Photo courtesy James Hopkins

This is the work of James Hopkins', who is a sculptor. I realize this is a piece of his art work, but it inspires me to go play around with my bookshelves to see what sort of subtle icons I could invoke…

ᔥ Laughing Squid

Notgeld (emergency currency) was issued by German cities, boroughs, even private companies while there was a shortage of official coins and bills. And it's so pretty. Shared by Iliazd. Used under Creative Commons license.

Dear 20-somethings,

Life is unexpected. Things happen every day that we don't expect to happen. A car accident on our route to work making us late for the day. A family member passing away. A car breaking down and needing a fix-up. Situations like this can be very stressful, especially when money is involved. We all know stress isn't good for us, yet we continually feel this way. One of the biggest causes of stress in life is money. But why should it be?

An emergency fund is simply a pool of money saved away usually in a savings account that can be easily accessed in case of an unexpected situation that requires it. The main reason that everyone should have one is in case of job loss, and with this recession still going on, you never know if your job is actually guaranteed.

However, an emergency fund can be used for many other things as well. It would be kind of silly to leave money in a savings account specifically for job loss, and then it never happens. I am personally slowly building mine up, and I've already had to dig into it once to replace my entire windshield after a massive crack went down the middle of it.

Our emergency fund is one of the things I'm proudest of. I'm in charge of our household's money, and I divert as much of it as possible into our savings.

Our fund isn't as big as I'd like it to be right now, and sometimes it's hard to put the money into savings rather than spending it on fun stuff. But our fund has, on SEVERAL occasions, saved my partner and I from giving up on our projects to work a McJob to pay for our lives. Our emergency fund — and forgoing some immediate, small fun in favor of planning for the future — has enabled us to keep control of our lives.

It's saved our butts when somebody stole part of our car. And when I lost my job. And when Scott lost his job. And it'll save our asses again!

If you're considering starting an emergency fund, Twenties Hacker has a rundown of the who what where when and why. My number one tip is this: automate your savings. Make saving money mindless and automatic and something you have to lift a finger to stop. We started our emergency fund with SmartyPig, but now we bank with a credit union which allows me to set up and manage automatic withdrawals. Currently $50 a week goes into savings. Every week. No matter what.

So I'm wondering about you! Do you have an emergency fund? If so, is it fully-funded (good for six months of bare-bones living)?

Lately, this is what I make myself as a "midnight snack" — really more like a 1:30 AM snack, or as I like to call it, "lunch." It's a simple dish that is quick to make and easily adaptable: hoisin bacon over rice.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup white rice
• 2 strips bacon
• greens of some sort: I used shelled edamame. I've also done frozen peas, frozen broccoli, and spinach
• hoisin sauce
• butter
• salt

TIME: 30 minutes if you need to cook rice. If you've got cooked rice in the fridge, 10 minutes.

1. Cook rice. I use a rice cooker, which is the superior method. I will pretend no other methods of cooking rice exist. I cook my rice with about a half tablespoon of butter.
2. Put bacon in frying pan. Heat the bacon to medium high heat, a 6/10.
3. Flip bacon when prudent.
4. Add greens. If adding frozen produce directly to the pan, use caution. Stir occasionally.
5. Salt bacon and green mix, continuing to stir until bacon is cooked and rice is done.
6. Top rice with bacon, greens, and hoisin sauce. If dish seems bland, add a little soy sauce to the bowl.
7. Feel energized. Conquer your day!

PROTIP: If you're feeling not-as-lazy-as-me, I highly recommend cutting the bacon into smaller bits before you put the dish together. However, I totally just gnaw on whole strips, like this:

How many of you are of the "only ever take one trip" school of thought of grocery unloading? You loop shopping bags over both arms, both shoulders, and maybe even somehow rig up a grocery-bag-backpack. No matter how heavy that load is, you will carry in all 28 grocery bags in one load!

If this is you, then you know why I'm so into the One Trip Grocery Bag Holder.

Photo courtesy Infmetry.

Usually I'm not so much about unitasking household tools, but this one is too brilliant to overlook. And it's $5.

One Trip Grocery Bag Holder ᔥ Technabob

The offbeat occupant: Beretta Fleur! Designer, writer, artist, domestic perfectionist, pinup model, frequent Offbeat Home contributor.

Other occupants: Husband, Dogs #1 and #2, and Moses Cat

Approximate square footage: 1000-2000 sq. feet

How many bedrooms? 2

Lives in: Los Angeles, California

Let's start with the neighborhood. What's it like where you live? It's a nice blend of ethnicities, lifestyles, and classes, which is typical of LA's urban sprawl. Most of the houses on our street are the same style, and there are many mature trees. It's very leafy and green and for being in a major city it has a very suburban feel.

What makes your home offbeat? Husband's style is The IT Crowd meets Han Solo and my style is pinup meets Anthropologie.

