We owned a Roomba robot vacuum almost a decade ago because it sounded so good in theory. Something that does the vacuuming for you while you sit on the couch? Sign me up. But in reality, we had SO MANY ISSUES with it. It was extremely loud, frequently got stuck, and didn’t cover many areas before the battery died. Did I mention it always got stuck? It felt like babysitting someone who was poorly vacuuming to the point that our time was better spent actually doing the vacuuming. We finally ended up selling it on Craigslist.
So imagine our surprise to now be declaring that we actually LOVE having a robot vacuum and the technology has come SO FAR. It feels lightyears ahead of the one we owned before – and it was much less expensive! In fact, we’ve owned our new robot vacuum for 8 glorious months, and it’s probably our favorite purchase of the year.
NOTE: We’re saying this as two people who bought it with our own money and love it. This isn’t a sponsored post & Eufy doesn’t know us from Adam.
So today we’re breaking down a ton of information for you, like:
What exact robot vacuum do we own?
How much does it cost?
How it works & what features we love most
Helpful tips for getting the most out of it
What other people love about it
What Is Our Favorite Robot Vacuum?
Earlier this year we purchased a Eufy RoboVac 11S after Sherry’s best friend waxed poetic about hers. We said “no we hate robot vacuums.” But she was unrelenting in how much better her experience with her newer robot vacuum has been, and, well, she wore us down. So we decided to click “order” because it was on sale for $159 and fully returnable. That was 8 months ago and spoiler, it definitely didn’t get returned.
We run our Eufy EVERY SINGLE DAY. There’s a super convenient schedule you can set so it’s autopilot, and it has become an essential part of our house cleaning routine (that’s done by someone, er, something other than us). It’s probably a bit of a stretch to call it “a member of the family,” but even the kids address her by name (“Is Eufy in your room?” “Yeah, she’s cleaning under my desk.”).
We tried a more creative name – the kids called her Cheerio for a little while – but Eufy just stuck. Sherry highly enjoys hearing all the clever names that people have come up with for theirs on Instagram though. Some favs include: Meryl Sweep, Dustin Bieber, Sir Sux A Lot, and Optimus Clean.
How Much Does It Cost?
The other thing that makes having this particular robot vacuum “worth it” is the cost! Our Eufy RoboVac 11S retails for $199.99 but the price is often discounted (at the moment there’s a $60 off coupon on Amazon). This makes it one of the most affordable robotic vacuums on the market.
It’s essentially the cost of one or two professional house cleanings, yet it’s here every single day, working away for hours while we sit on our butts – and it comes back full each time. Many other models can be hundreds of dollars more (some well over $1,000!) and even the most affordable Roombas (made by iRobot, the “big name” in robotic vacuums) are more expensive than the one we have and love.
Obviously, the more expensive the model is, the more features it’s likely to have. Pricier vacuums may come with wifi connectivity, voice control, phone apps, or even self-emptying dust collection stations. But we’ve been beyond happy with our entry-level Eufy.
So if you’re worried about not getting your money’s worth out of buying a robot vacuum, our advice is not to fret about splurging on bells and whistles. Our Eufy was half the cost of the standard upright vacuum we own, and these days we rely on our robot vacuum waaaaay more (it does about 95% of the vacuuming in our house). And the best part is that our house has never felt this clean!
How Our Robot Vacuum Works & What We Love Most
A robotic vacuum automates the vacuuming chore in your house by wirelessly traveling around your home, vacuuming as it goes, and then it parks itself back on its charging base when it’s done. Our Eufy 11S model is delightfully uncomplicated, but it still has the essential features you’d want in a robot vacuum – which we’ll get into below. But first, here’s a quick video where we show exactly how it works and how we use it in our home (psst- if you worry about a dog-poop-smearing incident, we address that in the video below):
Now on to what we love about it…
It Runs On An Automatic Daily Schedule
Using the included remote, we set up our robot vacuum to begin vacuuming at a designated time every morning. So without any effort on our end, Eufy “wakes up” (she beeps from her charging base as a warning) and then emerges & does a 90-ish-minute cleaning of our first floor every single day. We can also manually start or stop it at any time with the remote or the button on the vacuum itself, but it’s largely a “set and forget” type of routine.
I know we talk a lot about the remote in the video, but honestly, we RARELY use it. Once we programmed our daily start time, it became very autopilot. We use the button on top to pause or restart it, if needed, so our remote usually just lives in a nearby drawer.
It Navigates Around Obstacles Gently & Doesn’t Bang
Sensors on the vacuum help it gently move around objects like chair legs, cabinet bases, and any other obstructions. Sherry has been asked if she moves the kitchen chairs for example or does anything to “set up” the house before it vacuums every day. Other than calling out “Eufy’s starting, pick up any charging cords that might be on the floor!” to our kids, we do nothing (remember: Eufy beeps before emerging, which is a really nice warning).
Sherry used to do a lap around the house to make sure nothing was going to catch Eufy up, but we’ll share later how we stopped needing to do that. Anyway, it vacuums everything – including under tables, desks, and chairs… even when we’re still in them!
Our Eufy feels much smarter than our old Roomba vacuum (which used to bang around a lot more) and it never leaves scuffs or scrapes on walls, baseboards, cabinets, furniture, or appliances. It deftly maneuvers over ridges like thick carpet edges and never falls down the stairs when running on our second level. Truly, it’s a fully different experience than our old Roomba from 9 years ago.
It’s Much Quieter Than Our Old Robot Vacuum
We used to feel like we couldn’t hear ourselves think when our first robot vacuum was running back in our second house – but thankfully the newer models are much less noisy across the board. We have zero issues working or chatting while it’s running, and our dog Penny is completely unbothered as well.
It Reaches Spots That We Can’t (Daily!)
The S in RoboVac 11S stands for Slim, meaning this particular model – coming in at 2.85″ – is a lower profile than many others, which are often 3.5″ or 4″ inches. While that may seem like a negligible distinction, that inch or so can make a big difference in what furniture it can squeeze under. In fact, one of the biggest selling features for us has been how Eufy can easily get under things we couldn’t very easily vacuum otherwise – like under our bed, our loveseat, and the vanity in our bathroom.
We might have attempted to clean those areas during an occasional deep clean, but they definitely weren’t spots we were getting regularly, and certainly not every day.
If you think about how much extra dust and dirt it eliminates from your home by being slim enough to pass under things like that, it’s kind of mind-blowing. It’s especially helpful if anyone in your house has dust or seasonal allergies, because it’s getting rid of built-up dust and dirt that have probably been hiding for years AND keeping it from coming back.
Its “Whiskers” Get Into Tight Spots
Even when our Eufy can’t go under something, like the stove or the fridge, the little whisker arms that poke out from each side of it reach beyond the footprint of the vacuum itself. This means it can grab things that are hiding under the small cracks below appliances (I love that it cleans beyond its footprint, which a regular vacuum cleaner doesn’t do). It sounds weird to put so much stock into those extending whiskers, but they just leave things so clean that they deserve a shout-out.
Works In Big & Small Houses Alike
We definitely live in a much smaller home than when we had our old Roomba (in our last house), but Sherry’s best friend who recommended the exact model that we have has a very large two-story house. She carries it up and down the stairs occasionally, just like we do. However, we both find that we have to clean the upstairs less frequently since a clean first floor means a lot less gets tracked upstairs in the first place. In short: you certainly don’t need a small house for this to work for you.
That being said, if you live in a large house with two levels and don’t want to bring it upstairs, you can always get a second Eufy for the second floor. This isn’t your cue to order multiple Eufys right off the bat, but keep it in mind as a solution if you find that a second one might be helpful down the road.
It Transitions Over Different Terrain
Sherry gets questions about how it navigates going up onto a thick rug or over a small wood threshold in a doorway, and it’s definitely made for multiple surfaces like rugs, carpet, wood, tile, etc. So you shouldn’t really have any issues with it hopping up and down over small things like that. If you do have a large threshold that you worry about, you can just let it do one section of the house and then carry it over the threshold to do that other area. Truly, it’s really easy to figure small things like that out. Don’t fret.
It Doesn’t Fall Down The Stairs Or Off Ledges
I’ve said It already, but I felt like this needed its own heading too. Eufy has sensors to keep it from falling down the stairs, so we’ve never had any issues with that. We not only have a front part of our upstairs steps where she tests this parameter, but we also have a straight drop from the side, and she never, ever has any issues with either of these. 100% success rate of sensing a drop, turning around, and continuing to clean the rest of the area.
