Grand Diane

So this post is a little bit of an apology for making some design decisions about my living room without y’all when I said I was gonna crowdsource this one. Turns out I couldn’t turn down this set of teak adjustable low shelves for $90 (thank you thank you thank you Facebook Marketplace). I have needed extra storage in the living room for all sorts of miscellaneous things and after surveying the space and considering a few options I decided to use it as a console table behind my sofa. In the second photo you can see the menagerie of miscellaneous objects I needed to put somewhere and this piece is quite frankly perfect for that because its storage options are so varied and its overall appearance so beautiful that I could definitely cram in a lot of stuff right in plain sight.

To figure out how I wanted to use the space exactly I basically started with what I knew that I needed and dialed it in from there. Mail is a very tricky thing because we all get packages that need to be received/opened/sent back plus the standard letters and junk and bills that come in every day. At my house mail had been ending up on the kitchen counter and I wanted a place to contain it so in photo three you can see I decided to use the largest space closest to the door for packages that just got here or need to be returned. I recently acquired this beautiful wooden bowl from a client so I used that and a piece of pottery to set up a letters and bills station in photo four. I placed it in the indented space partially because even in a ceramic jar a bunch of pens isn’t that attractive but mostly because sitting on the couch the bowl is directly at hand level so there is a place to sit and have a beverage and read whatever nonsense your bank has to say in relative peace.

Step 3 in How to Pack is to layer. This applies to whether you are talking about a truck or a box or whatever. You start in a truck with the biggest and heaviest stuff nearest to the cab and a box with the heaviest stuff on the bottom. From there you layer upward/outward making sure to keep in mind how you plan to protect the most precious/delicate or expensive elements from getting broken.

In the case of my shoes you can see that I made a sort of basic structure of a layer that would be roughly even and flat and then I filled in the gaps before protective it and the next layer of shoes with some more paper. This box doesn’t have too many expensive or super fragile objects in it but I still want to protract my shoes which just means evenly distributing the weight that will be placed on top of them and making sure they are situated in such a way as the weight is being placed on them in a way that won’t damage the shoe. Note that for very fragile or delicate objects you should never place another box on top of them in case it crushes or damages the object so write “DO NOT TOP” in large letters which in addition to being funny to any gay people who are helping you move will tell everyone who comes after you not to place anything heavy on that box. This is also where buying even a few heavy duty double walled loving boxes can protect your really valuable stuff for $5 or less.

Ok back tomorrow to close up the box/series.

Grand Diane Presents: How to Pack

Step 1: Supplies

Supplies are a criminally underrated part of the packing process and in this post I hope to show you why I believe that and introduce you to some of my favorite and most used packing supplies. Hopefully by the end of it you’ll never pack the same again. In general all of these supplies can be bought at Lowe’s (the She Shed to Home Depot’s Man Cave) with the exception of packing paper which is much cheaper at the Uhaul store for some reason (and most supplies can be picked up there as well but tend to be a touch more expensive. In this photo you have pretty much all of my favorite moving supplies which are sharpies, packing paper, boxes, tape, plastic wrap, and bubble wrap. All these things except boxes can be acquired for $15-60 and will really make your move so much better and easier. Let’s start with the essentials and move our way onto the nice to haves.

Tape: Tape is the #1 most important thing to have on hand when you are moving and is one of the least expensive parts clocking in between $4-14 depending on how many rolls you need. Tape is magical. It will make a bad box good. It will attach a lid you can’t lose to the jar it fits. Add more tape fixes so many packing problems it’s absurd. Pro tip: get as many little tape dispensers as you have people packing and it will save you time and grief.

More in the comments!