What's the most challenging about this space? How do you deal with the challenge? Not enough storage. We have a few closets, but the "Weird Sex Room" (so named because of the swanky in-room Rock Wall Tub) is the primary holding space for all of our sporting and camping equipment, suitcases that need to be unpacked when we travel, etc.

We have shelving, so it's "dealt with" in this way… but it's just a shame that we have to have open shelves in such an awesome space.

We wish there were about four more closets. We've even down-sized on our stuff over the past year, but both the previous tenant and the landlady concur that there's just not a lot of room.

What's your favorite feature of your home? Definitely the den and the yard. It's where the magic happens.

We can host people on cold days by the fire sipping whiskey, or in the summer with the hot tub and BBQ. Every day feels like vacation in our home.

We just love the bookshelves and glass cases back there. The exposed beams and wood paneling are amazing. The bar itself is perfect for informal dinners while we talk about our day.

The yard is so full of "spaces"… we can host dinners on the covered patio, lounge in the hot tub, or take our wine and a blanket to the back yard, which is strung with lights. On weekends, we garden, clean out the water feature, and prune the fruit trees. It's our little slice of heaven on Earth and a great way to relax from what for both of us is usually a pretty hectic work week.

What's the most important lesson you've learned from this home?

Some of the more interesting tile selections in our bathroom.

Our first year and a half together were spent living in a horrible neighborhood in a tiny apartment, saving money for our life together. We couldn't host people that whole time! We really needed this place. We had a wedding reception Save The Date, with no venue. But we just wanted to be together, so for a long time, we made it work.

We went on exhaustive searches with several rental agents and nothing was working out. Then, five months before we were scheduled to have our reception, this dropped into our lap.

We were very fortunate to have this place to call home for now, and every day we feel gratitude over our lovely, perfect Little Big House.

What advice do you have for other offbeat homies? Make the most of your home, keep it safe, and treat it well. It's your calm place, a reflection of you, and where you can truly be yourself — so revel in that.

Any stuff or services you want to recommend? As someone who LOVES to cook, I have an apron fetish … I just love all the ones Dot's Diner has on Etsy.

Show me the decor porn!
To see the slide show, head to Our lovely decade-spanning "Little Big House".

Since the cooking challenge we are FLUSH with Megan-simple recipes for cooking beginners. Try this out and let us know in the comments how it goes! Bonus points for video.

Photo by M. Janicki, used under Creative Commons license.

INGREDIENTS:

• baking dish
• foil
• fresh salmon
• jar of salsa (preferably with a citrus flavor like mango or peach)
• rice
• a veggie (I like glazed carrots with this, but broccoli works too)

DIRECTIONS

1. Pre-heat oven to 350.
2. Lay a piece of foil in the baking dish. It should be big enough to fold over the salmon, so at this point the ends are hanging out of the dish.
3. Place the salmon in the center of the foil. Sometimes the fresh stuff comes with skin, sometimes it doesn't - it depends on where you buy it. If it has skin, put is skin-side down on the foil.
4. Pour the jar of salsa all over the salmon.
5. Close the foil up like a little tent — fold the ends in, too. This means that everything will cook inside the foil and you barely have to clean your baking dish, yay!
6. Cook for about 20 minutes. It should be flaky when cooked through.

Serve over rice and eat with a veggie and you have a quick and easy meal — yum!

Photo via Lloyd's Blog. Used with permission.

Wayyy up in the north of Minnesota — 26 miles from Canada — is the Naniboujou Lodge, built in the 1920s to host rich white dudes' hunting parties.

The Shining-esque hotel and restaurant is still chugging along, and still has its AMAZING and original painted ceiling. It has never been repainted! It looks like it could have been designed yesterday…and WOW I suddenly want to paint almost-neon stripes on the ceiling of my front room. But would this work in a low-ceilinged space, or is that just a recipe for headaches?

See more photos of the Naniboujou Lodge here.

ᔥ Lloyd's Blog

Here's our family (minus the cats) in the bathroom mirror. We (plus three cats) live full time in an RV, traveling the country. Welcome to our home!

Like any owned space, our RV is a constant work-in-progress.

This is the first time in my adult life that I'm not renting my space, and it's thrilling to demolish and tinker to my heart's content. What I'm showing you today is a collection of pictures I took over last winter and early this spring — we've made no major overhauls so far but have big plans (including installing a washing machine and a kegerator, as well as painting the interior and retooling the dinette). For now, though, this is home, and I really love it. It's cozy and frankly, bigger than our shoebox in Toronto. How about that?

I always crave outdoor space, and I have a tendency to keep the awning out all the time — even when it's too windy.

Here's the dinette. I sometimes work at home, but I usually go to a coffeeshop for better internet and no baby distractions.

To me, living fulltime in an RV is no different than living in a city apartment. Vertical storage is super-necessary. We hang our hats above the slideout in the living area.

I loathe overhead lights. So I installed strings of lights on the slideout.