It Automatically Returns To Its Charging Base
When our Eufy has completed its daily routine, it automatically navigates back to its base to recharge its battery and await its next daily cleaning. Our base is plugged in under the loveseat in our downstairs sitting room, so our Eufy stays completely out of sight when it’s not in use. And since that spot is centrally located, it’s nice and easy for Eufy to find. We just grab it from under the sofa to empty it daily – or use the remote to call it out so we can pick it up and empty it when it rolls out.
It Comes Back Full (So You Know It’s Working!)
Ours always comes back to the charging base with a belly full of dirt and dust. Every day. People sometimes say to Sherry, “it seems to be running on such a random pattern – how do I know it’s working?” and for us, the visual proof is that our floors look extremely clean AND it comes back full of dust each time.
Someone who used to work for a vacuum company actually DMed Sherry on Instagram and said: “normal vacuums are meant to go over the same spot four times for it to be considered clean.” When you manually vacuum you’re rarely hitting the same spot four times from four different angles, so that’s why it might seem to you like Eufy is doing one area too much at such a random zig-zag pattern, but it’s just hitting things multiple times to suck up lots of dust & dirt. There’s a method to its madness after all.
How To Get The Most Out Of Your Robot Vacuum
Here are some tips & tricks to get the most out of your Eufy without having to worry about it daily. Autopilot cleaning that’s done by a robot instead of you really is a life hack… but it may take a little bit of prep up front. I promise you it’s worth it! When you sit on the couch while Eufy cleans for an hour and a half EVERY SINGLE DAY, well, it feels great.
Pick Your Charging Spot Wisely
If you put your Eufy in the best spot, you’re going to love it a LOT. For us, it was important to find a spot that was:
Totally hidden
Centrally located
Easy to access (for both us and the vacuum)
Near an outlet
Larger homes might have an obvious spot in a laundry room/mudroom/bathroom, but in our small home, we didn’t want to dedicate visible floor space to an ugly charger. Luckily this spot under the loveseat checked all of the boxes! I scooted the couch out so you can see what the charging base looks like:
Secure Your Charging Base
We found that Eufy can occasionally push the base around a little bit when it parks itself to charge. Sometimes it would become skewed and it could no longer align itself with the charger as easily. So we used a 3M Command Strip to stick it directly to the floor, ensuring that it would stay in place. Zero issues since then.
Wrangle Your Loose Cords
If a nemesis for Eufy exists, it’s wires – especially the loose end of a phone charging cord. She may try to suck them up or even pull them out of the wall (at which point she usually beeps and stops, and her cleaning cycle isn’t completed until you restart her). So when we got Eufy, we took about a half hour to corral all of our cords off of the floor, especially under beds and furniture. This meant tying some up in a bundle with zip ties (they include 5 in the box!) and putting others into low baskets like this, which we then shove under the bed. Voila: the entire bin of wires is hidden, but Eufy can’t get tangled anymore.
Even with that done, we still remind our kids (and each other!) to make sure their iPad chargers are off the floor. Thanks to that beep before it starts, nobody really forgets anymore, and it’s a nice way to encourage a little daily tidying to make sure things aren’t all over the floor.
Do (Or Don’t Do) A Little Daily Prep
You don’t have to prep for Eufy every day, but you can develop some routines to make sure your house is ready for her daily vacuuming. Like we said above, we just remind the kids to pick up their charging cords when Eufy sounds that starting beep. But here are some other things you could do (emphasis on COULD):
Do a quick loop to pick up clothes, blankets, or towels on the floor in any bedrooms/bathrooms
Pick up small toys, like tiny Lego pieces or dolls with hair that might easily get sucked up
Close the door to any rooms you don’t want it entering (like if your kid’s bedroom floor is a disaster that morning)
Move lightweight furniture, even just slightly, to let Eufy hit a spot she couldn’t get to the day before. Occasionally we roll a plant out of a corner to give her better access.
Sherry’s best friend occasionally puts her dining chairs on the table so Eufy can clean faster. We never move ours, it just takes Eufy more time to bounce around ’em, but she gets it done.
Again, these things are absolutely optional but they may save Eufy from getting stuck trying to eat a cord. It’s not a big deal if that happens, it just interrupts an otherwise automatic cycle. For us, having Eufy run every day has been a great checkpoint to make sure we’ve picked up around the house a little bit each morning. It only takes a minute and sometimes it’s as simple as the kids just tossing things on their beds instead of the floor.
Have Backup Accessories on Hand
Like with traditional vacuums, Eufy uses small filters and stuff that will need occasional cleaning or replacing. We bought this $16 pack of replacement parts to have on hand in case something breaks, wears out, or goes missing. It has already come in handy after one of the whisker attachments came off under a rug and wasn’t found for a few days. Luckily we could just pop on a spare so Eufy didn’t miss a day.
SPEAKING OF THE WHISKERS: when you get your Eufy you need to snap those suckers on firmly. If you don’t hear the snap they’re likely not all the way on and you’ll run it and be like “why the @%#&$ do these keep falling off?!” So snap them on firmly and they’ll stay put for the long haul.
Understand That It Doesn’t Clean Every Spot, Every Day
Since this entry-level model doesn’t have any fancy digital mapping or programable guide, Eufy sort of just charts a new random path each morning. Some days she spends more time under the bed, and on other days she does one pass around the bathroom instead of ten. But over the course of the week, she will still make it to every spot many many times. In eight months we have never come across a single spot that she can access that’s been missed.
I can’t express to you how much cleaner our house looks and feels thanks to running Eufy every day on such an easy autopilot schedule. We even find that we have to do less dusting because when Eufy is running daily to eliminate dirt and particles on the floor, they have less of a chance of building up and floating up onto tables or shelves or window ledges.
Know That You’ll Still Need To Vacuum Sometimes
Don’t throw out your regular vacuum just because you’ve purchased a robotic one. For instance, we keep this one in our utility closet. For one, Eufy can’t do stairs, so we still vacuum those manually once a week. She also can’t move furniture, so there are definitely some corners she can’t get (like behind a plant stand or trash can unless we move them before she runs). So those are areas we just tackle ourselves when we do the stairs.
Also, if you spill something like dirt from a pot, Eufy does have a “spot clean” mode on the remote, but we find it’s not the most efficient way to clean up after a big mess. We usually just sweep things up or grab our small handheld vacuum to tackle that kind of task.
Empty It Daily
The built-in dust canister on our Eufy is typically completely full after every cleaning. At first, I thought we were just exceptionally dirty (how is there THAT MUCH dust EVERY DAY?!) but we’ve heard lots of others report the same thing. Now I’ve decided to be glad those piles of dust make their way into the trash and aren’t still on our floors.
Our Eufy doesn’t have an automatic self-emptying feature (they call it dust-collection and some fancier models transfer it into their charging base, like the Roomba i3+ EVO or Eufy RoboVac L35 Hybrid+, both $550). Those still have to be emptied eventually, and we don’t mind the daily routine of just manually emptying ours so it’s ready to fill up again the next day. We recommend setting an alarm on your phone if you find that you forget, or group this action with something else you do every day (like when you take your vitamins, for example).
It’s quick & easy to empty – the compartment just pops out of the bottom. So we usually just reach under the loveseat and pull it off its charging station for a quick empty. You can also pick it up when it begins vacuuming to empty it from the day before (it automatically pauses when lifted off the ground). Then just put it back down and press the button on the top & it’ll pick up where it left off.
What Other People Think About It
We thought it would be helpful to hear from other Eufy owners as well (perhaps with bigger, hairier dogs), and thanks to the good people of Instagram, Sherry has heard from a lot of other Eufy owners. You can read more in the archived circle on Instagram under our bio called Robot Vac, but here’s a sampling below:
“Between our old doggies and sandy soil this has been the best purchase I have ever made.”
“My life is changed. We have 3 dogs (!!!) and 3 children and I was vacuuming every day. Now Eufy does it every evening for me. I don’t know how, but it’s better than my Dyson. Is it just that I don’t have to do it? Maybe, but I’m here for it.”
My husband was adamant that we would never have a robot vacuum. Bought the one you recommended and ran it right after the cleaning lady left. It was completely full after running on our main level (not even under the couch or on the rug) just basically all open spaces that had just been cleaned. Husband has been converted and now appreciates the robot vacuum.”
“Last week while watching your stories, I thought if I got that, it’s possible that it could take away a huge stressor for me. I bought it that day (which I never do) and have LOVED it every day since! It vacuums my kitchen while I’m cooking dinner, provides entertainment to my two littles, and cleans up whatever dirt my boys always manage to bring in. I just didn’t think it was possible for something to bring such relief!”
