Reuse is Second

There is a hack to get the plastic grinder off the top of these.  I'm going to refill it with some sea salt I happen to have in the cabinet, but other things are possible to be ground in these.  When it wears out I'll pull the top off for recycling.


In short, if you take a dull, rounded tip knife such as a classic butter knife, slide it up under the plastic lip, and start twisting the top, you'll stretch the plastic just enough to get it off.  If care is used and you're watching what you are doing you will be able to snap it back on.  The knife has to get past the glass lip.  There are two of them, the first is there to prevent you from doing this little hack.  The plastic bead that locks the top on sits between two glass lips.  You need to wiggle the knife past the one you see and coax the plastic over the other one.  Once you get it off you'll understand.  Just remember you're prying with a metal knife against glass!

Repair comes first

I went to trim my beard the other day and my cordless trimmer didn't even twitch.  The charger didn't light up, nothing.  So remembering that the manual said something about taking the battery out, I cracked the case open.  To my delight it had a standard rechargable AA NiCd.  Out came the intellicharger and the leads on the trimmer were just long enough to get it in.  Originally the battery was so dead the charger didn't register it.  A pair of jumper wires and a quick connection with a healthy NiMH woke the charger up and I started it off on a refresh cycle.  It took two days, but it looks ready to put back into service.

More Inspiration from Lifehacker

Another idea used from a Lifehacker article.  This was also a concept I considered when it came to organizing my spices, however the pocket to jar size ratio was ludicrous.  Much better for bigger things like all my workout supplies and and other odds and ends that were not space efficient left on a shelf.  Things like storage bags, rolls of foil and cling wrap.

The pockets are even big enough to fit that 500g bulk container of creatine monohydrate.  I did put two small thumbtacks through the organizer and into the door about a third of the way up from the bottom to reduce the swing when the door was used.

Once I did this, I moved my tubs of whey protein to the empty shelf I discovered during yesterday's project, which then left two fully unused shelves on the other unit.  So I moved my (very) few small appliances down from the very top which made the unit wobble less with the weight further down.

As a side benefit of having this stuff stashed in a flexible organizer, when it does come time to move, I can just unhang it, roll it up and drop it in a tote.  I may see if I want to organize the bathroom in a similar way.  Obviously the TP and towels aren't going to fit in there, but I'd say the boxes of band-aids, bottles of OTC's, and all the other assorted toiletries will go just fine.

Inspiration from Lifehacker Strikes

So I'm reading one of the posts from Lifehacker in my G+ stream, about hacking small apartments.  Anyone that's followed any of my posts across the social networks will know I have been streamlining things, and a current peeve of mine is some clutter I just cannot seem to permanently correct.  I present exhibit A, the before image:

Plastic food bins and things on top, fairly accessible, nested, a little chaotic, but liveable.  Spice shelf, bad jumble, cannot see half my stuff, and a time waster when cooking.  Bottom shelf, more of the same, with two sets of measuring cups, three sets of measuring spoons, and a tableware sorter piled up with things that don't fit.

What got me started was in one of the subarticles it mentioned the use of the ceiling for storage and magnets for smaller things in jars with ferrous lids.  This reminded me of an old Boy's Life magazine that suggested using baby food jars or mayonnaise jars to sort things like small nails and screws.  You could drive a couple roofing nails through the lid, securing them under a workbench.  Just look under the bench, see what jar has what you need, unscrew it take out what you need, and screw the jar back on.  No wasted workbench space.  So I got the sudden idea of grabbing some extra adhesive velcro I had laying around and was going to cut tabs, stick them to the lids of spice jars, and glue them to the underside of that top shelf.  Then I didn't have as much velcro as I thought I had.  It would have to wait until I go in to work, we have it in bulk rolls, and it's not a big issue to grab some.  We're always using it for the oddest projects anyway.  On further thought I decided that the whole side of the shelving unit was open, so I'd just put long strips of velcro on the side, mating strips on all the jars and just slap them on the side, freeing up the shelf even further.

Next I looked at the jumble of measuring accouterments.  They have hanging holes on the end, and I have a stock of cup hooks.  Those shelves are freecycled and will be again, so I got out my DeWalt cordless drill and started putting pilot holes in the particle board.  I hung up the good stainless set of cups and spoons and put the plastic ones off to the side.  I have long handled nylon spoons, drilled holes in them while I was at it.  Cup hooks went in the fronts of the doors and all the long stuff went there as well as my GSI Outdoors Fair Share Collapsible mug.  Next I noticed there was a lip all the way around the tableware sorter, so more cup hooks went in the underside of the shelf and the sorter became a drawer.

Well, I didn't feel like waiting to pick up velcro, and I remembered there was a scrap piece of baseboard trim laying outside.  I sold off my chop box, but I still had a sharktooth tool box saw.  So I used an old trick I learned years (25??) ago and made a mini-shelf.  Quick, dirty and free.

Here is exhibit B, the aftermath:

The two white rectangles you see on the left end of the first shelf are some labels I made, volume conversions for the common kitchen measurements.  I reuse many of the metric serving scoops that come with supplements (you can see a few extras on the shelf next to the knife block) but rarely are they exactly any of the sizes in typical cooking use.  For example there is a 33ml, 60ml, 90ml.  I just pick one that will do the job and leave it in the container.  If I want a different serving size, I just pick a different one, consistency is what is important.  Previously I had been looking at the other set of cups and spoons for the conversion which was printed on them.  The metal ones do not have metric equivalents on them.

No more jumble, but not excessively organized.  Much more efficient.  Another expense free project completed.