It helps to have a handy husband :)

My husband likes to do everything himself. I don't know how many times I have heard: 'if I can do it why would I pay someone?' or 'I wouldn't have to do it...for a fee' or something similar. I think we really were made for each other :)

Most times this is a wonderful thing. Most times it is NOT. When he says he can do something in ten minutes or he only needs ten minutes I know to expect two hours or more :) I really do love this quality about him though; we've manged to paint 90% of our house ourselves, he's made me box valances, we installed a new kitchen floor together (I do NOT reccommend doing this one yourself-pay someone to do it!), I have all new hardware and fixtures in my bathrooms and kitchen and I have a BEAUTIFUL new wood railing and guardrails around my open staircase to the basement-the list is endless of the things he tries, researches and completes! My family is also greatful to have him...they've saved a bit of money as well because he knows what to do. When a toy stops working or breaks my nieces put it aside because "uncle Brad will look at it. Uncle Brad will know how to fix it". And, he usually does!

Because he likes to do everything himselfn he also owns every single tool known to man. No lie. And, he usually owns more than one of some. I don't know why. Yet, this is the man who asks me why I own so many black shoes.

For his birthday in 2009 I bought him a router and my parents bought him a set of router bits. He used birthday money from his parents to buy an even bigger set of bits. I've since learned my lesson and made some ground rules. If he wants a tool I need a list of at least FIVE things around the house he is going to use if for and if he does get it, no new tools will enter the house until THREE of those five things have been complete.

No new tools have entered our house since Birthday 2009 :)

This weekend, however, he managed to knock one project off the list. After always talking about making me shelves or something else for the house I REALLY stayed on his back for this project. I was FED.UP.

Thats one shelf in my pantry. More than half of it is spices and it is SO unorganized. I wanted a hanging spice rack for the inside of our pantry door. I never wanted a spice rack to sit on my counter nor did I like that you usually had to empty the container you bought them in to put them in the bottles for the spice rack. Ugh. I looked all around online for something that would work but all I found was some flimsy looking wire racks and the good ones I was finding that I liked cost near $100! For less than $30 my husband made me exactly what I wanted :)

This is my pantry shelf now. I actually have more space left over! As you might be able to see there are two jars of salsa and two jars of jelly. We don't do this. Usually we have one in the fridge open and one in the pantry as backup. The same goes for most of my spices. I have two or three OPEN jars of things. The reason for this overstock is probably because we could never find or organize things so we knew what we had. Not anymore!!!

 Because I have this!!!

You can't tell in the picture but there are pieces of plexi-glass over the front of each shelf. I love going into my pantry now ;)