Posts Tagged With: Cleaning

Welcome back to my 20 Week Organization Challenge!  I’m on week seven (if you’re new, check out my mission, and feel free to join in)!

Earlier this week, a blogger-friend, Jenny, cleaned out one of her closets.  She invited an organized friend over to help her in her playroom.  She talked about how we can often become accustomed to clutter…

Our eyes become glazed over and it becomes more of an emotional issue for us than a practical issue. I totally was numbed out in the playroom – I couldn’t see the problems or potential solutions anymore.

I think that is SO true.  I feel like that a lot when I look in my bedroom closet.  Since our house was built in 1925, we have very limited storage space.  This closet is home to not only Rick’s and my clothes and shoes, but also some over-flow items from the bathroom, and a spare nightstand.  It wasn’t working, and every time I opened that closet and shoved all the clothes from one side to the other or had to root through toilet paper and cotton balls to find my shoes, I felt totally discouraged and couldn’t wait to just shut the door.  Here is the before picture:

The closet extends about six to eight inches to each side on the interior.  It’s small and not only are the two of us squashing all of our clothes in there, but all that extra stuff too.

To get it in order I decided just to pull everything out and start fresh.  Here’s a picture of that in progress.

Yeah.  So I sorted through that whole mess.  The big brown box got filled for the Goodwill, the nightstand got a temporary move (not sure where it’ll go yet, but it can’t stay here), and the rest was divided into the keepers and the “store it for the summer” pile. There was a lot in the storage pile since I can’t fit into half my clothes right now, being nearly 26 weeks pregnant.  We already had an under-bed storage box for this purpose which I also went through.  Here’s that…

Next, I did a quick dig through my three dresser drawers and sorted those clothes too.  Yay for a little breathing space.

For the bathroom over-flow items, I grabbed a basket from the basement (I knew there was a reason I had so many), and corralled the extra cotton balls and contact lens solution and whatever else in it.  I moved our winter duvet to the cedar chest in the other room where we keep the rest of the spare blankets, and now there’s room up there for a large pack of TP.  We’re almost out, so you’ll just have to picture it up there on the top shelf.

Here’s the completed project:

I was actually refreshed when I closed the closet door this time.  And I had to show it off to Rick before bed too.  I was surprised at all the stuff I saw coming out of this closet.  I can’t believe I had ever squeezed it all in there.  Did you tackle any big, discouraging spaces in your home this week?

This week I organized the kitchen glasses cupboard.  Unfortunately, this is a picture-less post since I never took a ‘before’ picture and my camera is not working for the ‘after’ shot.

This cupboard was the one that held our drinking glasses, the kids’ sippy cups, our travel coffee mugs, the regular coffee mugs and countless water bottles.  The water bottles were a MESS!  They took up a ton of space and a lot of them were no longer being used (the non-BPA free Nalgenes, for example).  So we took them out completely.  I lowered the top shelf making a bit more room up there for our aluminum bottles and travel mugs with all their lids.

Next I cleaned out any coffee mugs that I didn’t like using or looking at.  To the Goodwill they went!  And the center shelf is now left with just the mugs I love.

The bottom shelf was a lot easier.  We actually have a shortage of drinking glasses due to a lot of them being broken over the years without being replaced because I can’t find any I like.  So this shelf was mostly just improved by me taking out the sippy cup pieces that didn’t have matches.  But it’s all neat and organized in there now.  We can actually find what we’re looking for!

After all of that, I kind of expanded into cleaning out the coffee cabinet next-door to the glasses cabinet.  It was easy to do since there were a few coffee cups lurking in there (my favorites).  And since I moved them over with their friends where they belonged, space was freed up in there for all our teas.  So coffee and tea are now together.  The tea moved over from across the kitchen, near the stove and I was able to stash a few glass mixing bowls up there, giving me a head start on another item on the list, the lower kitchen appliance cabinet.  That cabinet is so bad and such a big project, that I didn’t dare tackle it this week, but at least I got a few bowls out of the way for when I do.

What did you organize this week?  Where and how do you store your coffee supplies?  Any tricks to share?

To see what I’ve done in the last five weeks, check out my other 20 Weeks posts!

For week number one of my 20 Weeks of Organizing Challenge, I thought I’d tackle our bathroom cabinet.  When I started making my list of 20 things, I went through my house and took a bunch of “before” pictures.  When I loaded them up and looked them over, the bathroom cabinet was one of the worst!  So it was first on the list.

YIKES!  That was our cabinet before.  You can see two storage thingies in there, but they are not doing their jobs.  And a whole lot of junk.

I do not get bonus points on this one, because I bought something to organize this space.  But it was on clearance for $8.  I bought a metal rack that has two compartments that slide out.  Here’s what the cabinet looks like now:

The rack on the left corralled all the bottles of peroxide and body wash on the bottom, along with the extra Q-tips and cotton balls.  The top holds stuff we use every day, like Rick’s razor and my makeup bag, sunscreen and deodorant.

On the right in the back is the plastic storage tub that was in there before.  I collected all the band-aids, gauze, and other random first aid items and put them in the box with the lid on.  We don’t use those things very often so I thought keeping the lid on would keep them all in one place and keep any random things that don’t belong from falling in.  I put the box length-wise in the back and it took up the back of the cabinet, butting up against the rack on the left, so nothing call fall in between the two.  I’ll set my hair dryer there.

On the right up front is all hair supplies.  I put my brushes in a little bucket so I won’t have to dig around for them.  The blue jar I was using in another part of the bathroom to hold hair ties and bobby pins. I very rarely curl my hair, but I don’t want to get rid of these tow curling irons (for the times I may want to use them).  I thought it best to put them with the hair stuff and to fill up that basket so I don’t just throw something else there instead of putting it where it belongs.

Lastly, in the middle in the front, between the rack on the left and the basket on the right are Rick’s clippers and hair cutting supplies in their case.  It fills the space there too, and it doesn’t get used often any more since Rick goes to a salon now.  But I do use it on the boys every few months.

Everything else was thrown away.  There was a lot.  I should have photographed that too, but I didn’t.  What did you organize this week?  Have you made your list yet?

To see what else I’ve organized, check out my other 20 Weeks posts!