New DIY Home Tips & Happy Easter!
- Kathryn Bechen
.JPG/v1/fill/w_320,h_320/file.jpg)
- Apr 19
- 21 min read
Updated: May 2
Good day from our little Arizona retirement cottage!
Over the past several months my hubby Steve and I have been doing all kinds of little things to spruce up our home and simplify things to make it even more functional and streamlined as we age into the sunset. :) It's the little things that make the difference! Our home is always evolving and is our "couple DIY hobby" as well as our home. Married 45 years this year, and having moved together 15 times to various style homes all around the U.S., we have always done most of our own home spruce-ups, repairs, and decorating ourselves and we enjoy it!
Still Home Sweet Home? I try to be a positive person and writer, but I also don't live in my own la-la land bubble, so I now want to share this: In the U.S., "Home Sweet Home" is increasingly becoming "Home Sour Home" I'm afraid, especially for seniors, as many are challenged not only with housing costs in the U.S. today, but also housing availability. And since when does a "starter home" cost $1 million dollars?! I personally find that absurd and it pains me to my core for my younger fellow Americans.
Fortunately, there are some USA housing options without a $1 million price tag: Our home is a 748 SF manufactured home in a 55+ housing community with lots of nice amenities and clubs and the community is very well-kept. We feel living in our small home has been a critical piece of what has enabled us to also stay 100% debt free in four years of retirement so far, and that has also helped us keep our nest egg growing for our older older age, should we get there. Saving is important. But it is not always easy. We personally navigated corporate layoffs and chronic illness, to name a couple of life challenges. We planned and persevered too, in faith.
Should you want to check into this type of more affordable housing, here's a good resource site for homes all over the USA. Our particular home is from Cavco, a leading builder of manufactured and modular homes. Ours is their Canyon Villa model, but I have no idea if they still make this style. Also, some of these home communities are all ages vs. just 55+.
Incidentally, other countries have this kind of housing too. Search on You Tube for "manufactured homes" or "static caravans" or "tiny homes" and the name of the city and country, and you'll see some lovely ones.
Every day I thank God for my sweet little home and the husband I share it with.
"Home is the nicest word there is." --Laura Ingalls Wilder
If you need help with how to live well in a small home, here's my bestselling book on that topic.
Our orange tree was so prolific this year it produced a bumper crop! What a blessing of nutritious sweetness and that saved us grocery money too. It came with our house.
As was our lemon tree which also came with our house. I sliced and froze some lemons for future meals. I like to put them on top of fish when we bake it in the oven as it really adds zing. I also drop a slice in my smoothies or when I make salad dressing.
My kitchen window always gives me joy. We added the green shelves a couple of years ago and they have come in handy and I enjoy my plants and dishes every day this way. Here's how we did the shelves.
Our kitchen is small and humble, but modern and mighty too and lots of healthy homecooked meals come out of here. I keep it organized and clean on a daily basis and that is fun for me.
Yes, I know, I'm just a blast. :)
We have some future plans for updating our kitchen a bit, but not for now. Good homes evolve over time. And by doing things that way, your wallet will thank you.
"A good life with contentment is in itself a great wealth." --Saint Timothy
A reader commented how clean our kitchen is. Thank you. All I use to clean my entire kitchen, and whole house, is a spray bottle like this with water, a few drops of essential oils, 1/4 t. baking soda, a splash of vinegar, and one small squirt of dish soap. That cleans everything just fine and doesn't kill me with harsh chemicals. I use unscented dish soap like this and this as I am highly sensitive to fragrances, but essential oils don't bother me, so the lemon, lavender, and tea tree smells from those are nice. I usually use Eden's Garden oils and I like this one for cleaning. (On Black Friday they run great sales and they have a lovely blog that's very informative too.) You don't have to use oils at all though in my cleaning recipe, just to let you know.
This is what's on the outside of our kitchen window.
Shhhh, don't tell, but it's a fake plant. Tip: Those grow better in the desert. :)
I like to keep my fridge organized, just like a pantry. These storage bins with a handle have worked dandy for produce and I would buy them again.
