A Love Affair with Elfa

October 16, 2011

A Love Affair with Elfa

Elfa Shelving added to my falling apart wall makes it suddenly transformed!
I've had it sitting in a box for 4 years. I have commitment issues.

The cleaning supplies sat on 5" shelves circa 1924, ready to slide off the tilting shelves at any minute. Now they are organized on the back of the door to the basement! I was channeling my father as I installed it myself.

This is a little weird. I've been kind of sick, but something - or some spiritual energy overtook me - and I am possessed to get organized. On Wednesday this past week, a friend installed the Elfa shelves over my stainless table in the kitchen. They have been sitting in boxes nearby since 2008, after I saw how great and functional they are at my friend, Carrie's. But I had some fantasy about actually fixing up my kitchen - like the walls - so I kept waiting. Well, I just got it that I will fix my walls when I fix my walls (like when and if we decide to buy this duplex or at least our apartment) and not before. Still, I need the shelves! There is NO STORAGE IN THIS KITCHEN! It is a 1924 apartment and there is only ONE drawer and ONE door of undercounter storage. The overhead stuff is mostly useless as it requires a ladder.

So, after being completely overcome with joy at the function of the new shelving, I decided I needed it in every aspect of my life. So I spent today going to Container Store to find a solution to the disaster that was my cleaning supply storage - it was a feng shui nightmare to open the door to the stairs, head through the hallway to take out garbage and have a can of Comet hit you in the head as you walked passed. So I purchased all the supplies and the tools and went about installing the shelving on the back of my door. This included taking the door off its hinge because one hinge got completely messed up. I replaced the hinge and re-hung the door - I swear I was channeling my dad who could all this and much more. I felt like Super Woman.

In the mean time, either Lee or I have been sick for the past 2 weeks so we haven't been very cuddly. Well, it finally seemed time, but he fell asleep and I kept thinking about the bathroom closet, so while he slept I snuck off AGAIN to the Container Store to find a solution to the absolute disaster that it was. It was so bad, that I discovered we EACH had 4 different deoderants - 8 total! They had been lost in the closet for so long. we just kept buying new ones.

This is very very sad, of course. When you finally get a moment for love, and you sneak off, instead, to the Container Store, hoping for some divine interlude with an Elfa salesperson.

I came home, organized the closet and then quickly made a pot of chicken stew and apple crisp to make up for running off to the suburbs to shop. It was the least I could do. But I am so happy to have this all organized. I feel so Virgo. Besides....Lee had a full day, too. Here is what our TV screen looked like at 1:00. And he's still watching.