“I brought it to my parents’ house while visiting them for the weekend. They had vacuumed in preparation for my visit, and we were all SHOCKED at how much it still picked up!”
“Got a robot vacuum almost immediately after your story last week… ten days later and I’m living a whole new life. And here’s the best part: it only runs on our main level, but I haven’t needed to clean upstairs because there is no debris to track up!”
It is LIFE CHANGING! We got a new dog that sheds everywhere and I was ready to lose my mind. Our loving and ever-so-hard-working Eufy has made the dog hair a non-issue. And now my mom and sisters have bought one!
“We had our house professionally cleaned, got a Eufy the next day, and have run him 3X a day for the last 3 days. Our house looks spotless and without a crumb, but somehow he comes up with a full dustbin every time! Game changer. Best money we have spent in a long time.”
And so ends this lovefest for an item we had literally sworn off almost a decade ago. Hooray for smarter robots that can clean your house but will hopefully never take over the world someday.
Oh and if you want to see some other ways we automate and simplify our home, these posts might interest you:
*This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Walking onto the plane carrying just a duffel and a purse for 7 days in two different areas of France (and a stop in Germany!) was my goal. And here I am standing at the airport, right after John dropped me off and took this shot. Yup. Just a purse and a duffel. I did it (with space to spare!).
And because I’m nothing if not a minimal wardrobe hype woman (more on that here), please allow me to sensually tip your head back and shout directly into your mouth: “knowing how to maximize your options without dragging your entire closet with you is a real actual life hack.” So read on to see how you can get the most out of packing this way (it was my first trip to Europe – so I definitely didn’t want to forget anything!). And if you already pack with a similar mindset (I certainly didn’t invent it)… welcome to the club 😉
Not only does packing light mean there’s nothing you have to check and worry about getting lost in transit, you also don’t usually have to gate-check a small duffel like this on a packed flight (those carry-on-sized rolling suitcases tend to get gate-checked a lot more when a flight is full, which means more waiting when you land).
Quick note: you can absolutely use this packing method & put your own spin on the looks, so please don’t think this is me telling you to pack these specific things. I’m just sharing what my brain does to get a whole lotta flexibility out of a relatively small number of pieces (all of which I wear – nothing goes into the suitcase and rides around the world & comes home unworn). This is more of an “intentional” packing approach than anything else.
Also, my outfit poses in the mirror are truly awful. Please laugh and then immediately erase them from your mind. It’s like I suddenly have no idea what to do with my hands. #somethingsneverchange
What I Did In France
For anyone who missed my Instagram Stories about my France trip last month, I went on a painting retreat with 14 women hosted by the amazing Jessi Raulet, an artist (also known as Ettavee) who lives in Strasbourg. She made this entire trip possible along with the amazingLiz Lidgett.
I paid for this trip just like everyone else (it wasn’t sponsored or anything) and there’s an archived story called France Trip under our IG profile. Scroll over to the right and it’ll be one of the circles under our bio that will get you all caught up on many things I enjoyed doing in Strasbourg, Baden-Baden, and Paris.
Shout out to Elsie Larson who agreed to come with me after I sent her a one-sentence pitch about why we should go, as well as to all of the other awesome women I met while I was there. Also, hat tip to my amazing husband who said “You have to do this. We will be fine. Go have the best time!” It was truly the trip of a lifetime & I came home feeling so inspired. Insert all the magical twinkle emojis here.
I feel like it makes sense to mention the range of things I was doing for those 7 days abroad – because it was quite the smattering. Here are just a few of them:
painting in a studio a bunch of times
a walking food-and-wine tour
touring a cathedral
soaking in pools & the sauna at a spa in Germany
an African dance class
an evening riverboat cruise
a bunch of mostly casual meals
one fancy meal at a Michelin five-star restaurant
miles of flea market hunting in Paris with Elsie
and so much more (including getting a few more tiny tattoos)
It’s safe to say that a whole lot of ground was covered, and I needed everything from the usual suspects (like casual everyday outfits along with a top layer like a jacket for warmth and comfortable shoes) to a bathing suit for the pools in Germany and workout clothes for the African dance class.
What I Packed
My duffel bag was brimming with options. Because again, my method of packing light isn’t about bringing nothing – it’s all about strategy. I had 3 pairs of shoes with me, 3 purses, 3 dresses, 2 pairs of jeans, and 3 jackets to choose from! Not to mention 5 tanks & a leopard sweater for layering options galore. My packing approach doesn’t mean giving anything up – it’s really just all about figuring out what pairs well with what *before* you leave (and identifying which bigger items to wear on the plane versus pack). A whopping 9 items in the infographic below weren’t in my duffel bag, which is why the rest of them easily fit. But more on that in a second.
Of course I also had underwear, socks, and PJs packed in my duffel – but those aren’t going to get an infographic. So let’s get to my first tip, which covers how I like to keep things organized.
Tip #1: Packing Cubes
As you can see below, I used four of these packing cubes that easily slipped into my duffel bag to keep myself organized and to group categories of clothing together. Yup, those packing cubes below are all of the clothes I packed for this entire weeklong trip – and they also contain two pairs of shoes! Here’s what was in each one:
Top left: a jean jacket, my green blazer, 3 dresses, and a pair of jeans
Top right: my comfiest stack heel sandals
Bottom right: 4 tanks, a leopard sweater, & a pair of Rothy’s flats
Note: those quantities don’t add up to the overall number of items I listed earlier because they don’t include the items I wore on my body while traveling too 😉 More on that in a sec.
I feel like packing cubes are hard to understand at first because they sound like this trendy unnecessary thing. I mean, we didn’t have them for decades and we all survived. But once I got them it was INCREDIBLY HELPFUL. I love that now I don’t have to dig through a whole duffel to find something at the bottom (pull out the packing cube with your PJs or socks, and there’s said thing – without anything else getting jostled around or unfolded). They also help me stay organized while I’m packing (this is where the tanks go, this keeps my socks together, etc).
Oh and for anyone wondering where my chargers, European plug converters, and even my two extra purses were (I brought a small black crossbody bag &a brown leather one too) – they were all in my large purse, along with my phone, wallet, passport, etc. It was nice to have a large black purse, a smaller brown crossbody one, and an even smaller black one (you can kinda see it in the photo below) for… once again… say it with me… a variety of options! They all basically paired with any outfit I brought. Three cheers for purse versatility!
There are not one but two photos of me in this outfit, and I’m sorry to say that you can’t see my black crossbody bag any better in this second one. But it’s this bag if you’re curious. I also wore it with jeans for many hours of walking through Paris flea markets. It’s always smart to have a small bag that zips in front of you in Paris so you can keep an eye on it 😉
Tip #2: Plan What Pairs Well
Ok, so now that I have my first tip (PACKING CUBES!) out of the way, I’m just going to show you how I plan for a trip before I go. Basically, I try on outfits and when I like something and want to bring it, I try to think of at least a few ways I can wear one or two of the items. For example, packing a jean jacket and a pair of sneakers for one outfit is a whole lotta bulk… but if you can wear both of them with a long comfy black dress…
… and then again with a different dresson another day – they feel like good staples that can come in handy a few times each, right? It’s worth noting that both of these outfits can also be worn with both of the other shoes I packed. So although I planned to wear sneakers with the long dress, as you can see in my picture above…
… I actually ended up wearing my stacked-heel sandals because it was warmer that day and I wanted my toes out. Ha! Also, how convenient is this giant mirror by the hotel elevator that I used to snap a few outfit pics for this post (as long as nobody was there – if they were… no pic for you 😉
I guess my point is that I’d never set out 7 different complete outfits on the bed for a weeklong trip and attempt to wrestle them all into a suitcase (and then shove in a few fancy things in case you have a nice dinner or need that special hat or something). I think that’s how people end up with heavy giant luggage they have to check (and lots of things they don’t end up wearing).
Instead, I like to think of layers and combo moves. Bringing three pairs of shoes (pointy flats + stacked heel sandals + sneakers) was SO VERSATILE. Same with having three different purses. And three different dresses. And two different blazers + a jean jacket that can be paired with 5 different colored tanks and a patterned sweater.
It just adds up to so many MORE outfits than seven, thanks to different pairing options that you can make on the fly (depending on things like how warm it is that day, what shoes your feet feel like wearing, etc). Let’s do some quick math:
The 3 dresses I packed, which could be paired with any of the 3 jackets I brought = 9 outfit options right there. And then any of the 3 shoe options I bought could be chosen, along with any of the 3 purses… which leads to SO MANY OPTIONS.