Our fridge worked fine, but my back is getting older so we now have a new side-by-side as of yesterday and I can't wait to not have to bend so much nor use a tiny freezer. I get to organize my new freezer into bins! Oh, the anticipation! In a future post, I will show you what I did. Steve had to move our pantry last minute to get this beast into the house, but it went okay after that. He slept well last night!
My Ziploc bags were giving me a messy-conniption-fit, so ...
I found this bin with a lid but the all-white bored me, so ...
Steve put this pretty removeable wallpaper on top.
Perfecto!
He should have never done that, because now I want to line the entire cabinet to make a floral "statement cabinet." And guess who's gonna be asked to take that on?
He's grinning.
All our recipes I now have in these floral binders. Colorful, fun, and they work great! I use extra wide divider tabs for best results, and I put the recipes in these clear sleeves. Be sure to get the extra wide divider tabs! You will thank me. :)
I like to use trays around my home to corral things. It looks nice, and on my stove here, catches drips and is easy to wipe off. I also like this style of round spoon rest, and my new wooden utensils are pretty and super functional. I like the spurtles. I had never used them until I saw them on Kevin's dear "down-to-earth-elegance" at home YouTube channel. I think I am going to invite myself to Kevin's home for his lovely Easter Dinner! Well seriously, since he lives across the whole USA from me, and I don't know him personally to actually be invited to his home in real life, I'm making this wonderful one-pan salmon meal that this lovely You Tube lady just showed us. As a longtime Anglophile and cottage lover, I find her cozy-at-home in England channel dreamy.
This tray is from "Wally's Wonderland" and is really nice. I simply stick it quick in dish water and rinse to wash it, and then air dry it in my drainer. It has held up fine doing that. Similar tray
This pretty blue cottage-roses tray caught my eye and ...
it works great to corral my dishsoap, sponges, brushes, and oils etc. Easy to just wipe off.
BTW, these work great for dish soap and save you money too because you can measure out to use just one pump rather than a too-big-squirt from a dish soap bottle. I like this brush, this brush, and this brush to do my dishes. And this little diddy brush I just bought for water bottles works dandy on the lids.
The white scalloped cutting board was cute but just did not work well for me, so after awhile I donated it. This happens no matter how carefully you read reviews.
This one replaced it and is much better and I think it's real marble. Note: It's heavy!
Steve put these plastic feet on the bottom and that keeps it super sturdy from moving around when cutting.
Yay, Steve! You're a home prince!
Our dishwasher gave out five years ago during the pandemic and we elected not to replace it. I have not regretted it. I don't mind washing dishes by hand and in fact, I find joy in seeing my pretty floral dishes in the drainer. I told you I was fun. :) This drainer is dandy; I love the tray to catch water.
In place of the removed dishwasher we added a storage cart for our pans. And were able to move a container for kitchen linens that need washing, which we do every evening. Yes indeedy, I like sanitation, so I'm a handy gal to have around during say, a pandemic, and such.
BTW, you might notice that we have a garden/floral them going on in our home. A lot. That's purposeful. I have loved flowers since I was a little girl and my 4-H leader showed me her flower garden, as well as a childhood family friend who as a mother of five, loved spending her "free time" in her flower beds and pointing the different flowers out to me. Being allergic though to so many things as an adult, including some flowers, I long ago incorporated unscented florals into my home via paintings, pillows, bedding etc. as a workaround, and that's made me happy. Also, orchids are one flower I love as well as appreciate since they have no scent. There's an orchid show happening at the beautiful Desert Botanical Garden near where we live in case you'd like to go.
Oh, the elusive spice organizing projects that seem to never end! This is very functional and looks nice but I think for me, I personally prefer larger bottles or jars to store spices, and also simplifying how many types of spices I have on hand. Time will tell. Sometimes you try something but find it didn't work so well for you and it's okay to try again.
New mixing bowls were needed and these are nice.
The bowls are pretty on the open shelves. Double win.
