Organize the Kitchen? Why, yes, I think I will...

This will not be very interesting to anyone but me, but I do enjoy a good day of organization.  Any time I find myself feeling annoyed with the amount of space (or lack thereof) in our house, I try to think about how to reuse the space in better ways. If you need some organization inspiration, head over to I Heart Organizing . Check out her project gallery for some ideas...I love that website!

I made a list of all the areas in our house that I wanted to work on over the break and funnily enough, the kitchen did not make that list. However,  somehow I ended up spending a couple of hours cleaning and reorganizing our kitchen yesterday.

I always felt like we did not have enough cabinet space in our kitchen, but after snapping some pictures of the cabinets, it was easy to see that space was not the issue; they were just messy and disorganized.

This is one of the problems in our house, things start out organized but when we are in a hurry, we tend to just throw things wherever and over time, that clutters everything up.

We have a huge cabinet over our kitchen sink that was not being used well.  There was too much stuff in it and some items, like to-go coffee mugs, had to be crammed wherever I could find a space.

Before

Before

After

For this cabinet, I moved less used items to a different cabinet or to the highest shelf. Since we use tupperware everyday for lunches, I moved them from a slide out cabinet (picture below) in our pantry to this easy-access cabinet. Like! Before, our tupperware lids were taking over the world.  Now they are tucked inside a container inside the cabinet and are much more contained.

We have a huge, deep cabinet above our refrigerator.  I hardly ever go in it and it can be hard to access things in the back (I may need to invest in a foldable step stool).  Pretty much the only time I used this cabinet was to get out a vase every now and again. It was a huge waste not to be using this cabinet for storage in a more effective way. 

Before                                         

After

First I cleaned the cabinet out and then moved less used items to it, like baking pans and serving ware. This is a good cabinet for those bulky items that I don't use as often. It's not a very dramatic "after" shot, but it does reflect more thoughtful organizing in terms of what is stored there now!

We also have a large cabinet above the microwave that was in need of attention. Again, I took everything out of the cabinet and gave it a good scrub down.

Before

One of the problems with this cabinet was that I couldn't see everything easily. Because the cabinet is not at eye-level, it was often hard to see all the canned goods. Also, there was a hodgepodge of overflow tupperware in this cabinet and miscellaneous boxes of tea.

After

We have two cabinet shelves from IKEA that were not being used effectively before. Now, I moved them both to the top shelf to help display items that are very high up. Now that I can see everything, I won't be buying repeat items by mistake anymore!

The last cabinet that I reorganized was pretty atrocious.  People usually have a "junk drawer". This was the equivalent to a junk cabinet.   

This cabinet held some meds, lint rollers, some cleaning supplies, lunch boxes, and paper plates. And they were all out of control. This was the cabinet that you would open and hope that nothing fell out onto your head. 

Before

After

I pretty much got a whole empty shelf out of this one! I moved all the cleaning products to our cleaning caddy in the laundry room, so that freed up a lot of space. Garbage bags went under the sink. All plastic  cups, plates, and utensils went up together on the top shelf.  I can breathe again...

Reorganizing the kitchen cabinets was mostly about being more thoughtful about where things were placed. High-use items needed to go to more easily accessed cabinets. Lesser used items got moved to the storage shelves in the basement, a different cabinet, or the Goodwill pile.

Little changes like this make me so much happier to live in our house.  Have a happy Friday!

                                     

Take that, house!

The past couple of days I have been busy around the house. I decided to take on some of the projects that have been hanging over my head like a dark cloud...namely the treadmill room and the laundry room. These two areas were getting pretty outta control. I can't believe how much storage space we actually do have, now that we're using it well. So glad we whipped those spaces into shape...(I just tried to write a whip sound...but couldn't figure out how to spell it...think about it)!

First up, we have some before and afters of the treadmill room, otherwise known as my arch nemesis. The problem with this room is that I couldn't figure out what we needed it for. The desk isn't in there anymore, so it's not an office. It basically has the treadmill, our computer printer and shelves. To start, I sat down and thought about how we wanted the room to function.

Before:

After:

Before: The shelves were just holding unorganized stuff.

After: Organized! Boxes with labels in the middle. There are actually empty shelves left over. Yay.

Before: The computer printer + some grocery bags?

After: I added a space for mail that needs to be shredded or filed. Before, our shredder was across the room and not in a space that it could be plugged in all the time so we rarely used it. Now I'm hoping that easy access means we'll use it!