And the 6 tops I brought (5 colored tank tops + 1 leopard sweater), which could be paired with 3 different jackets = 18 more outfit options out of the gate. And then I got to choose any of my 3 different shoe options along with any of my 3 purses. THAT’S A LOT OF COMBO MOVES!
In simpler terms, if every day was a combination of choosing some tank/sweater/dress (of which I had 9) + a jacket pairing (of which I had 3), I had 27 different outfit pairings to choose from. Not to mention those 3 purse options & 3 shoe options to further customize things.
That’s what I mean when I say this way of packing is flexible! And it’s also what I mean when I say that being intentional and ensuring that your outfits can mix & match is so much better than bringing a jacket or a dress that doesn’t go with anything else – or even a pair of shoes that only work with one or two outfits instead of choosing things that working interchangeably with all of them.
I also have to acknowledge that someone who dresses more boldly can demonstrate this thesis even more clearly. Imagine one of the items being a floral dress, one of the tanks being checkered, one of the jackets being bright red. A super colorful shoe in the mix? It really can add up to so many different and fun options. Again, I’m just basic 😉
I should also mention that I’m not re-wearing anything dirty over & over again with this method. Different colored tanks under blazers & jackets (along with my leopard sweater) each typically get one wear (as do the dresses I packed – and socks & underwear of course). So if you notice I’m wearing a black tank in France as well as on the plane, it’s because I wore one and packed another one (along with a white, green, and taupe one). Tanks are awesome because they take up so little space.
It’s only the outer layers like my jean jacket and my blazers (I bought my green one and a classic black one) that can make multiple appearances with different things under them, earning me a bunch of different looks with those key pieces. Like so:
See what I mean? Different shoes & a different tank + a classic jacket or blazer is a good deviation for me. Again, someone could make this outfit look a lot more different with patterned tanks or a floral dress under the green jacket. Put your own spin on it for sure.
I’m also a person who doesn’t mind wearing jeans multiple times like the experts recommend, but do whatever works for you! Packing another pair of jeans (or two) would not make or break this approach. Honestly, I had so much room in my duffel that I came home with a pretty large painting I made while I was there, along with lots of treats for the kids.
I know those two photos in a row of my green blazer with different tanks & shoes might make you think… uh, those outfits still look pretty similar. It’s like Clark Kent putting on glasses. How could that fool anyone? The key is that I wouldn’t wear the same green jacket two days in a row – and when those outfits are among a mix of other things, they feel a lot less repetitive. So if you saw me in a different dress in between each of those photos and added in some outfits with the black blazer between them as well, you’d get more of the full picture. Picture a week of clothing that I’m mixing & matching looking more like this:
The thing I love about this method is that it’s flexible. Nothing is set in stone, so you have an easily pivot-able game plan with lots of options for deviation. For example, I ended up pairing the taupe top with my black blazer and leopard flats, not the sneakers. The key is that you can do things like change shoes on a dime if your feet want to – or bring a larger purse based on wanting more room to carry stuff that day. And you can do that because everything you brought works together (no long jeans that only work with a certain height of heel for example – or a specific dress that clashes with every jacket except one).
It’s really just about not looking at packing as: I have seven days, I need to stack up seven complete outfits in my suitcase – because that’s when it gets huge. I also think that planning outfits you like beforehand beats throwing everything you own in the suitcase “just in case” because you arrive at your destination with a thoughtfully considered plan. Every morning of this trip I got dressed in a few minutes. It wasn’t a panicked process in the hotel mirror trying to figure out what to wear. And I loved that for something as simple as “my feet will be happier in sneakers today” I had that option with every outfit.
Tip #3: Optimize Your Plane Outfit
Let’s revisit the outfit that I wore on the plane, because strategy #3 is: wear something comfy on the plane that includes a few of your larger items so you don’t have to pack them. When I’m traveling and I want to have boots and a winter coat, you bet your buns I wear them onto the plane. In this case, it was about 50-70 degrees while I was in France, so there was less pressure to get huge things onto my body, but in wearing the outfit below, I knew I didn’t need to find room in my bag for my sneakers, my black blazer, and this second pair of jeans. They all got to come with me on my body – and the blazer, sneakers, and jeans all got to reappear in other outfits – as well as the purse.
Like so…
And like this (picture me shouting REMIX!):
In short, a thoughtfully considered plane outfit = efficiency at its finest.
Sidenote: please do whatever works for you – like if you prefer a sweater on the plane, the leopard sweater I packed is about as big as my black blazer, so you could travel in that and pack the blazer. And please remember that using this method can look SO MUCH MORE VARIED if you don’t always wear basics and a whole lot of black. I just like what I like 😉
And if you remember me saying that 9 whole items on my infographic of what I brought to France didn’t end up in my duffel, those items are: my bracelet, my sunglasses, all 3 purses (2 were nested inside the biggest black one, but none were in the duffel) and of course the black blazer, sneakers, black tank, and second pair of jeans that were on my body weren’t in that duffel either 😉
Tip #4: Things Don’t Always Have To Be Combined
This might seem obvious to point out, but just because you can layer things doesn’t mean you have to. A sweater doesn’t have to be under a blazer, but it’s nice and flexible that way. I ended up wearing this outfit during the day…
… and then added a blazer for warmth during the evening riverboat cruise.
Same for this white tank. It was just that + an apron while painting in a workshop, but then around town I added the jacket & my brown purse again.
Tip #5: Analyze Your Trip When You Unpack
You’ll always learn something when you travel, so taking a second to reflect on what worked extra well and what you might change for next time is definitely worth those ten minutes while you load things into the washing machine. One thing I took away from this trip was that sometimes I just bring sneakers and a nicer heeled sandal or boot – but these Rothy’s that I’ve had for years were truly the MVPs of the trip, and they’re so small to pack. So my takeaway from this trip = you don’t have to choose between sneakers or comfy flats when the flats are so tiny and easy to pack! I’m always just going to throw them into my bag.
I also really liked having a large purse + two smaller bags with me to choose from – so because I now know they can nest into my larger purse so easily, I think those will be coming with me on a lot more trips as well!
Actually, those two realizations are a great example that packing light isn’t all about trying to just bring fewer and fewer items every time – it’s about trying to bring a nice mix of useful things that will give you lots of options and make you feel good. It can be extremely luxurious to have so many choices come out of one purse and one small duffel. Maybe we should call it the Mary Poppins approach 😉
P.S. If you’re at all intrigued about a minimal wardrobe and why I love mine so much, this post explains how you can simplify your closet & save money. Plus you’ll recognize a few pieces that came to France that I owned back in 2018 when I wrote that post!
*This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Today we’re talking about the stock market! Just kidding. Exactly as the title suggests, we’re going to show you how we earned some really useful extra storage in our new kitchen by upgrading a formerly VERY PACKED utility closet. It used to basically just have a water heater and an HVAC system in it without much room for anything else, and now there’s, say it with me… so much room for activities. Ok, not for like cartwheels, but significantly more room to store stuff than before. Like maybe 500% more. Really.
If you watched our drawer-by-drawer kitchen organization video, you already got a peek at what we have going on in there, but today we’re sharing all the angles, and explaining how we were able to take this closet from “mostly water heater” to “so much everything else.”
The Utility Closet Before
We don’t have a lot of “before” photos of this closet because it was absolutely nothing to write home about. In a smaller house like ours, you need a spot for the ugly stuff like the HVAC system and the water heater and this closet was it. The photo below was taken right after we moved in. The HVAC system is to the right of that doorframe (the black tubes lead to it) and although this closet is pretty deep (it goes all the way under the stairs), the water heater completely blocked more than half of the closet that continues to the left of the doorframe.
This is an example of an extremely random pile of stuff we stored in there on that random patch of floor space between the water heater and the HVAC system in our first few days of living here. I think it was mostly bins of Christmas stuff and miscellaneous items we hadn’t found a spot for yet. Don’t mind the (not real) chihuahua skeleton. Our Halloween stuff now lives in a fabric bin in the laundry closet with the easter eggs and our pumpkin carving tools. And all of our Christmas stuff is in one of the wardrobes in our bedroom. Our house’s organization had nowhere to go but up from the day we took this photo.
I already mentioned the most frustrating thing about this set-up, which is that the water heater was blocking A LOT of potential storage space under the stairs, rendering it totally inaccessible and unusable. And especially in a smaller house, it’s painful to know that there’s a big empty cavity of perfectly functional storage space THAT YOU CAN’T GET TO.
