Cleverly used kitchen S-P-A-C-E

Posted on by
Reply

Cleverly used kitchen S-P-A-C-E

Living in a small S-P-A-C-E can be daunting as far as space utilization is concerned.
How can I make the best out of what I’ve already got??????

I like to cook and I like to entertain friends! Can you imagine preparing dinner in this tiny kitchen AND having fun? A NO-GO —- isn’t it? Rather go and visit your friends!
But that’s not the solution!

Living area with kitchenette

After a fun-filled brainstorming session, various trips to “Builders Warehouse” and lots of “muscle grease” it looks like this:

Comfortable kitchen S-P-A-C-E

The fridge is raised onto bricks which generated sufficient space for cleaning bucket and gas bottle. The S-P-A-C-E between fridge and wall now houses brooms, ironing board and my favoured tool box.
Wall mounted kitchen cabinets and a double shelve not only provide additional space but act also as a feature! The height of the shelves is determined by the height of the raised fridge. Now the weight of microwave and books is resting on the fridge.

S-P-A-C-E for tools of all sorts

Finally the cooking section! My mini-oven would have taken precious S-P-A-C-E if placed on the kitchen counter. Now it “lives” in this Oregon Pine cabinet in harmony with other necessary cooking equipment! 

Cooking center

It doesn’t take a lot of money to turn vertical empty S-P-A-C-E-S into real assets!

Space at arm lenght – literally!

Posted on by
1

My today’s token on S-P-A-C-E is very personal.

There are three highlight when I do house & dog sitting for friends:
– a hot bath on a cold and stormy Saturday evening (I don’t have a bath tub at home)
– lying in front of a blazing fire after the hot bath, with a good book and a good glass of red wine (don’t own a fire place either) and
– the daily walks with the dogs.

Truly creating my own comfortable S-P-A-C-E in somebody else’ home.

10 days ago everything was organized to enjoy my Saturday evening after I’d walked the dogs.
Suddenly a big cat appeared and changed my plans!

Jack Russell chasing the cat – cat unable to escape twice (fence too narrow & wall too high) – jumping on Jack Russell’s head and fighting for its life!
The cat was as big as the Jack Russell. I feared that the cat would kill the dog — and this was not even my own one!

Without further thoughts I wanted to pull the dog on his harness from underneath the cat.
The distressed cat obviously perceived my arm as another threat, let go of the dog and attacked me, biting viciously deep into my arm. When I lifted my arm, screaming, the cat still hung on it.

There is another wound close to my right knuckle.

A few hours at Vergelegen Medi Clinic, 7 stitches, a “shopping bag” of medication and everything seemed fine.
Gone were the plans for a relaxing evening. Gone with the cat……

It only seemed fine!

On Monday morning my arm looked like this:

Back to Vergelegen, another “add-on” of pills to the “shopping bag”, growing curiosity whether the medication works this time without having to undergo surgery, a good night sleep and the positive results showed the next morning already.

Today I am – nearly! – back in my own comfort space. The wounds have healed quite well. Business carries on.

Boer maak a plan — German’s sometime make their own — and the world goes topsy-turvy! 🙂

Will I walk the dogs again? Of course I will!

THANKS to all my friends who came to my aid — from driving me to the Clinic to feeding me to wiping away my tears. THANKS for being my friends!

10 tips to organise your office

Posted on by
1

Whether you’re working in an external office or from home you need to know where you find what’s on shelves, on your desk, on chairs, on the floor and on and on the list goes…..  🙂

How you structure your office depends entirely on your personality.

However these ten tips will help you to organize and navigate through your office:
1) Start by planning the end result. Create a mental image of how you want the S-P-A-C-E to look. Being organized isn’t about being neat – you need to be able to find things once you’re done.
2) Don’t change what is working. What works for you might not work for someone else, but why change a good thing?
3) Avoid procrastination. Many of us have a tendency to push papers around our desk.
Using the acronym FAT (file – action – toss), handle each piece of paper once only and decide immediately if it needs to be filed, whether you need to do something with it (pay or action) or whether it can be thrown away.
Papers that haven’t been tossed can go into a holding system: either in/out trays or a drawer sorting system that sits on your desk marked “filing” and “action”.
4) Sort through everything before deciding how you need to store it. We often rush off to buy new files and folders as soon as we decide that we want to get organized. Sort first, buy later.
5) Start with what you can see. Work your way from shelf to shelf in a room, before going from drawer to drawer.
Remember to take “baby steps”. If you manage only to do one shelf today, that’s fine. You are one step closer to the end goal.
6) Set a timer at 15 to 30 minute intervals (use your cell phone if you need a handy timer). Working “to the clock” will help you reach your goal more quickly.
7) Have a friend or organizer help you with your task. If it feels over whelming, that person can encourage you to keep going.
The organizer will devise a personalized plan for you, based on your personality, so that you can easily maintain the systems that have been implemented.
8) Decide on a delicious reward to enjoy when you’ve completed your organising project, or each section of the project.
9) Tell someone what you want to achiever. Ask that person, to check up on you at pre-determined periods. When we are accountable to others, we often perform more energetically.
10) Sit back and admire your work. Enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.

