light hammer taps

a few updates on some little things i've done around the house lately. been a little busy - 2 roommates now! had to make a whole new bedroom out of the space where i used to store boxes and defunct electronics.

this is an image heavy post so i will keep them all small and you can click the pic to enlarge if you want to.

one of my old how-to/hints books recommends storing your washers on a shower curtain hook. the plain kind, the ones i love and have ALL OVER THE HOUSE. 

 

well, i haven't gotten to the washers yet since mine are mostly already stored in a plastic compartmentalized caddy. but i do have this set of cheap wrenchs that needed a home. sure i could hang them all on a long peg by their handles but then if i want a wrench in the back they all have to come off one at a time. this way i only have two things to move in or out of position and i can separate them - one hook is metric and the other is standard.

found this nifty sticky backed measuring tape on clearance at the craft store. it's perforated in one foot measurements.

i put a strip of it on the lip of a drawer in my kitchen island and i just keep finding myself measuring this one thing or that up against it.

more useful than expected

broom clips are back - i found 3 sizes at ace hardware

i love hooks. especially cup hooks. but my nerve damage makes it a pain to screw them in by hand. i finally got a hex shanked chuck adaptor for my little black and decker drill/driver and popped in a screw eye. it does NOT work to unscrew them because that just unscrews the chuck itself. but it's great for setting rows of hooks under the cabinet

having a new roommate made for some interesting acoustic challenges when we all work different shifts and watch tv/listen to music at different hours. the interior doors in my house are made of.... paper. yep, paper. with a little stryofoam thrown in for support. 

you can see this in cutaway where i was putting a cat door in my roommate's door

so while we had the door off and the tools out, i filled her door with "Great Stuff" expanding foam. specifically the big gap filler variety. some in the bottom around the cat door and then, since there are assorted partitions in the door, i drilled two holes in the top that were the diameter of the fill tube on the can of great stuff and filled the top too. took about 2 cans.

 

although, if you have previously added a hook to a door, say, using a wall anchor [wet towels are heavy] you may want to seal off around the hook with some silicone or at least masking tape first. the foam found the gap around the screws and expanded right out of the door. it mostly wiped off, but this was a mess because i didn't do it right

 

Ode to Broom Clips

 

this is a broom clip. or a "spring grip clip" if you prefer. 

this particular one is also installed with a rubber bumper dot behind it on the bottom, to ensure it stays tilted slightly. you can sort of see the dot at the bottom of the clip in the picture. 

that's because this one is a razor holder on my bathroom wall. the razor isn't tightly gripped by the clip so it needs a little gravitational assist. but the razor had to be moved out of the reach of my bitey cat and this was on hand. much less expensive than a fancy razor holder. sure, it's not the ideal stylish thing, but it works quite well.

last year i picked up a ten pack of these cheap [that includes quality] LED flashlights for camping with some kids.
a few of the flashlights still work and my house tends to have plenty of power outages due to the rural nature of the neighborhood.
so i keep them on hand for emergency lighting.
a ten pack was $10 at Big Lots.
i've seen these lots of places and prices vary but more than $2 a flashlight and you are getting ripped off [if it doesn't have batteries]

one day i had both an LED flashlight and a broom clip on my kitchen counter near each other.
as one is wont to do with sudden impulses, i followed mine and discovered that yes, tiny cheap LED flashlights DO fit in a broom clip.
so i put a couple on the walls near the front door and the kitchen door.
very handy place to have a light whether you are coming home to the power out or need to go outside and chase a possum away from the trash can, there's always a light right there.

hey, let's go back to the bathroom for a minute. speaking of sudden impulses, i got curious as to what else would fit in a broom clip that i could get off the bathroom counter. this is a little glass dropped bottle from American Science and Surplus that i keep tea tree oil in. now it lives on the bathroom wall near the first aid kit, instead of in various places on the bathroom counter where the cats keep knocking it in the sink.

 

next to it you may also see the successful results of my experiment with hanging adhesive tabs, but that's another post entirely

off to the left, out of frame, are the two first aid boxes - they dismount from the wall for emergencies and camping trips.

then neosporin on an adhesive tab, tea tree oil in a broom clip and a little magnetic bar from ikea [oh, ikea, i love you so much] with nail clippers, cuticle tool, comedo toll, scissors, tweezers. in the bottom right corner is my roommate's dental floss that i also stuck an adhesive hang tab on. she may not keep it that way, but i wanted to see how well it held. her dental floss is another thing that tends to get batted into the sink by bored kitties. and at the very bottom, out of frame, is the lint roller on a cup hook.

i tried to get more broom clips at home depot, but they don't carry that kind. they are pretty inexpensive, rarely as much as a dollar per clip, and they usually come in a pack of 4 or 5.
if you want to get extra fancy and spend a little more, they come in vinyl coated but i don't bother.