Before: Gil likes technology. There were boxes with tons of random cords that I didn't want to get rid of, but I also had no idea what to do with!

After: I found this cord organization idea on realsimple.com. Love that website!

I can't believe how bare the room looks now!

Next up...basement closet (that I never go in because I'm scared there are spiders in it).

Before: Stuff thrown in the bottom of the closet.

After: Floor space looks much better! I added shelves for more room on the side.

I put all our winter gear in tubs and found cute scrapbook paper to make labels. Not a huge difference, but makes me happy!

And last up, the laundry room.

Before: Where to start??

After: I bought a bunch of tubs from Target to corral all our stuff!

Before: Shelves were crammed...

After: Labeled containers make it easy to find everything!

It's amazing how much better I feel now that I've tackled those spaces! Thank you summer for time to do all of this!

Operation Organize Our House Has Begun!

Today I've been busy going through junk. Wow, we've held on to some things for no good reason. I actually found a grocery bag with unopened mail in it from the week we moved (in 2009, yikes). Good thing there wasn't anything important in there! I'm really going to choose to believe that we would've put things away like normal people had our basement not erupted a week after we moved into the house. Instead, we ended up shoving things into closets since we had to move all the basement furniture up to various rooms on the main floor.

However, as I've said in the past that excuse is no good now that I have a good chunk of time (ah, lovely summer) to actually organize/get rid of/donate our stuff.Today I found my wedding planner binder that my sister got for me (thanks sis!). I found various "inspiration" photos that I used to gather ideas. It was funny to see that I gathered a lot of photos with natural elements in them- our wedding turned out nothing like that.

Maybe I'll use this for a 10th anniversary wedding party??

I also found a folder with wedding receipts, contracts, and a calendar to keep it all straight. Take a look at the last week. So funny..."Married Life Begins"...if you can't make it out...that's an arrow pointing to "Eternity". That's right, Gil is not getting out of this one! I was so excited to get married (and still am so excited that we are married)!!

...I wonder, what other fun things I will find in our closets this week?

Focus

So remember how I was so excited for summer vacation so I could get lots of projects done around the house? Well, it turns out that in the summertime there are other things I'd rather be doing. Like sitting on the patio reading while Laila frolics in the sprinkler. Or giving myself a pedicure. Or going to Target.

The theme for this summer has been ADD so far. Seriously, I'll be folding laundry one minute, go upstairs to put clothes away and I'll notice the floor needs to be vacuumed, so I'll go downstairs for the vacuum and on the way down, I'll remember I didn't water the plants on the front porch yet...and so on. I've been getting sidetracked. I tried to get a paper done for class today and it took FOREVER, mostly because I kept getting up from the computer. I can't seem to get myself focused on a project long enough to finish it! I don't really know why that is, but I'm going to put my foot down and get some stuff done this week!

So here's a list of some of the things I WILL get done this week:

* Clean/Organize laundry room

* Buy shelves for master bath

* Organize treadmill room (sigh, I still don't know what to do with this room!)

* Pick out & order pictures for various empty frames

* Hang pictures in basement bathroom

* Finish writing paper

..Actually, that list doesn't look too bad. It seems worse when it's all floating around in my head.

Maybe it's the fact that I have so much free time lately that I don't feel pressured to get anything done, but that seems like a bad excuse! Summer will be over before I know it & I've been waiting all year long to have this time off!

I'll leave you with a picture of the newest addition to my fun red sideboard table. I found these fake flowers at Michael's and I love how they look here. This little space makes me happy every time I walk by!

In the top drawer, I added a little area for bill paying & general mail- checks, stamps, envelopes, thank you cards, mail opener, etc. since it's right next to the dining room table where I usually open the mail. It's also a good place for storing things that usually end up accumulating on the dining room table, like my ipod holder and headphones. I really don't like things on the table! Just an easy place to tuck things away!

Two Years With Our Little Bungalow...

Today is the 2 year anniversary of us becoming homeowners. While this is really awesome, it also makes me realize that there is no excuse for the amount of projects I have never gotten around to. At first the excuse was all of the basement issues and how that made it hard to properly move in. But two years later, I think it may be time to move on! Or get a new excuse. Just kidding. So I know I've said this already, but I am really going to use this summer to get our house organized and decorated. There are way too many rooms that I've bought wall decor for but just haven't put up. Like the living room, two of the bathrooms, the hallway leading to our bedroom, the guest bedroom, and a few other places. Seriously, we've neglected our walls! There's nothing like wall art and curtains to make a house feel finished, so that's what I'm going to do.