So that leads us to the first step in our mini makeover…
Step 1: Update (& Relocate) The Water Heater
In a move that can only be called the MVP of this project, we had that bulky electric water heater replaced with a more energy-efficient tankless model. We used tankless water heaters in our pink beach house and our duplex (see below), so we knew it would take up a lot less space and give us better access to the back of the closet if the switch could be made.
And – to our pleasant surprise! – we learned that tankless water heaters are typically installed on the OUTSIDE of homes around here (call us Florida novices). Thar she blows, mounted to the siding right outside of that closet on the back of our house where we put all the ugly stuff because nobody can really see it (it’s also where our pool equipment, gas meter, and generator live – all hidden behind a tall gate).
So not only had we earned a much more efficient water heater, we suddenly gained access to TONS of extra storage space that runs all the way under the stairs. Which, when you downsize, is basically your love language.
We did our best to take advantage of the new space, but it was kind of a slapdash approach for a while because we weren’t quite sure what would work best. We hung some wire shelves to wrangle tools and miscellaneous supplies & threw some larger items we wanted to store in that newly accessible area under the stairs, but it was clearly a chaotic vibe (and not the best way to store that stuff, we pretty quickly realized), hence having zero photos of it. This is actually an old video screenshot from a quick spin around the house that Sherry does for insurance purposes every time we leave on a trip because Shavonda says so. Note: the theory is if you’ve recently recorded every nook & cranny of your house, you have that to reference if something happens while you’re gone, and you can show your insurance carrier to make sure they reimburse you for all the items you lost (which you won’t forget, because you have it all on tape).
We lived with things like that for a while, knowing it wasn’t working flawlessly, but also trying not to rush into some other idea that also wouldn’t work well, and over time as the rest of the kitchen renovation started to come together, we had more clarity on how we wanted to use this bonus space. And let’s just say it didn’t involve shallow wire shelving.
But before we could bring in some better-looking storage, we had a few things in our way. Quite literally.
Step 2: Reroute The Pipes & Wires
The closet still had various wires, tubes, and pipes that prevented us from putting things where we wanted them. So we paid around $280 to get two pros to come out and move them for us. First our favorite HVAC guys rerouted the thick black tubing and white pipe for the HVAC system as far to the right side as possible (so they no longer arc out so widely into the closet). Note: never compromise your system by changing things with a handyman or DIY if you’re not sure how that system works. We always use a really good HVAC guy when we’re making HVAC changes because a comfortable house temp is key 😉
Later that same day we had our favorite plumber out to re-route the water lines that run out to our tankless water heater, so those water lines are no longer obstructing the back wall at all. We hid them behind the doorway so you can’t even see it from the kitchen anymore! See the blue and red water lines that run above the baseboards in the photo above? Now they sneakily snake behind the doorway (they’re those clear tubes you see in this photo below):
So with everything out of the way, we were finally able to get to the fun part…
Step 3: Customize A Cube Storage Shelf
Hold onto your butts, because this is where it starts to get even more exciting.
We upgraded from that shallow wire wall storage to a basic cube shelf organizer – and we made it look a little less-than-basic by adding 5″ brass furniture legs and topping it with a piece of butcher block counter that we cut to size and sealed with 2 coats of cutting board oil (it always dries a little lighter once it’s soaked in).
Since you can see 4 of the 8 cubes when the closet door is open, we used matching taupe fabric bins to make the things look tidier than they really are. Those bins hold SO MUCH STUFF. Absolutely thrilling.
We use one of them to store dog food & treats, another one has our steamer & vacuum attachments, one has random things like spray paint & caulk & our a caulk gun. Let’s just say it’s about 5X more pleasurable than trying to balance that stuff in shallow wire shelves (which never could hold our dog food anyway).
We left the other 4 cubes bin-less and open, and those also hold a smorgasbord of stuff like extra toilet paper, overflow beverages, emergency supplies, and even our Berkey water filter. A few people have asked what happened to it since it’s not out on our counter anymore, and the answer is that during the final stage of our kitchen reno, we finally ran a waterline to our fridge (which created filtered always-cold water on demand – plus ICE!). After over two years without one, having a cold water & ice dispenser has been awesome. The fridge also dispenses hot water for tea so it has basically changed our lives. If this were Cribs on MTV I would welcome you in and talk about my fridge for ten minutes.
Anyway, back to the Berkey. We had it assembled on the counter in the utility closet for a while, but we all tended to just use the fridge when we wanted a drink. But we love our Berkey so we’re keeping it in case we ever need a truly amazing water filter (it can literally make pond water potable!), like a hurricane or other emergency. We have one cube dedicated to hurricane supplies where it sits, which also holds a crank radio, a solar-powered charger, some flashlights, etc.
There’s additional space beyond the storage shelf for some random bigger stuff to sit on the floor. And yes, that’s a dehumidifier that you see running because, well, Florida. Since it sits between the intake vent and our HVAC unit, it actually helps dehumidify the whole house.
And as a reminder, this used to be the view from this angle. So yeah… big difference.
Step 4: Add A Floating Shelf
Honestly, the cube organizer turned out to be more-than-enough storage for us at the moment, but we had some extra butcher block after we made the counter and we thought it would be nice to add a shelf for even more vertical storage.
We created a simple shelf with the help of these metal shelf brackets that we spray-painted Rust-Oleum’s Sunlit Brass to match the feet that we added to the cube storage shelf below. We actually used the same paint on the metal legs on the cube shelf after realizing they were more of an orange brass, and now everything matches.
The shelf and the countertop do store some functional things, like mugs and extra cups, a pitcher Sherry uses to water her 438 plants, and a handheld vacuum that’s easy for the kids to use. But Sherry threw some decorative things in there too because, well, we now have room for that. This closet really went from feeling like a wasted underutilized space to giving off an almost-pantry or bonus-bar vibe that we appreciate so much.
So yeah, framed illustrations of your dog and pretty vases can live in a closet too. Live your best life.
Step 5: Cover The Ugly
We still had that extremely utilitarian-looking HVAC unit right next to the area we had just spruced up… but I had an idea.
We built a simple cover panel from a sheet of thin plywood that we trimmed around the edges with 1 x 2″ boards and painted the wall color (SW Pure White).
The whole thing hangs from some eye hooks that we screwed into a basic wooden closet rod that we added near the ceiling.
This means we can easily remove the panel whenever the HVAC unit needs to be serviced.
And, since the intake is on the bottom of the unit, it doesn’t block an inch of airflow, and we can easily change the filter without having to take it down.
The overall effect of adding that panel is surprisingly helpful. It feels MUCH less like a utility closet in here, but still has all the function.
Step 6: Take Advantage of Hidden Walls
Last but not least, we utilized the inside wall (opposite the cube shelf, to the left of the doorway) to wrangle some last remaining items: a dustpan, some cleaning wands, a fly swatter… you know, the really sexy stuff.
We also hung this 24″ under-cabinet light vertically along the door molding to give us some extra light in there. It just plugs into a normal outlet (we had that added when we removed the water heater since power had been run to that spot for the water heater) and it offers two brightness settings. Toggle the switch one way for 50% brightness, and toggle it the other way for 100%. This is just 50% below, so it’s PLENTY bright.
So that’s the story of how we took this unassuming utility closet that literally only had this much accessible floor space…
… and gave it quite the glow up.
As a P.S. – I know it looks incredibly shallow in there, but we can both easily stand fully within the closet, walk all the way to the back corner to get the storage items that we have back there, etc.
If it helps, here is Sherry standing inside:
Since that likely didn’t help because she’s 5’2″, I’ll repeat this picture for you, because you can see that I’m standing fully inside of the closet (see the doorframe in front of me) to remove that HVAC panel. Thrilling, right? I can fully stand in that spot without hitting my head, and both of us have to duck to get to the back of the closet since the ceiling dips down, but that’s par for the course for a closet under the stairs.
One last note about that black upright vacuum, since I know someone will ask. We broke our beloved Shark Navigator that you’ve heard us talk about approximately 42 times (it was our fault, not the vacuums’) and it was no longer sold at that moment we broke it, so we caved and got a Shark ION P50 – but don’t fall for it. The Shark Navigator is forever and always our favorite cordless vac (so glad it’s back and available again! Sherry wishes we had waited). I will admit that we rarely use a “real vacuum” now that Eufy has come into our lives, except mainly for doing the stairs (which we sometimes do with our handheld vacuumbecause we’re cool like that).
To read all about our kitchen renovation, this posthas you covered (including the cost). And if you’d like to see how our entire kitchen is organized, we throw open all the doors & drawersright here in this post.
