I Am a Teenage Pack Rat by Guest Blogger Andie Furber

My Mom calls me a pack rat, but I prefer to think of myself as an archivist.

My room is the "DANGER ZONE" of the house. If you ever opened my closet door you'd know why. I have so much stuff I need multiple places to put it all. For example:

1. My desk: it's an architect desk, so it has nine compartments on each side. 18 compartments to hold things in!!!! WOW....
   
2. "Under" my bed: my bed sits on the floor, and has six compartments with baskets to keep my clothes in. Saves space in my room by not needing a dresser.
   
3. My nightstand: my nightstand is really tall, and has 3--what do you call it--layers? There are three different places to put stuff, and I keep magazines, books, pictures, my alarm clock, CDs, and notes there.
   
4. The left side of my closet: my closet has 2 sliding doors, and the left side is used for some clothes. It has my laundry basket (which is usually empty because my clothes are all over the floor), button up shirts, coats, formal dresses, and shoes.
   
5. The right side of my closet: used for just random stuff. Books, old magazines, bags, hats, just some other random things. But my mom exaggerated when she said I had six tiny bottles of ketchup in there.

My room, even though it sometimes can look like a cyclone hit it, is my favorite room in the house. The bad thing though, is my valuable stuff, like my iPod, camera, and other things get lost a lot. I listen to my iPod almost everyday, and when I can't find it, I FREAK OUT!!!!

About once every 6 months, my mom has me "purge," as she puts it, my room, and I have to clean my floor, desk, and my whole closet. She gives me about 5 garbage bags, says "When you fill all these bags, you're done."

When I purge my room, I approach the project like an archeologist. I carefully dig through each layer and admire each artifact. I recall the week I wore those dirty jeans to school (they were clean then), I recall the fun sense of accomplishment I felt when I presented my six Egyptian clay jars in my core class (I wondered where those went, until I found them under my pink chaise), I remember my friend Allyson telling me about the fun road trip she took, and how nice she was to bring me back four (not six) tiny bottles of ketchup. The purging goes on like that for some time. Sometimes, several days. It takes me that long sometimes to find five bags full of stuff I can bear to part with.

I think that my room really shows a side of my personality that will come in handy when I grow up and start to look for a job -- maybe I'll be a curator in a museum, maybe I'll be an anthropologist, maybe I'll be an archeologist. My Mom says maybe I'll be a garbageman (or garbagegirl).

Coffee Tables That Will Save You a Trip to the ER

Ever since my son Jack required eight stitches after hitting his head on our coffee table, I've been on the lookout for a coffee table that can peacefully coexist with a family like mine in a house like mine. These are my favorites:
Lewis Slipcovered Cubes from Pottery Barn. Lots of cute patterns, extra credit for storage, and for the slipcover (see April 27th post on slipcovers -- you know I love them).

Truck Tarp Ottoman from Anthropologie. Super cool, deconstructed styling. Very WabiSabi, so the kids can't mess it up too much.

Alistair Ottoman from Jayson Home and Garden. Poofy for a nice, soft landing. They also have a nice flea market where you can find one of a kind vintage pieces that can be used as coffee tables. Tables in the French or American Empire style are perfect, because tables in that style tend to be round.

Sullivan Ottoman from Pottery Barn. Poofy for a soft landing, and bonus points for leather so it's easy to clean.

I no longer need to buy a new coffee table, as none of my three children have gone near the coffee table in the four years since Jack's injury. However, if my list saves even one Mom a trip to the ER in her pajamas on Halloween when she's ten months pregnant, then I'll be happy.

I Love My Fridge

In my life, nothing is ever quite finished:

• My kids are always a work in progress
• My job is one long, ever-evolving project
• I'm always redoing one or more of the rooms in my house
• I've always got some self-improvement project going

That's why I get a great deal of satisfaction from my refrigerator. My husband does most of the grocery shopping during the week and every other Tuesday we get a delivery of organic produce from Farm Fresh to You. So by the time Saturday rolls around, the fridge is nice and full, and I clean it out.

• I pull out all the produce, clean it, cut it up, put it in containers that are all the same size and create an altar for them where I can admire their beauty, and the kids can have easy access to them
• I organize all the cheese and meat in one place, the leftovers in another
• I make a big pan of lasagna for my son Jack, who loves lasagna, and give that it's own shelf
  
• I throw away all the expired condiments -- sometimes I throw out something that's not quite expired just to have the satisfaction of purging something
• I like my refrigerator to have lots of pretty colors in it, so sometimes I make an extra trip to the store to fill in a blank in the palette.

Most Saturdays, my littlest Katie will help me. She puts on her apron, pushes her rolly stool up to the counter and we wash, chop and prep together. Me with my Ikon Chef's Knife, Katie with her plastic knife.

When we're done, I step back and admire our work. If our work is especially beautiful, I sometimes call the other kids in to admire with me. They roll their eyes and say "we know, Mom, you do this every Saturday."

As I read back what I've written so far, I realize I sound like a nut, but there's nothing like a project that has a beginning, an end, and a tangible result to make you feel like you've accomplished something. I love my fridge.

A Linen Closet Expose

With four beds in the house, all of different sizes, keeping track of all the stuff that goes with them is a challenge.

My daughter Andie suggested I write this article not only to share some insights with the rest of the world about what you need and don't need in your linen closet, but also to maybe gain some insight myself. The doors to my linen closet barely close.

There are a few things I know:

• With three kids in the house, stock up on waterproof mattress pads. Someone always seems to be in a stage, and who knows what beds people will be sleeping in each night.
• Color code the sizes, so you can always find the size you want. All the twin beds in my house are a blue of some sort, queen beds are red, king bed is white. Even in the darkest of night, I can make a bed.
• Keep your flat sheets, your fitted sheets and your extra pillow cases inside one of the pillowcases when the sheets are in the closet. That way, everything is always together.

A few things I've tried that have bombed:

• Storing luggage in the linen closet is a bad idea
• I went through a labelmaker phase and labelled all the shelves. What a waste of time. I'd rather color code the sheets, because then I can throw them into the closet, slam the door shut (if it will shut) and keep moving.
• Keeping towels in the linen closet is a bad idea. Everything gets all mixed up and looks like a mess. I am lucky to have a closet that can fit all my towels, and a different closet that can fit all my sheets. Very lucky.

Making lists like this always reminds me that I don't usually follow my own rules. I think I'll sign off now, and go relocate my luggage and my towels from the linen closet.