Last year we removed the cabinet doors and I love it this way. More efficient and easy. Steve was not wild about the idea but he came around to my way of thinking and he now says it was the best thing we ever did in the kitchen! (If anyone can tell me why men are like this, and why they don't usually like painting over dark wood either, I will send you a free copy of the book Men Are From Mars!) Kidding. :)
I also love these floral ramekins and these trays for my Sunday Trays. Similar trays. I use ramekins for containing and organizing all kinds of things from food to rubber bands. Anything with little pieces. They work great in cabinets and drawers too. So that when you open your drawer it's like a little "pretty party" in there.
More flowers on my casserole dishes! Luckily, my hubby likes living in a "garden" too. I changed to covered casserole dishes this year to avoid the expense of aluminum foil and because I read that little pieces of foil can get into your food. No thank you. And yes, I read too much. I bought a deep dish and a not deep dish and I use both equally for different recipes.
I went back to glass food storage containers. These and these are great. We bought them in three sizes. I also like crocks for holding my cooking utensils. These even rotate! It's my "airplane cockpit" "at your fingertips" organizing m.o. again that I have mentioned to you many times before.
My hubby Steve and his latest "Tinker Toys" project. (Remember those, Boomers?!)
Actually he just told me it's more like his childhood erector set, which he loved.
This is why he does this assembly stuff in our home as his fun and I shop for goods and come up with ideas for him to do for me as my fun.
He always teases me: "You be the brains and I'll be the brawn."
Fine with me!
Perfect shelves for our bistro corner! Similar. As is this little shelf. Works great for storing my herbs and tea collection that is growing. My fave book on tea is this and this one too. And this and this are my favorite herb sites. My fave tea storage tins are these and these.
We finally bought a new dining table as the other one was just too small. This one above is the perfect size and nice-looking too, especially for the price. It's also light enough for me to move easily to sweep too. To us old-ish ladies, that's a big win.
I keep a water carafe on the dining table all the time. And I now like colorful tablecloths with an elastic edge so they stay on well. Just toss in the washer. No ironing needed. I realize some people think ironing is a fun art form. Me? I think it's work that never ends, and hot, so I don't do it, and instead just buy no-wrinkle goods, especially because you don't want to be ironing when you live in the desert as I do where it gets to 120 degrees in the shade in July!
Wrinkle-free fabrics, welcome to my home!
Our chair cushions needed more "cush" for the now-older "tush" so we found some outdoor ones that are really comfy.
We put our old smaller table out on the patio because we always try to repurpose to save money and not waste things nor overfill landfills. Plus, we kind of like to just move things around, admittedly. :) Yep, we're that kind of people. You won't find us drinking in a bar or gambling at a casino. You'll find us swooning over bolts in Home Depot or in the colorful paint section at Lowe's, or in the home decor or Garden Center at Walmart.
A little side table works great by the dining table, as does the wall hanger that holds our floral napkins.
Shhhhh, don't tell, but we have a food pantry in our small living room.
And I like it!
This helps save money enormously on sale groceries stockups, which is a prudent thing to do these days, as you all know by now. My fave place to save money on pantry stockups is Vitacost. You can stack coupons and use Rakuten rebates with it too. Sometimes I save 30 percent that way. Swoon!
Our pantry doors have plant decals on them to carry on with our garden theme. They have held up for years and I love them. Th floral painting is from our trip to Florida in 2016 which brings back fun memories. I like to decorate my home with things from our past travels.
Yes, I like my pantry super organized. I bet that surprises you. I used what I had for containers already and for now, that's good enough. I also like to wash these coconut oil containers out and reuse them for pantry goods. TIP: Put some white vinegar in with a squirt of dish soap and hot water. The vinegar cuts the oil right away. These are the perfect size and I cover the jar label with these labels.
