1 Less Thing To Worry About At The End Of The School Year
With the school year coming to a close, I know that many parents fret over what to do with the numerous (and odd size) school projects that their proud children bring home at the end of the year.
The easy solution is to create a keepsake box (or four). You can make your own or buy ready made boxes. I typically prefer to make my own because all to often, the off the shelf models don’t accommodate odd size artwork.
A simple under the bed flat storage box is great for storing flat paper art projects. Let your child decorate the outside with their name and pictures of their favorite hobbies and interests. Additionally, you may want to have a more traditional bankers box to store their files of school papers, report cards, essays and books.
If you keep your system consistent you’ll be able to pass along a great trip down memory lane when your child is an adult. After all who doesn’t have fun looking back on the simple thoughts of a 5 year old writing that “cats are nice.”
The layout possibilities seem endless, I love this shelf! You adjust the positioning of the cubes any way your heart desires with the attached red tension straps. So cool.
Source: design-milk.com
How to Tame Cord Confusion: Part 2
In the first part of our saga, I explained how cords snarl themselves into an unsightly tangle, and gave you some suggestions for tools to straighten out the mess. Now that you’re all prepped with your label maker (a.k.a., the best ten bucks you ever spent) we’ll look at how to stop cord confusion once and for all.
BEFORE: Behold, a tangled mess of cords behind the entertainment unit, as well as an unsightly view of the cords in the front of the unit.
AFTER: Organizational nirvana! Neatly grouped wires in easily accessible wire encasements as seen on the back and a clean wire-free view on the front.
Issues:
- Aesthetics. That open entertainment unit seemed like such a good idea when you saw it in the catalogue, with the IKEA family’s fake, wireless TV and components sitting on it. Unfortunately, we have more electronics than our Swedish friends, and the wires can easily become a tangled mess and an eyesore.
- Multiple electronics. Don’t believe that this is possible? Believe it. Our sample project, pictured, has a TV, 3 game systems, a surround sound system with 6 wired speakers, a cable box, Apple TV and wireless router. Not a wire to be seen once the project was completed.
Solutions:
- We wanted our cords completely hidden for this project. Seriously: My dream was to have people come into the house, look at the TV set-up, and think, “We live in the future! How is this entirely wire-free science-fiction arrangement even possible?” We achieved this illusion with an encasement with an adhesive that sticks to the back of the unit.
- Have fewer cords in a narrower area? You can achieve the same effect simply and inexpensively with zip ties. Use them to group together the cables and wires behind the unit where guests can’t see them.
- Don’t care about visible wires? If you just want your cords grouped together neatly, there are many cord containment products on the market. You can group and slide your cords into these cable boxes and cable cylinders, and keep the cords together and away from dust, if not fully hidden from view.
- If you want your project to look like mine, go with the adhesive tunneling. It offers a bit more organization and ability to “hide” the cords fully.
- This project also used zip ties at intersecting corners to stabilize large groupings of cords.
- I like zip ties, because they can be easily sniped off if you need to remove a device. The cords can slide through the plastic tunneling too.
Benefits:
- The primary benefit is, of course, a less tangled mess of wires.
- It’ll be easier to dust, mop, sweep, whatever behind your entertainment console, because there aren’t a lot of wires dragging on the ground.
- Your open-back entertainment system will finally look like the sleek, fancy unit you thought you were buying in the first place.
25 Documents You Need Before You Die - and that should be shared with your family.
The whole article can be found here.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Very cool for an entryway, I love the hidden hooks - B-Line landing strip.
Source: design-milk.com