*This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Some people are surprised to hear that we illuminate our entire pool area using nothing but solar LED landscape lights. As in: the sun provides free evening ambiance with zero effort on our part. Nothing has to be plugged in. Our electric bill feels zero impact from softly illuminating this entire area of our house. So today I wanted to share the 3 solar products we use in case you want to give your own outdoor space a literal glow-up.
Technically we have a porch light and in-pool lights too, all of which use traditional electricity, but we almost never turn them on. Honestly, they’re a little blinding and we like a soft glow that doesn’t block out our view of the stars. Instead, day-to-day (or night-to-night?) we just rely on our solar-powered LED lighting for that oh so charming come-hither glow.
I used to think solar-powered landscape lighting was a lackluster substitute for traditional, wired landscape lights (which, btw, we found very easy to install ourselves at our last house). But now we’re huge fans of solar lights, and I’ll tell you why.
Why We Love Using Solar Lights
One common reason for using solar lights is to avoid the wiring necessary for plug-in or electric-powered lights. And honestly, that’s one of the reasons we initially used them here – almost as a placeholder until we had time to install a more permanent lighting plan.
But since adding them, we’ve discovered there are TONS of pros to relying on solar lighting in your yard:
Easy to install: No wiring necessary! Just find a sunny spot for your solar panel.
Placement Flexibility: You’re not constrained by wires or proximity to a plug, put ’em anywhere!
Affordable: They’re not very expensive to buy and they’ll never add to your electric bill.
Set & Forget: They’re dust-to-dawn, so there are no switches or timers to worry about.
Eco-Friendly: Renewable resources FTW!
I even filmed this short little time-lapse video to show you how our pool area automatically transitions from day-to-night, without us having to do a darn thing!
Now, of course, the main drawback to solar lights is that they rely on sunshine, so they don’t glow as long on cloudy days – but generally they have surprised us by shining longer than we’d think they should on especially gloomy days (they might come on at dusk and shine until 11 or 12 instead of 3 or 4 like they do on a normal sunny day. Very occasionally if we’ve had a string of gloomy days they might only glow a tiny bit or not at all, but in those cases we always have that porch light and our in-pool light if we really need them.
Typically whenever we have friends over after dark, we hang around our firepit area or upper deck anyways, both of which are illuminated by plug-in LED outdoor string lights. So that pool ambiance you see in the video is mostly enjoyed by mom & dad in the hot tub, where it easily provides enough light to make sure nobody misses a step getting in, but not like a search-light level blast of light like a UFO is above us trying to beam us up.
The 3 Outdoor Solar LED Lights We Use
I’ll talk about each of these in a bit more detail, but for a quick rundown, here they are:
They all include the necessary solar panels, so you don’t need to buy any extra equipment. Everything is ready to go right out of the box. They are also all WARM WHITE, which helps them put off a pleasing glow, not a harsh fluorescent-colored light or anything too weirdly blue.
Solar-Powered Pathway Lights
Sherry has mentioned these solar pathway lights a ton on Instagram and I feel like they’re already building up quite a voracious following – and for good reason! So many of you have sent photos of them in your yards, and from seeing them in snow or other tropical places or just lining a front walkway in the suburbs or the city, they always look great. They’re attractive during the daytime and SO easy to install (just turn the switch in the cap on, stake them into the ground, and you’re done). The solar panel is built right onto the top of the light, and those starburst reflections shine down on the ground around them when they glow.
At dusk they automatically come on, casting a surprising amount of light that creates this cool pattern on the ground. Almost like rays of the sunshine beaming out onto your patio, path, driveway, or wherever. We’ve actually got them on all sides of our house – probably about 16 in total! We get asked if they work in the snow and colder climates and have definitely heard from people who have them and love them there – our only advice is don’t put them somewhere that gets zero sun – because, duh, they’re solar. So like under an awning that’s always shaded won’t work nearly as well as out in a garden, along a path leading to the door, etc.
I haven’t created an Excel spreadsheet to see how long they last every night to provide you with the mean, median, and mode (doesn’t that sound like something I’d do?) but the important part is that most of them are still on by the time we go to bed – so they’re functional for the time we need them to be functional. And I say “most” just because one or two of ours behind our pool wall don’t get as much sun thanks to the plants overhead, so they might fade a little faster.
Thankfully they collectively cast more than enough soft light for us to get around out there and soak up that ambient glow until around 11 or 12, we’re usually inside & sound asleep by then. There are definitely nights when Sherry’s randomly up at 3 or 4am for a glass of water or whatever and says she still sees them glowing softly out there after a sunny day.
Note: when you get them, turn them on under the cap. They have two brightness settings there as well, so you can experiment to see which one you like best. We have ours on the brightest setting and it’s still very soft and not harsh or in-your-face at all.
Solar-Powered Fairy Lights
Last summer we decided to give these solar fairy lights a try and I’m so glad we did. We didn’t really have a plan for them at first, but quickly decided to run them under the eave of our house and along our fence.
They too are easy to install. It just tacked in some small nails along the fence and wound the copper wire tightly around each nail. And instead of staking the solar panel into the ground, it literally just sits on top of the fence collecting all that beautiful free electricity from Mr. Sun. Can’t even see it from the ground (I’m standing up on a ladder for this shot).
One strand is 33 feet long, which worked out perfectly for us. We have two, and each strand starts on either side of the gate (which is how we were able to make sure the gate still swings open freely). So the one on the right side of the gate opening runs along the fence, while the one on the left of the gate opening runs the other direction across the house.
The solar panel on the other end of that strand that runs along the house just sits unceremoniously on the corner of our roof. You can’t really see this one from the ground much either from most angles, thanks to some greenery that obscures that corner and the inherent over-your-head factor (I’m up on a ladder to get this shot too).
You can see what I mean about the greenery in that corner that obscures the view of the solar pad on the roof here (it’s in that far left corner that you can’t see):
The LEDs don’t give off much heat, so a lot of people also use them more “organically” in bushes or other landscaping. They’d also be great for outdoor holiday decorations, like bunched up in a jack-o-lantern or as part of a Christmas display. Oh and if you’re hosting a disco dance party they also have various lighting modes – like flashing, twinkling, or fading in and out. We just use the solid “on” setting.
From certain angles it’s hard to see the ones under the house (thanks to the gutter) so it’s sort of like an under-cabinet glow that washes down the side of the house – and we often catch them in the pool reflection, like in the photo above. Actually, the reflection of these lights are one of my favorite things about them! Speaking of which…
Solar Patio Umbrella Lights
After the success of the fairy lights, I sought out some other places to add them. That’s when I came across these umbrella fairy lights specifically designed to go on the spokes of a patio umbrella.
Instead of a strand of lights that run in a straight line, these fairy lights are laid out almost like an octopus – with 8 shorter lengths of wire spidering off from a center ring. This makes it perfect for any umbrella with an 8-rib design, between 7ft – 10ft in length. We actually have this 11ft umbrella, so the lights don’t technically go to the ends, but you can see when you scroll up or watch the video it still looks really charming.
The kit comes with a bunch of small zip ties to hold the fairy lights in place on your umbrella. We also chose to wrap ours around the spokes too, because I found it required fewer zip ties (we just have one on each end) and holds the wires in place when we put the umbrella down and back up again.
The listing shows the solar panel mounted on the outer edge of the umbrella, but that made the umbrella lean a little to one side. So we just clip ours near the top of our umbrella instead – to that loose fabric around the top vent. The panel is literally like a giant chip clip, so you’ve got a lot of options for where you want to put it.
It doesn’t give off a giant amount of light (I wouldn’t be able to read a book by it, for example), but that’s not our goal here. We generally like enough light not to fall into the pool or hot tub and be able to see if we drop something but there isn’t “evening reading time” under the fairy lights. They just layer more glow into the backyard and reflect beautifully in the water of the pool.
Overall, we have found this assortment of solar-powered outdoor lights to be the perfect mix for us. We take evening hot tub dips a few nights a week (hot tubs are the best at night!), and we love that these lights offer a zero-effort, electricity-free way to make the backyard look cozy and inviting.
Oh, and one more thing, because it’s also solar. But it’s in a totally different area of our house:
BONUS: Solar Motion-Activated Flood Light
I’m switching gears a bit, I couldn’t tie up this post without mentionig the 4th type of solar light that we love: these motion-activated flood lights (a 2 pack is currently $30). They’re not really going to add any ambiance, but boy are they surprisingly bright for being solar-powered!
