Updating My Organized Kitchen Drawers

Remember last year when I made my own drawer organizers for two of my kitchen drawers?  (And if you haven't read that post, it's the place to start if you want to build inexpensive drawer organizers!)

Well, after a year or so, the silverware drawer looked like this:

The weight of the silverware caused the bottom of the drawer to bow, which then created a gap between my organizer and the drawer bottom, which then caused the silverware to creep around the drawer.  Ugh.  Dearest hubby attempted to glue the organizer right to the bottom of the drawer, but as you can see in the above image, that didn't hold.  After thinking a bit, I decided I would try to use the weight of the silverware to my advantage--and it worked!  (Which is why I'm posting this, lol!)

We pulled the drawer out, and removed the entire organizer.  I traced the middle sections of the organizer onto the leftover sturdy board I had kept from this same project--meaning no extra cost, whew.

After tracing the openings onto the sturdy board, I sweet-talked Fernando into cutting the shapes out for me, and then I positioned each one in the bottom of its compartment then drew a bead of Elmer's Glue around the edges.

Below is what it looked like after all the sections were in.  I ran out of sturdy board, so I decided that since most of the main silverware (forks, knives, spoons) were in those center sections, I'd leave the edges bare and see how that held up--which it's doing fine so far.

Once the glue around the insides was dry, I flipped over my organizer and drew beads of glue around the sections here:

It's always a good idea to let that glue dry thoroughly before using the organizer!  So, the next day, we inserted the organizer back into the drawer, and I filled it up again.  Can you see all the silverware and serving utensils there in the below image, upper left?  I tried so hard to keep them organized the way I had them in the drawer!

And, here you go!  This "new and improved" organizer is doing great, and things are staying neat and tidy!

Back to life,
Christine

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April in My Vegetable Garden and More

April 18.

After I watched the guys get out all the yard stuff, I wandered into the back yard to check out my veggie garden.  Here's the overview:

The rhubarb is growing nicely!  I'm always amazed that within a week or so it grows from just a pearly red nub pushing up out of the ground to this!

I also have a number of purple onions coming up from last year!  This was a treat, since I decided I wouldn't plant onions this year.

Here are the three beds in a row.  You can see the strawberry plants coming up through the remaining straw.  Yay for delicious red fruit!

Behind my veggie garden, way in the back point of our pie-shaped yard, waited my special place.  It's really just a bench, a kidney-shaped pile of dirt, and a few flowers that manage to grow up without any assistance from me.

Sitting on the bench, I can look out on my veggie garden beds.

Here's the view from the back-most corner of our back yard.

You probably know by now I stand on the deck of our pool to take pictures of my veggie garden, and my special place, below.  Now you can see what I'm talking about--pile of dirt and all!

Every year I say it, but someday it'll be done, and it'll be my outdoor sanctuary, my thinking spot, my garden oasis just steps from our door!


Back to life,
Christine

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Warm Weather at Last!

April 18.

It was finally warm enough that we figured it was time to pull out the bikes and the backyard furniture!

Joseph carried the tote of pool stuff around to the back yard.

Joseph was stuck, gate wouldn't open.  Danny peeked over the fence.

Fernando passed the shovel over to Danny to dig out the grass that had grown up in front of the gate.

Lawn chairs!

Back in the garage, Thomas pumped up bike tires.

Danny dug out the gate.

Success!

The guys got everything out, and we were really hoping the warm weather would stick around for awhile!


Back to life,
Christine

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