing whether we would have power.) It’s a wonderful mystery and I’m giving away a copy.

Happy Tuesday.

Small Space Storage: Toilet Paper

Riveted

All is Well

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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