the right pen

been trying to do this for a while, with a cheap pen. specifically an inexpensive pen, not a fancy steel bodied one. because i lose things.
sometimes you just need to write things down.
near the fridge, or the metal front door.
but the smallest magnetic spheres i could find don't fit in your average bic and i don't want to glue a magnet to something that isn't always going to be around, whether i lose it or it just runs dry.
someone left this pen behind and it looked just the right size for my smallest spheres (a.k.a. bucky balls)

the magnetic spheres aren't strong enough to stick to the fridge through the plastic of the pen on their own, but a superstrong magnetic disk on the fridge works perfectly. similar to the setup for the little spray bottle of water for cleaning my wet-erase marker grocery list
after using the pen earlier, this idea hit me so hard i had to get up from watching the 2nd to last episode of Defiance season one.
so now back to that and pricing an extra shelf for my fridge. because hey, i have the space and use for it and GE sells the parts

hanging around the fridge

a while back i started thinking about hanging spray bottles off the side of my fridge. i even wrote a little bit about the idea but it didn't get much of anywhere. i tried things, played with materials around the house but kept ending up dropping stuff on the floor when it didn't work

here's the space in question - shown with the current magnetic tool bar that also lives on my fridge

old cafe curtain rod that came with the house, hanging in a magnetic cup hook: rod popped out easily

added a rubber band to keep it on the hook: hanging more than one bottle resulted in the weight bringing the whole thing crashing down

so i went to harbor freight and got a couple of inexpensive 90lb pull magnets, screw eye bolts and nuts and made this:

same cheap cafe curtain rod, and since this photo was taken i added a roll of paper towels on the rod too. the finials come off the end of the curtain rod so i just popped one off, slid it through the screw eyes and popped the finail back on. it has fallen down once, when someone ran into it... with a box spring.

if you don't have a curtain rod like this lying around, they are very inexpensive. you could also use pvc pipe or a broomstick or dowel, but those might slide out the end of the screw eye unless you use a rubber band for friction (or something else)

Hard Working Fridge gets a makeover

technically, this is a completely different fridge than in the first post about what i do to my poor fridge, but it's not a new fridge to me anymore - been using it for well over a year now.
the side by side 25 cubit foot fridge was too big for me. short little ol' me couldn't even reach the back of the top shelf of the other fridge.
so it's been donated to a friend who needs that much space and i am using a top freezer 18 cubit foot GE that i adore.

with, as you can see, the same messy system for a long time.
it's wet erase markers, not dry erase, so that minimizes accidental smearing. but if i need to expand a list, like i want to stock up on a whole bunch of stuff at sams club in one giant shopping trip, i had to erase a bunch of headings and lines to make the box bigger.

then i found a sheet of magnetic backed printable paper - leftover from another project. i didn't run it through the printer, just made headers with sharpie. now if i need to adjust the space sizes, it's much easier to just move things around

SOOOO much tidier and easier to read/use.

the blue marker used to be for lines and i rarely used the yellow - it doesn't show up well on the fridge. i probably need to remove those.
red stars are for things that i really should get soon.

the water bottle is for spraying the washcloth [not pictured] that i use for erasing- it's held on by putting a magnet on the fridge and a magnet in the bottle. the washcloth is held on with a magnetic bulldog clip.
the wet erase markers are stuck to the fridge with magnetic pencil holders from american science and surplus - item number 34249P25

to get the fridge REALLY clean between markings, use alcohol after you erase with water.

and yes, i do often just take a picture of the fridge on my camera phone on the way out the door when i know i will be shopping after work or while running errands. then i can just pull up the picture, zoom in, and there's my shopping list.
my roommate writes things in as needed too.

my favorite part of this list is also the "running low" and "too much" sections - if i see a sale on lemon juice i will know it's not a bad idea to buy it because i don't NEED it yet, but i will soon enough. and if i see a sale on rosemary, i will remember not to buy it, no matter how good the price, because my friend has a rosemary bush and cut me off a few pounds last year that i dried and have in mason jars in my pantry. but it's also a reminder to look for things that go well with ingredients i have too much of so i can use them up!

Magnet madness

Finally got around to making the sheet steel backing in the medicine cabinet a permanent installation. Liquid nails is great!

Not all of these things will go here in my cabinet permanently, but earlier today a friend asked what i would hang like this. So i tried everything i could think of in 5 minutes. Note: tube of neosporin didn't work. But that's ok because it's got an adhesive hang tab and a cup hook
.
Total project, including the liquid nails (of which there was a lot left in an already partially used tube) was about $15.
steel: $6
liquid nails: $3
magnetic hooks (4): $3
20 pack 8mm magnets: $3
(the bulldog clip was junk from a drawer, no idea where it came from or how much it cost at the time, but harbor freight sells a 3 pack for $3)
Result: no more lost little items or bandaids stuck to the bottom of sticky cough medicine bottles.

There are multiple techniques at work for hanging:

1. Steel items can be stuck to super strong magnets that are stuck to the steel sheet. Like hairpins, scissors, nail clippers, spare drain plugs with a steel ring in them, little containers of lip balm or lotion (this example is burt's bees res Q balm).