My dear husband? He does not always put things in the right container when he puts groceries away in the pantry and he tends to stash little things in between. More Men Are From Mars? :) Just warning you if you try this with your family: Some people do not abide by labels, just to let you know. :) And speaking of labels, I handwrite most of mine now. Labeler tape looks nicer and cleaner, but labeler tape has become expensive and most of the time it's not something I want to spend my retirement dollars on when a pen will do, so I bought a Sharpie pen and write the labels myself. (My handwriting has improved too! And BTW, as a former English/language arts teacher I don't think schools should stop teaching cursive handwriting, even in the age of technology. Since you asked.) :)
Our pantry might be a future "better containers" project, but in spite of what social sites might lead you to believe, you will not go to heaven just for having an organized pantry, and redoing a pantry is a costly affair if you buy all new containers at once, plus a lot of shopping and schlepping and measuring, so it is not my priority at the moment. Age gives you perspective. :) And yes, plastic containers bug me for health and environmental reasons, but glass can be dangerous if your hands are weak and the containers are a large size, so I am kind of torn on the "container conundrum." Sometimes good enough is good enough if it's functional as is, and for me, this works fine for now.
And a word about decanting pantry food too. If you have a large walk-in pantry, it's easier to leave things in the boxes and bags and store them in baskets or clear bins and label the bins. If you have a small or tiny pantry like ours, you get more bang for your space buck by decanting and labeling the food containers. Don't torture yourself trying to decant 18 boxes of cereal! Please. Your kids can find their cereal just fine in boxes in baskets. When they see the Lucky Charms or Captain Crunch fairy on the box, they'll know. (Young moms, do they still make those?) If they are really young kids, they can't read your labels anyway!
Beautiful homekeepers around the world!
Speaking of organized pantries, I love how Lisa in Canada stores her food and I like her open kitchen shelving too. Check out her wonderful homemade authentic Italian meals, lovely yard, and cozy vintage-y home. She has a lot of life wisdom she shares too, including good ways to save money in the home. (Not to mention Lisa looks like the beautiful late actress Elizabeth Taylor!)
And look how Cardsu in Korea keeps her little kitchen and pantry organized. She's a master at small space living. And cooking. She is so clever in her homekeeping. I love her channel and her cute cats.
And then we have charming Kirsten & Joerg, two Germans in England who just remodeled their small kitchen and it's beyond adorable. Steve and I are of German descent and are Anglophiles too so we both love their channel where they tour cute cottages and inns in England and share all things German with cooking at home etc. Their DIY home is so lovely; just like them. I adore their snug and their blue attic too!
And speaking of cottages, don't forget to tour the 1700s historic cottage home of one of my favorite home and lifestyle authors, Alexandra Stoddard, with her gorgeous garden and home photos. Steve and I visited her home in 2006 in Connecticut and we had a wonderful time at one of her Happiness Weekends. (She no longer hosts those.) Her book Living a Beautiful Life was the first one I read of hers way back in the 1990s and is still my favorite book of hers. Now in her 80s, God bless this dear lady for all she has taught so many about the art of living well. Here's a picture of Steve and me at her cottage in 2006 ...
The darling family at French Vibes has a wonderful home and sweet lifestyle You Tube channel where they show how they are renovating their sweet little stone house perched atop a mountain in a tiny French village. Their cute young son Mattie helps Mom and Dad with all their home projects and he enjoys the charming places they visit around France. They just did a wonderful living room renovation and she has a nice cooking channel too. Talented family!
Live Like Liz is an interesting You Tube channel set in Bavaria, if I remember correctly. Liz bought a lovely home as a single woman and tells how she did so financially. She has an uncommon wisdom about money and life for someone so young, I think. Not to mention her melodious speaking voice alone will help you relax!
And if you love the idea of a Finnish sauna in your home (yes, please!), you'll love the You Tube channel Kavihuone8487. These young wife and husband are masters at what I would call "Beautiful & Quiet Minimalism" in their small apartment in Finland. The wife is an excellent cook who presents her very chic homecooked meals so beautifully, and sometimes she takes us along to darling Helsinki home shops and cafes too. Her new puppy Hiro is the icing on the cake of her sweet home channel!
