Hauling for the house

Another day, another haul post—sort of. Yesterday’s post was about the things I bought for creative work. Todat;s is all about stuff for projects around the house, which mean; that today’s post is actually closer to what my 2022 post was about. Similar, but different.

The photo up top has only three items, but they have little to do with yesterday’s post, and nothing at all to do with each other. First up, in the back and at the left is my biggest bargain: A box of flocked thin coathangers. I learned about them from YouTubers who focus on decluttering and organising. They used them because they’re thinner than normal hangers, and that means they take up less space, and because the flocking helps keep clothes from slipping off. When I started decluttering clothes from my wardrobe, I bought some of the hangers to hang up t-shirts in the newly freed-up space, mainly because I realised I never wore the t-shirts because I needed to be able to see them to remember I have them. Then, I decided to switch all my shirts to them—and that meant I needed to get a lot of hangers.

The hangers I was buying were $6.99 for a pack of eight, and I planned to get up to six packs, which would mean they’d be $55.92. But when I was using the store’s App to find out what aisle they were in, I saw they had a box of 50 of the hangers for $25.99—less than half price plus two more hangers—such a deal! But, wait—there’s more! I also got the 5% Gold Card discount.

When I hung the t-shirts on the hangers, I also tried the trick of turning the hanger “backwards”. The idea is that I wear an item, then after I wash the shirt I hang it back up the right way around. If the hanger isn’t turned around in six months or year, then, the theory goes, the shirt (or whatever) can be donated. The trouble is, I started this with t-shirts—in winter. While I do wear t-shirts on mild days, there aren’t necessarily very many of those in winter. So, I figured that this probably wasn’t among my best ideas, though I have already turned some the right way around. Hre’s what it actually looks like:

On the right in the back is the next thing, a small sheet of coreflute (a plastic sheet similar to corrugated cardboard, but stonger). I bought it to make a prototype/proof of concept sort of thing for a solution to fix a defect in my kitchen cabinets, one that annoys me every single day. More on that another time, but I chose the material because it’s inexpensive and easy to work with, and the store had one that was cheaper and smaller than what one of the home centres offers (better for a prototype that may not work). However, it was also the main reason I chose that day to buy the new cutting mat I mentioned yesterday: It’ll be big enough for me to use to cut the coreflute.

In front, on the ground, are some cheap (both senses of the word…) placemats. The placemats I currently have are around 15 years old and perfectly usable, but the main reason I wanted new ones is because their white stripes mean they don’t make good backgrounds when I take photos of food I make. I take a lot of photos of my meals, but I very rarely share any because I take the photos just to get better at and shooting those photos.

I saw the new placemats on the store’s App, and I thought the'd make a better photo background, and also that they’d also go better with some fabrics in my living space. In fact, I’ve already used the placemats for a background to a photo of my breakfast for a post that’s still to come (which really means I haven’t written it yet…), however, that identified a problem.

When I finished my breakfast that day, I noticed that I'd spilled something on the placemat, so I got a damp kitchen cloth to wipe it off, and for no particular reason I lifted up the placemat and the table underneath it was wet: What I thought was a fake “weave” look turned out to be more like an actual weave, and they’re not solid as I thought (the photo at right shows the light streaming through a placemat I held up to a window). All of which means that they’re fine as photo backgrounds, but not as placemats. Still, they were cheaper than anything else I saw, and dramatically cheaper than some. You get what you pay for?

These items aren’t related to each other, except that they’re all for the house, one way or another, but two things are at least conencted to yesterday’s post: The placemats are related to creative projects (photography), and the coreflute convinced me to get the new cutting mat that I’ll use for a lot of projects, including creative ones. But all of the items in both these posts have one thing common: They all have their own stories. Apparently, everything does.