Here are some frames that I picked up at Pier 1 and Home Goods.

Is it weird that I love this "To the Beach" sign? Clearly, we do not have a beach near us, but it reminds me of summers spent in Grand Haven. Plus, it's just a fun sign.

My original thought for getting these frames was to do a wall in this fashion, but on a much smaller scale. However, since the space is not huge I don't know how/if I want to use all these frames together. I have to figure out what all I want in that space. I also want to add some unique objects that are not framed pictures or considered typical wall decor.

What are some fun things that you have used for art on your walls at home that have sentimental value or are not typically considered art?

Bed Bath & Beyond Fail

Day 1 of summer vacation means the start of operation get organized in our house! I have an ongoing Google doc of projects around the house that I want to work on. To get started, I headed over to Bed Bath & Beyond with a list of things that I needed.

One of the first items that I wanted to grab was a "Catch-All Valet"- a place for Gil to stick his wallet and odds and ends from his pockets. On clearance- awesome! Zero left- fail.

I did find this cute charging station for our phones which was only $2.99. Much needed. We currently charge our phones on top of the scale in our bathroom. True story.

Next I looked for shelf dividers to keep our closets organized. Couldn't find any- fail.

Then I picked out these super cute sheer panels for our living room. I was so sure they were the right length. Got them home and they're about an inch too short- measuring fail.

I was also pretty excited about this hair dryer holder for under the sink (doesn't take a lot to amuse me evidently) and it didn't fit under any of the cabinets- fail.

To round out that less than successful B B & B trip, I totally forgot to buy any kind of containers for the "mail station" that I want to make- fail. Yes, mail is one of the number one messes in our house.

By the way, did you know that there is a store called "The Container Store"? Unfortunately there aren't any in Michigan. I would love it there! I heard about that store on one of my new fave blogs "I Heart Organizing". If your heart races for new organization projects like mine does, you should check it out!

We live in a little bungalow...

so storage space is hard to come by. Yesterday I declared it "Organization Day" around here. I started by searching for some home organization articles online to get some ideas. I found this one to be helpful: 52 Home Organizing Tips. Then I made a list of all the little projects I wanted to do around the house and what I needed to buy. One of the areas that I focused on yesterday was our master bathroom. It's a super small space and doesn't have much storage, so I decided that I need to be more efficient with the space we do have.

I got rid of a lot of stuff- including bottles of products that were almost gone. We (I) have the bad habit of opening new things before the old stuff is totally gone. Then I bought two of these medicine cabinet organizers to make sure everything is accessible. I personally am highly irritated when I knock bottles over trying to reach for things in the back.

Don't you just love an organized cabinet?

I also took all of my makeup out of my bathroom drawer and transferred it to one of these plastic totes which I can pull out from under the sink.

That frees up a drawer for other things like my brush and perfume, which are always out on the counter. Really, we don't have any counter space to waste! So the bathroom is looking 10x better, is de-cluttered and I'm feeling pretty good about it. This morning Gil said, "You went a little OCD on the bathroom...all the cleaning products are facing the same way." Ha, I hadn't noticed but he's right.

Another area that I tackled yesterday was our sock drawers. Yes, I have an exciting life. These drawers were another area of irritation for me because they were so jammed full that it was a hassle to put laundry away. So I used more of the plastic totes from Target to make categories; work, casual, workout socks. It's the little things in life...

I also organized the spice cabinet in the kitchen because I could never see what we have and therefore was not using about 75% of the things in the cabinet. I bought a 3 tiered wire spice organizer, but the bottles keep tipping off because the wires are not level, so I'm going to return it and probably get this one instead.

I also tackled our "junk drawer" in the kitchen. It was hard to find anything and literally had a bunch of junk in it that we didn't need. I bought this junk drawer organizer and now it's so easy to find batteries!

Before:

After:

The last little projects were organizing Laila's supplies in the basement. Again, I used plastic totes from Target to store her grooming tools, treats, etc. Before this, her stuff was just kind of taking over the counter.

The next big project is going to be dealing with what used to be the office and is now a treadmill room. Yes, I have been putting this off for quite some time. Now that we don't have a desk in that room, we need to find another solution. I think we're going to get rid of our old desk and get something smaller that we can put in the basement. This is one possibility because it doesn't look too bulky and I like that it has a built in filing cabinet.

* This post can be filed under "Things I Do Instead of Writing Papers".