And one last "master of home loveliness" is cute You Tuber Natalie in Florida. She has perfected the art of living well at home on Natalie's Home with her darling daughter Emma and her husband. I watch her channel to relax as I find it very meditative. No clutter! Now that I am a "seasoned lady" I especially like watching the young ones organize and decorate their homes on where else? You Tube.
The thing that stands out to me about these 'round the world home keepers is not only their love of home and family, but how well they live on whatever are the particular means they have. All different lifestyles and locales and budgets, but all beautiful in my eyes.
Isn't it amazing that we can find kindred spirits through You Tube? ! But BTW, if the loud ads on You Tube drive you nutty like the do me, we bought their Premium monthly ad-blocking thing and now I have a peaceful way to watch You Tube. Hallelujah! I don't usually like subscriptions but this one was worth every penny to me.
Back to our home: The Assembly King strikes again!
His name is Hubby Steve and ...
He put this "double duty" cabinet together for me and I really like it. (For double duty meaning, see below.) Similar cabinet
We use a Berkey Travel Water Filter and an ice machine like this and this cabinet works great as a beverage center. I saw this cute Hydration Station sign on Amazon so I might consider that later. Also, I love our small electric tea kettle for hot water and our fave instant coffee.
Our canvas painting reminds us of when we used to try cute bistros in Southern California when we lived there years ago, so I had to have it to bring back more good memories. Similar
The "double duty" cabinet: Steve uses the inside for some of his tools so he doesn't have to go out to the shed when I ask him at say, midnight, to fix something please.
Patient man, my husband. Married 45 years this summer, so maybe I'm not that bad. :)
The cabinet color and style went with our sofa so it all turned out well in the end.
Whenever we update our home, some decluttering is in order even though we are what I call "perpetual declutterers." In other words, we don't like things to pile up too much. We went through our older photo albums this time, and also some office files from the past. We considered scanning our photos but decided to keep the albums.
Done.
Next to paint, my favorite dollarwise way to update your home is pillow covers and throws. Inexpensive and easy. (And no ironing!) I put a new floral throw on the seat of our sofa (above) and it's almost as good as having it recovered and certainly less costly. There are many throws to choose from. And nobody had to find an upholsterer and arrange for them to pick up the sofa and return it later. Less stress. Saves time.
I have always liked simpler!
Paint is my very favorite way to update our home on a dollarwise budget if I have not mentioned that already. It just changes everything so nicely. As a highly allergic person, Ecos Paints is my favorite non-toxic brand that I feel are totally worth the price.
Steve likes painting, so I let him do it!
Ta da! My world headquarters for brainstorming and planning is my home office corner in our Master Bedroom. I am there a lot. We used Ecos Paints for my desk.
Some people are a glutton for assembly punishment, aren't they?
Steve put together two white towers for beside my desk so now my few books I still keep on hand that are not eBooks have a better home.
We have always decorated our own Master Bedroom like a bed & breakfast inn. We came up with this idea when we stayed at our first charming inn in San Francisco in the late 1980s. Why not do this at home, we thought! So we did. And I wrote this article about it.
That first inn stay in San Fran turned into what I later dubbed our "magnificent obsession" of 69 inn stays in 17 U.S. states. Once we hit 70 inns, I think it's time to call that hobby quits. :) List of inns we've stayed in
Here we were at ages 27 and 28 in front of our first inn stay.
Back to our home ...
Beside our bed, I added one of these. The pockets work great for sorting and reaching things in the night. Like my phone and reader glasses in case of emergency, etc. I would have preferred pink or white, but you learn at some point that you just can't have everything you want in life. :) (Plus, where would you put it?!)
And sometimes you just have to wait to touchup paint the wall too until you get around to it.
Oh well, we'll live.
"Wisdom is sanctified common sense." -- Joyce Meyer
I love these little shelves on both our nightstands. Always go vertical to maximize your space is my motto. If I had to do it again, I'd buy this one because I think it's vintage-y, like me. :)
My paintings make me smile when I lie in bed. Cozy, charming, comfy. Amazon has great tea paintings and signs.
That small wall I want to paint an accent color.
Some day.