We put them in a couple of dark corners of our yard, including near our driveway to give us some extra light after dark if we’re getting out of the car and we’ve been really impressed by them. We’ve got ours mounted on trees and, since every part of the device pivots, you can adjust it to make sure it’s detecting motion where you want AND shining in the right direction. Again, they’re surprisingly bright!
So we hope this post encourages you to give some solar-powered lights a try somewhere in your yard or patio. And if you’re looking for some other outdoor updates you can do yourself, here are a few ideas:
Note: We get a lot of source questions, like “where did you get those lounge chairs by the pool?” or “what’s the link to that porch lamp?” so we created a spot with all that info (and our paint colors!). This page has any and all sources for things that are outside or inside our home.
*This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
It’s time once again to throw open every cabinet, drawer, and door to show you how we organized our kitchen, which we slowly renovated over the last two years (more on that slow but steady reno here). This post should be an especially fun one because you’ll see just how much we’ve improved upon the original organization of this kitchen, which we shared in this post almost two years ago. And, as usual, we made a video walk-through of the whole thing too, which also explains a few future plans involving two outdoor cabinets that we plan to add to the nearby kitchen porch. So yeah… lots to cover.
We’ll start with the video, because it’s truly the most comprehensive way to understand exactly what goes where in our new kitchen. Sherry also snuck some Penny footage in there for you, because she knows what you really come here to see. Plus you’ll get a sneak peek into our utility closet, which looks completely different than it used to when it just housed our HVAC system & a big water heater!
The last time we shared how we organized this small kitchen, it was September of 2020 and we’d only lived here for 3 months. We were excited about how functional we had made it in such a short period of time by working with what we had – and mostly were thrilled that we’d successfully downsized our belongings from our last kitchen and it actually worked for us. At this point in the pandemic we were cooking virtually every single meal at home and had two kids home full time doing at-home-learning… virtually every single meal we all ate was stored and prepared and consumed in this small kitchen. As a reminder, this is what it looked like at that time:
Slowly over the years, we added things like: a pantry cabinet, new (secondhand) appliances, updated cabinetry, backsplash tile to the ceiling on that back wall, etc – and as you saw in our kitchen reveal post, the kitchen now looks like this!
So let’s dive into the three major storage areas – the lower cabinets, the upper cabinets, and the pantry cabinets – to show you all of the organizational improvements we’ve made along the way. Disclaimer: the video is much more thorough than photos can ever be, plus it mentions those outdoor kitchen cabinets we ordered, and how we think things will shift a bit when they finally arrive – so watch that whenever you get a chance.
Organizing The Lower Cabinets
We actually LOST lower cabinet space as part of this renovation, which sounds like a downgrade on paper, but we gained an entire floor-to-ceiling pantry cabinet + four upper cabinets (3 along the back wall and 1 over the fridge). So it was for sure a huge gain in the long run. To jog your memory, these are the three skinny bottom cabinets that we took out:
We removed them to convert that window into a door so we’d have easy access to the porch out there, where we now have a grill and an outdoor table that we use SO OFTEN because they’re so convenient to have right off of the kitchen.
The kitchen porch is like a huge outdoor extension of our kitchen, which is pretty great to have in a place that’s warm almost year-round, so if you have a smaller kitchen with the option to create a little outdoor extension of it at your house, complete with an outdoor table and a grill (and maybe even an outdoor cabinet or two for storage of things like grill tools), we’d definitely recommend it.
This is the former storage space that we had before we added that door to the kitchen porch. The cabinets had such thick wood framing that it felt very choppy and inefficient. It was difficult to store anything wider than 12″ in there and it required a lot of bending or squatting down to see whatever you were retrieving from the back of the cabinet or that little half shelf on top. If you compare that to a pantry drawer or cabinet drawer, which pulls out and comes right to you without as much crouching, you can see why our updated kitchen has a lot more lower drawers than cabinet doors.
Those three drawers above our skinny previous cabinets also had that super thick framing, which stole a lot of room that otherwise could have been used to store things, and like all of the drawers in our old kitchen, they were shallow and narrow, which greatly limited what could be stored in them.
Here’s where things start looking up. By removing those three skinny cabinets and adding that door to the new kitchen porch…
… it allowed us to put a new 24″ base cabinet in what had previously been a totally dead corner. As you can see from this older photo below, the old cabinets didn’t have a lazy susan or some other fancy corner swing-out shelf like most modern kitchens do in that corner. The cabinets that were where the door is now literally just blocked access to anything that could have been stored in that corner.
So even though we lost about 40″ of old cabinetry, we gained 24″ right back the instant we put a nice big cabinet in that corner that used to be dead, blocked off space.
And since we’re big proponents of drawers instead of doors in your lower cabinets (so much easier to get things out! less bending! everybody wins!), this new 24″ base cabinet… which appears to have 3 drawers but actually has 4… is a WORKHORSE.
The top drawer is our “junk drawer” that we outfitted with two of Ikea’s bamboo storage trays (this and this) that fit perfectly. We had so much space in it that we added things like our car keys, the dog leash, and my wallet in there too since the drawer is right next to the door that we use most. It’s really handy for grabbing things you need before leaving, and it’s a nice clean look to have them tucked into a drawer instead of always collecting on the counter.
The next drawer down is our very important tool drawer. Yes, it’s weird, but we’ve always had a tool drawer (in every kitchen we’ve ever owned, throughout the past 16 years as homeowners) and it has become a habit we just can’t quit. We have some lesser-used tools stored in the hall closet, but it’s nice to have the stuff we use regularly down here so we can grab stuff to quickly hang a picture, measure something, tape something off, etc.
The bottom drawer is the deepest, which allowed us to add one of our favorite Ikea kitchen features: a hidden drawer! We can store ALL of our glass bakeware, containers for leftovers, and school lunch stuff in one place, which is more than I can say for the old drawers that were here.
We also added Ikea’s pegboard organizer to better wrangle all of our storage containers in our deep bottom drawer. It looks a little chaotic in this photo (if it came in white it would blend with the drawers a lot more), but it has been a big help. Things don’t rattle around in here, and there’s less digging for what you’re looking for. That open area on the back left is where the kids store their lunchboxes, but we took these photos back when they were in school… hence the lunchboxes being gone.
I know it sounds crazy, but this new 24″ cabinet has made us worlds happier than the old cabinets we removed ever did.
The Under Sink Cabinet
Ok, let’s move on to under the sink. As a reminder, this is what our old sink cabinet looked like. The big wood divider in the middle of the two doors was a little bit of a bummer, but we had pared down enough to make it work – especially with the help of those wire shelves on the doors.
The new cabinet is the same size (36″) but the big full-height doors make it easier to access things… so we’ve crammed more in there, I guess. Ha! I realize this is hardly Pinterest-worthy, but it’s real life. We always try to use the storage bins we have (even if they’re mismatched!) before spending money on something new, so that’s what you see going on in here. We also had stored a few things you don’t see in the photo above in our laundry closet before (like Sherry’s beloved Folex, our wood conditioning wax, the Lysol, etc), and now they all get to live down here in one spot.
That statement is true of a lot of random items actually. We definitely were just trying to find a spot for things three months into living here when we wrote that initial kitchen storage post – so some things just couldn’t be in the kitchen due to lack of room – so they were relegated to the laundry closet, the hall closet, or somewhere else. It’s VERY NICE to have things all in one spot again, so there’s not that whole “are the magic erasers under the sink…? No they’re in the hall closet!” thing.
Some things don’t change though – we’re still relying on lazy susans under the sink (we especially love this clear divided one) to access our everyday cleaning supplies. And we’ve used the same wire shelves we’ve had all this time to create two levels of storage that allow us to condense some things that had been in the laundry area/hall closet/etc. It makes the whole area really flexible for us.
The Cabinet With Our Utensils and Pots & Pans
To the right of the sink cabinet is where we store our flatware, pots, pans, and other baking dishes (brownie pan, cinnamon roll pan, etc) since it’s right next to the stove.
To make more room on the other side of the stove for a much more efficient cabinet than the one we had there before, this new cabinet became slightly smaller than the old one (only by an inch or two). But again, because the Ikea drawers are more efficiently designed without such thick wood framing that steals a lot of space, it works harder and allows us to store a lot more than before. The top drawer is for our utensils and we used another bamboo tray that Ikea makes (so it fits in there perfectly without wasted space) to keep all our utensils and serving spoons and stuff in place.
I know it looks incredibly weird that we have a drawer with just one single pan in it, but that’s really how our drawer looks. It’s the pan we use the most, and I figure if we ever need the drawer space for something else, we can just add it in there too, or we could keep that pan out on the stove. Always nice to have room to grow, right? And yes, it’s this pan (we had to see what the hype was about) and since I know some of you will ask for our review: we like it, it’s easy to clean, we like the color, we like that it’s non-toxic/green, and we use it basically every time we cook dinner, but since so many people sing its praises we figure you already have one too.