Here's the bedroom at night. Our son Kai loves the strings of lights at the head of the bed. We call them "the stars."

More stars:

The big cats have figured out how to open the screen door, so we only open the main door when one or both of us is supervising. Here's Axelle, doing some supervision of her own:

Many of our fellow RV-dwellers have dogs. Only one other person keeps cats, and it's pretty easy to see why: the litter box. We have three cats traveling with us, and we're struggling a bit with how to handle the excrement situation.

One of the best things about being in a new place every week is how the light changes. If we change latitude enough, it's totally noticeable (to a geography nerd like me, at least).

Built-in entertainment center. It's baseball season; time to order the satellite service! Sadly, our only real viable option for internet is a 4G hotspot wifi transmitter. Pretty decent service, but not sufficient for my usual consumption of baseball via online radio broadcasts.

Our kitchen! Notice the hanging rope baskets for produce and magnetized tins for spices.

We have a basic fifth-wheel model and have just one slideout (most newer and/or nicer RVs have three or more!) It's awesome for giving us some floor space.

Full-time RVing isn't for everyone, but we really love it and I think the lifestyle suits us long-term. Ben's job with the circus provides daycare and schooling for our little guy in addition to fuel reimbursements (a huge deal, as our fuel cost per month is more than was rent for our last few apartments in Toronto and Philadelphia). We have a few scattered possessions (mostly books and furniture) in storage at the moment, and I miss being able to use some of my prettier and heavier kitchen implements (like the Kitchen Aid mixer…there's no place for one of those in an RV). Additionally, a few of our more delicate items have already fared poorly due to our constant traveling, mostly the special beer glasses. *sob*

Thanks for touring our home! Can't wait to show you the improvements we make!

minimalist-house-3 © by hahatango, used under Creative Commons license.

What happens when a minimalist mom living in a small trendy downtown apartment meets a country boy packrat? Well, if it was a sitcom, hilarity would ensue. Reality? A little stressful. After the initial shock of overstuffed closets, clothes that dated back to high school, and a kitchen bar that doubled as a paperwork graveyard wore off, I vowed to get our family's things ship shape and charged full speed into the attack.
 
That didn't work.

Helping someone get organized who had lived on his own and on his own terms for quite some time was like trying to get a small child to eat vegetables… lots of digging in of heels. So how did I do it?

I started with the bar of paperwork

I had to come to grips with the fact that my new husband is a fan of paper and extremely visual.

He hasn't quite grasped the digital age so I needed to find solutions for paper: I bought letter trays and an inclined file organizer and set about clearing off the counter. He realized he could still see the paperwork, coupons, brochures etc., which gave him the security of everything at his fingertips and in view AND gave us back the counter — while alleviating my fear that we may be featured on that hoarder TV show.

Currently I am tackling more paperwork that has overrun the desk. A good old fashioned file cabinet should fit the bill. Soon a file cabinet is going to appear with everything neatly labeled. This will happen on his overnight shift with me working like a thief in the night or an organization fairy…only without a pink tutu.  

Next up was the mountain of clothes

Rather than chastising or poking fun, I simply pointed out that I normally donated our gently used stuff to a shelter nearby and was planning a trip soon. The subtle technique must have worked because before too long I had a pile of clothes to add to my donation bag. 

And then, the ongoing little things…

As we've gotten accustomed to each other, I've learned more about dealing with my new packrat.

1. We routinely go through paperwork and items that accumulate on counter tops, kitchen tables, coffee tables and side tables. Throw away anything that is not needed anymore and file the items that are.
2. Do a closet check every six months for donatable items. Good rule of thumb? If you haven't worn it in six months you probably aren't going to. When you buy something, donate something. Keeps the closet from getting out of control.
3. Photos laying around? Use an online service (I use Flickr) and upload them, pack them up and store them sealed. Or if you are really brave and really minimal you could throw them away. I had to go with the baby step version of storing them nicely in a tote. Bonus? Since they are stored online and in the cloud, they are easier to share. 
4. And speaking of photos, rather than having endless picture frames on the wall of kids' school pictures or artwork, you can purchase a digital picture frame and have a rotating gallery all in one frame. They will hold up much better than the paper version over time.

 
As with anything, dealing with your packrat is a work in progress and the path to organization is best tread lightly. But IT CAN BE DONE! With patience, some subtle technique, good ideas, good intentions, and love, you can have the more-minimalist home you are more comfortable in.
 
Now on to the garage.

Anyone living with packrats want to offer their tips for learning to compromise?

Homies, meet AidanT, stained glasser of your nerdy fantasies.

Image courtesy AidanT.

His DeviantArt account has photos of his geeky stained glass designs. The Star Trek emblem is TOTALLY my favorite, but if you're a nerd of a different flavor, he also reps the Tardis, Boba Fett…and several more homages to the Trek. Click through for more of his portfolio.

ᔥ Technabob