2. Lightweight containers with thin walls get a loose magnet dropped in. Take the container down to use and the magnet automatically gets drawn back to the sheet steel when you hang it back up. Good for pill boxes, bandaid/gauze boxes, sewing kits from the dollar store, little thin walled plastic tubs. This might also work with dental floss containers but i already messed with my roommate's dental floss this week and i didn't think she'd appreciate me opening it up to put magnets in it. (definitely wouldn't work for my waterpik!)

3. Magnetic pencil holders, 25 for $1 from american science and surplus. This is good for any light cylindrical items that fit. Eye pencils, lipliner, a pen, toothbrush. I also use these on my fridge for the dry erase markers.









4. Thin things held up in a "normal" way with magnets. Loose bandaids, tooth whitening strips, sudafed, plastic baggy of pills, whatever will hold. the ace bandage clips will be staying in my cabinet like this because i lose them like crazy.







5. Slightly heavier non magnetic containers with magnets glued on. In this case a plastic tub of safety pins.

putting it in the cabinet is for demonstration purposes only - the safety pin tub actually hangs on the wall from a giant washer nailed up, that you see in the left in the above photo



7. Magnetic bulldog clip for heavier flat things. No, i don't know why a spare house key was loose on the shelf in my medicine cabinet, but it was so i hung it.

8. Magnetic hook. Great for hair ties!

 

I am sure you could come up with more things for your own cabinet.

the magnets came from dealextreme. Super cheap but also slooooow (free) shipping. they carry several sizes of super strong rare earth magnet discs in packs of 10, 12, 20 or 100.
harbor freight also sells a 10 pack of rare earth magnets for $3, but they aren't as thin and i have not tested them so i am not sure how strong they are
There's also an after photo so you can see how it works with the bottles and shelf items in place. And yes, i do use a cut up cardboard box as a mini shelf in there

Working on the next big thing

the hammer hit a LOT over the time i had off work for the holidays.
in addition to the previous posts about adhesive hang tabs and broom clips, i also thought of a few things that will have to be implemented later

in this ooooooold post i show you the broomstick i chopped and mounted over my kitchen sink. there aren't pictures yet, but picture the empty space on the left with spray bottles of kitchen cleaners hanging from the rod.

and over here you met my hard working fridge and all the magnetic stuff i've attached to it

there's actually a whole different fridge now, and a lot more magnetic things adhered to it

i have cats. if you have cats, you know sometimes they puke. the side of my fridge is next to the hallway, which is carpeted, and has the cat feeding station. some of my cats have behavioral issues and try to competitively outeat the other cats to prevent the other cats from getting food.
so i keep a roll of paper towels right in the hallway and there's a bottle of pet stain remover carpet cleaning spray right on the floor near the cat food.

the most recent time i tripped over it, i was facing the fridge and thought
1. "if i just had a towel bar on the side of the fridge i could hang this pet stain remover spray right there. it would be out of the way, AND convenient"
2. "what i need to make that happen is a magnetic towel bar. i wonder if magnetic towel bars exist"

lo and behold, they do. 

http://www.buy.com/prod/magnetic-towel-bar-2409-by-better-housewares/227213391.html?listingId=200890698

it would have been ok if they hadn't because i know little magnetic cafe style curtain rods exist - i used to live in a house with a metal back door with a big window in it and i had occasion to look them up once to see how to hang curtains over the window glass in the door.
but they are less sturdy seeming than the towel bar linked above, so that would be my last resort for hanging anything of weight off them. they are more decorative than functional.

so next paycheck or so i will be considering the purchase of a lovely magnetic towel bar for the side of the fridge to hang spray bottles on. and possibly a magnetic paper towel holder because i just found out those exist. and i still have metal doors. hrmmmm, might need a couple of magnetic paper towel holders.

house modding - maximum function, zero aesthetic

what i ended up doing with the area over my kitchen sink. this is the result of the broomstick found in the shed on the last house modding post. the grundtal rack didn't completely fit over the broomstick, but that's what vice grips are for, right?

for details on what each item is, check the original flickr photo and mouse over the pic for pop up notes

http://www.flickr.com/photos/catastrophegirl/4285351995/

this is how i store my ziplocs, foil, etc. i take my own food everywhere so i always need something to put it in. this was it's always right at hand.
that little lazy susan used to go in my fridge but there's no good place for it in the current fridge and it doesn't fit in the cabinets. haven't found a permanent home for it yet. may eventually go in the pantry?



and this is the hallway.

in the middle of this pic is the linen/diabetes closet.
on the right is a magnetic tool bar from harbor freight tools with various things i reach for all the time and want close at hand.
on the left is an ikea bag holder. there are three trash cans and a litterbox in the surrounding rooms. i have a hard time keeping enough bags on hand to use, actually

again, for more details [if you REALLY need to know what's on the tool holder] notes are on the original photo, here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/catastrophegirl/4285363861/in/photostream