The bottom drawer has our deeper pots and saucepans (more than just one – ha! You can see all of these drawers better in the video, btw), plus we used another hidden drawer to store some of our metal baking pans for things like cinnamon rolls and brownies. It’s so nice not to have all of that stuff jumbled on top of itself in one big drawer.
As a quick reminder, this is what the old cabinet looked like here. We definitely made it work, but it involved a lot more bending since nothing was a pullout that came to you.
Now on to my favorite “transformation,” which we’ve gushed about before… because to know it is to love it.
The “Oil Drawer” Cabinet
We’ve shared this picture several times as a prime example of how inefficient the old cabinet was to the left of the stove. That cabinet was 7″ wide, but because of the bulky wood frame, the actual storage space in the drawer was only around 4″ wide. After some failed attempts at storing spatulas, spoons, and dishcloths in there – everything was too big or cluttered! – it became our infamous “oil drawer.” Because that’s all that fit.
Ikea has limited options for small cabinets, so we wondered if their 12″ two-tiered drawer could really make that much of a difference (that’s still a narrow cabinet, no matter how you slice it). But IT HAS BEEN AWESOME. The top shelf is deep enough that we can store a whole slew of oils, vinegars, cooking sprays, and small kitchen gadgets (can opener, peeler, citrus squeezer thing, etc) all STANDING UP.
A lot of this stuff had previously been stored in those three cabinets we removed for the new door on the other side of the room, so it has been great having it all in one spot instead of doing that thing where you open like 3 different drawers in search of something because similar things live in all 3 places.
And that’s just half of the good stuff going on with this new pullout cabinet, because we have that whole bottom section too!
The old cabinet was teeny tiny and couldn’t even be opened all the way due to the door molding. It was vertical so it looked like it would be good for baking sheets and cutting boards, but it was always kind of a hard-to-see clutterfest in there, and you usually had to squat down and take everything out just to get to one thing at the back of the stack.
Now we have all that stuff on the bottom shelf of this pull-out drawer, and we screwed in some of these metal partitions to keep things from rattling around and to keep them all from leaning against one another. So now we can reach in and grab the muffin tin or the cutting board without having to take out everything that was formerly blocking it. And now instead of fishing around in a dark narrow cabinet, it’s a pullout, so everything rolls out to greet us. Plus it’s all much easier to see because it’s not in a dark narrow cave of a cabinet.
We still store flat pans and skillets in the oven warming drawer. That’s a habit that will never die. And while we might not have a ton of kitchen gadgets (we don’t own a crockpot for example, because we had one for years & never used it) but we do have a huge skillet for pancakes (it’s hard to see but it’s the black speckled thing on the bottom of the stack below that’s almost as wide as this drawer). What can I say? I take my pancakes seriously.
One last thing that I pointed out in the video too, which might seem simple, but finding a nice knife block that you like to keep out on the counter can save you from having to store that stuff in a drawer, so even just making that switch can free up some more drawer space and make things feel less cramped.
Enough about these lower cabinets. Let’s look upward to the uppers.
Organizing The Upper Cabinets
The original kitchen had uppers when we bought the house, but we took them down when we had the soffit taken out as part of our initial renovations. So by the time we moved in, this kitchen was sans upper cabinets. Which isn’t actually a crime to us. We designed the entire pink house kitchen without them (and the two duplex kitchens just had hood cabinets over the stove & a cab over the fridge).
So for as long as we’ve lived in this house, until the final phase of our kitchen reno, we just had some incarnation of open shelves. We emphatically love open shelves in a kitchen (our last kitchen had them too, as well as the one before that!) but over time we decided that the glossy white shelves next to our kitchen table were plenty of good functional open storage for us, and we didn’t also need them all along that back wall of the kitchen anymore.
So as part of our final step of the kitchen reno, we decided to add upper cabinets – both for the overall look of the room (weirdly enough, the ceiling looks taller with the upper cabinets because they draw the eye all the way up) and bigger (maybe because the clutter is behind them and the fronts are so smooth and simple)?
The upper cabinet on the right of the room holds plates, mugs, and mixing bowls on the bottom two shelves. The top two shelves are more of Sherry’s decorative objects – fancier serving bowls, extra vases, etc. These decorative items had been in our bedroom cabinets on either side of the fireplace before this point (vases don’t feel that crazy in a bedroom cabinet – but it’s so nice to have them in the kitchen by the sink!). Plus moving them in here freed up more space in the bedroom for bedroom stuff… you know like our podcast microphone. Ha!
If you’re wondering where our bowls and drinking glasses are, those are on the (still remaining) open shelves next to our kitchen table. As I mentioned in the video, we own more glasses and bowls, the dishwasher was just full when we took these pics/made the video. We love storing glasses and bowls on that bottom shelf because they’re easier for the kids to reach when they make themselves a bowl of cereal or grab a glass of water. Maybe once they’re taller (which is happening quickly) we’ll move everything together to that upper cabinet, but for now this works well.
We’re still working on the organization of the upper cabinets on the left side of the room. The large cabinet primarily houses the hidden exhaust fan for our stove, but we’ve tucked some bins with extra spices, baking goods, and other miscellaneous stuff around it. The big black case on top contains our grill tools, which will eventually move outside once the two outdoor cabinets that we’ve ordered finally arrive. So that’ll free up some extra space for more bins of anything else we might need to store as time goes on.
There’s another, narrower cabinet next to this one (you can see it in the video) that holds our strainer, vitamins, and other miscellaneous baking & cooking stuff, along with Sherry’s coconut oil and apple cider vinegar stock (she is who she is). You can see it in the video if you want a peek.
We’ve ordered some additional shelves to make the most of that corner upper cabinet, so… get excited. Update: they came before we got this post up, so maybe Sherry can share a quick peek on Instagram Stories sometime.
The Pantry Cabinet
Our pantry cabinet is by far the biggest addition that we made to this room in terms of functional cabinet storage. The space simply didn’t exist in the prior incarnations of this kitchen and boy are we thrilled to have it.
Prior to having the pantry cabinets, we used the two Ikea Fjalkinge bookcases as our “pantry storage” on the opposite wall, which is where our fridge was at the time. All of our shelf-stable food was stored in the lower drawers. It wasn’t the most spacious or flexible solution, but it worked for us for many months.
Now those two bookcases live upstairs in our family room and we’ve earned a lot more food storage on the other side of the room, thanks to these new floor-to-ceiling Ikea cabinets that we built in around our fridge, which we moved over to that wall (more on that here).
The top half is all shelving and we’ve used various bins and trays to wrangle things. There’s a variety of pantry stuff in here, but the most notable thing is that the addition of the pantry has allowed us to grab a few extras of something that’s on sale (like cereal or nutella, you know the important stuff), because we have room to keep “backstock” food on the highest shelf. That top shelf is just “surplus” – so we look up there to refill whatever needs to be refilled down below where our kids can grab everything – and if we don’t have it up there, onto the shopping list it goes. We’ve also got things like paper towels, coolers, s’mores supplies, and even our microwave in the cabinet over the fridge.
Most of the action takes place below, in the three lower drawers. This is basically snack and dry food central in our household. Both of our kids prepare their own school lunches, so keeping these well stocked helps that happen easily and without fuss every weekday morning. It looks a little stuffed in this photo, but we had just gotten back from the grocery store. Maybe it makes up for only having four glass cups on the floating shelves with the rest in the dishwasher 😉
That pretty much covers all of the kitchen cabinets in our new kitchen. By creating better storage in here, it has also helped us fine-tune the storage and organization across the rest of our house. As another example, we no longer have to keep keys and the dog leash in the laundry closet because they’re right in that drawer by the side door which we now use every day (we park on that side of the house, so it’s a great route for walking in & out).
And as for our revamped utility closet in the kitchen (which is also SUCH AN UPGRADE), we’re hoping to write a whole post about that soon. It’s wild to think that there used to just be a big water heater right behind that door that blocked us from using almost all of the closet.
If you’d like to know the sources for anything in our kitchen, from the fruit bowl to the toaster or the runner and the pendant light (all the things!), they’re linked and listedright here in this post for you. Plus this page is something we put together to try to help you find the sources for everything in our entire house.
And if you want to dig deeper into some kitchen organization posts of the past (or if you just want to virtually snoop through our other kitchens), feel free to check these out:
*This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