You will have freed some time by implementing a streamlined office system, so relax and indulge in a stress-free afternoon.
Credit goes to www.getorganised.co.za

Office space incorporated

Posted on by
Reply

The worldwide economy challenges have knocked on many of our doors resulting in questioning:
Do I really need this fancy office and related high costs?
Do clients visit my office or do I visit them?
How many of us have relocated our offices into our homes? Are you one of them?
Then there is the next question:
How much of my living area to I give up in order to create office space?
This is a VERY important question because that is where the comfort factor comes in for both your business and your living space!

One can compare it with the business world:
As an example — the smaller the production area (kitchen, storages, scullery and waste area) in a Restaurant, the bigger the seating area for customers to generate income.

The smaller your home office the bigger your comfort in the rest of your house! The more efficient the small office space is utilized the bigger your joy will be to work there!

As an example:
A guest bedroom can double up as an office. The S-P-A-C-E above a bed is always wasted – always!

Two shelves of 1.20m height build the base to set the bed on. A wooden plank has a triple function:
1. It prevents your guests from falling out of bed at night
2. It supports the step ladder
3. It holds the curtain rails

Collapsible and mobile desk units and chairs give you the freedom to work “outside” when necessary and move them back after hours.

When the curtains are drawn nobody can imagine where your home office is when they walk into this magnificently turned around guest room – a great multi-functional space!

Vertica space utilized beautifullyAmple of storage and working space

The challenges of gazing @ S-P-A-C-E — not into it!

Posted on by
1

Anais Nin once said: “We do not see things as they are; we see them as we are.”

We see things as we were taught and unless somebody shows us a different angle we most probably will miss it!
The best example for me is the following picture.
What do YOU see — the Old Lady or the Young Woman?

(Description at the end of today’s blog)

My ability to see where and how things can be improved is often perceived as a threat!

“There comes this German Lady and points out what I’ve done wrong…..”

It’s not about THAT! Not at all! I only look at things from a different angle and it has nothing to do with right or wrong!
The Lord has given all of us very different talents!
And “seeing S-P-A-C-E” is my own, very unique, God given talent for which I’m very grateful for!

Let me take you on an exciting journey and teach you how to see the “Young Woman”!

Reading the previous paragraph do you perceive me as a “liar”? 🙂 🙂 🙂

Now that I’ve given you the word you most probably will see the word. What else do you see? It stares into your “face”- doesn’t it? 🙂

On www.123opticalillusions.com you’ll find many more mind-boggling examples which open our minds and make us think.

Enjoy them and be open-minded when I come along to look at your S-P-A-C-E and have fun!

Description:
The Old Lady’s eye is the Young Woman’s ear. The beak of the Old Lady’s nose is the Young Woman’s profile. The Young Woman’s necklace is the Old Lady’s mouth.

S-P-A-C-E looked at from different angles

Posted on by
Reply

S-P-A-C-E as a noun:

  • An empty area
  • Outside Earth Atmosphere
  • A period of time
  • In writing / printing
  • Freedom
  • Where things exist / move

S-P-A-C-E as idioms:

  • Gaze into space
  • Evenly spaced plants

S-P-A-C-E as a phrase:

  • Spaced out

And then there is “spacious”, “spaciously” & “spaciousness”:
“White walls can give a feeling of spaciousness.”

My knack for playing around with words conjured up the following:
It is fun to make S-P-A-C-E within a wide open S-P-A-C-E — I’m not referring to “outer S-P-A-C-E”  — within a S-P-A-C-E of a few minutes.
Gazing at certain S-P-A-C-E-S where things are moving and focusing on what bothers you most, solutions just jump into my mind.
Sometimes they are already in your mind and I only facilitate their “emergence”!

ONE difference between South Africa and Germany

Posted on by
3

There are many differences between South Africa & Germany – THANKS the Lord, most of them are positive for SA!
As far as the correlation between population and land mass is concerned the difference is enormous! About 82 million people are living on 357 000 square km in Germany
whereas “only” 51million South Africans occupy nearly 4 times the size of Germany — we – YES in my heart I’m a South African! – live on 1.2 million square km.

That’s the reason why Germany is forced to use and utilize vertical S-P-A-C-E in the most efficient ways.

One positive aspect of the economic downturn is that South African business owners are becoming more and more aware of the costs per square meter in their offices, manufacturing plants, production areas and so forth.
With every horizontal square metre comes the same amount of vertical space – which is for free! Far too often this space is under utilized. Just imagine the S-P-A-C-E between your worktop and the ceiling…………….

Please be patient and bear with me with my “Germ-isch”! 10 years ago I hardly spoke English. THANKS