Okay, as a self-proclaimed Efficiency Queen, something had to be redone in our bathroom. I use this bathroom exclusively and Steve prefers his own in his den, so this was all my brainy idea. I stacked a bunch of these so everything would be right at my fingertips for my toiletries and hair. Like an airplane cockpit as I have said before. I'm in heaven; it's the best thing I have tried in there! I have streamlined my beauty routine down to just a few things, so even if this looks like a lot, it's not. I also am really enjoying these little pump bottles like this and this to add a bit of elegance to my little lifestyle.
Yes, I like simple, but I also like pretty.
For those of you who like to snoop in other people's toiletry and medicine cupboards, here you go! (I always thought that was a weird thing to do, but human nature being what it is, not surprising, really.) :) I used these new bins with handles to re-organize our goods in the bathroom, plus some bins here that were once in our fridge! Did I mention I like to repurpose to save money and time? A container is a container is my motto. As long as it's clean and not cracked, it can be used again. Somewhere. Our landfills are groaning; let's stop that! The closet door here was long ago removed and a curtain hung for ease of access. The door swung a weird way so I had Steve take the door down. It's okay to customize your house to you.
I thought you should know:
Turkish beach towels are wonderful once you get used to not "needing" thick luxury hotel-esque towels that take 13 days to dry in places like Florida where there's high humidity, or say one day only to dry in "it's a dry heat" Arizona, as the locals like to quip. Go with Turkish beach towels, my friends! They are better for travel too. Trust me, they DO dry in Arizona in about an hour. Even if they are folded.
Side note: If you live in Arizona, you know how all things dry out fast. Including you, so be sure if you are thinking of moving here to buy stock in your favorite hand lotion as well as a large water bottle. My fave lotion and one of my fave water bottles. And your plastic storage bins in a shed or garage will crack sooner than later. When we were planning to move here and I read things like this I thought, "Oh, the desert drama." Nope. It's true!
Towel tip: Choose one color for each member of the family, buy two towels per family member, and teach them how to launder their own. A five year old can learn this!
During the pandemic, we bought a bidet. One with pretty rose gold controls. I love it.
Enough detail on that topic except to say, you save a lot of money on TP, and a girl's gotta have a little practical luxury in her life, right?! Similar model
A new touch was freshening up our side step flower pot. I have had the vase for years; I bought it at the La Jolla CA Goodwill. That's a great little store if it's still there.
The green table is metal. If you have an old metal table or chair, just sand it a little and spray it with Rustoleum paint and you'll be right uptown for pennies. Red is fun!
We decorated our patio three years ago and it has held up really well. The steps though now needed some paint as the white part was dirty and washing it was not enough. I came up with the solution to buy brown paint the color of the steps so you'll never have to paint them again since they won't show dirt.
That sounded good to Steve when I said you'll never have to do it again, so he took a piece of board from the step to Home Depot to match the paint color and ...
It worked great!
Our carport turned Secret Garden has been a hit with everyone who has been in there. Including two young notary guys who said, "Oh wow, a glass of wine, some jazz, and just WOW!"
I laughed that two young guys would find our Secret Garden so fun. And another notary the other day loved the Secret Garden sign. She was young too. Perhaps we inspired them to create their own Secret Garden?
It makes me smile to bring joy to others through my home.
This step coverup was just curtains. But three years in, alas, the desert heat meant they could use replacing. I will show you what Steve did with that in a future post.
This is the garden sign the young notary girl liked. It's always the little things in a home that make it personalized and fun.
A good place to relax, for sure.
I hope you enjoyed our home spruce-ups and found some tips and links perhaps for your own home.
A very blessed upcoming Easter to you and yours. Christ is risen!
Sharing a favorite book here from my childhood, Faith Is, given to me by a Sunday School teacher in the 1970s. Thank you, Lola; I still remember your sunny smile and kind spirit, all these years later! This spiral edition is really pretty, especially as a gift.
Speaking of books/eBooks, the DIY books I have written will help you with your home.
Kathryn :)
P.S. If you have questions or comments on this post, please send them to me here.
