Day 19: Master Closet

Since our bedroom is a loft, the closet is really limited on space and head room.

I took out every article of clothing and tried on over half my clothes to filter out what I really wouldn't wear.  2 bins of yard sale items later...

BEFORE AND AFTERS SIDE BY SIDE:

Entrance of the closet.  The shoe shelves were under the racks of clothes.  I moved them out to form a "wall" around the outer corners of the closet and there's ton more floor space now.

 

 Top corner of 2 of the clothes rack.  Still like my boots up there and bed sheets on the lower rack.  Just the clothes are reorganized.

Here's the corner that was open to the unfinished "attic" crevices of our loft.  This is what 51 pairs of shoes looks like organized (63 if you count the boots on the top shelves!)

My 3rd lower rack of clothes.  Just color coordinated now and cleaned up on the top.





Day 18: Keepsakes

What's a keepsake?  A selection of those "goodies" your kid brings home from school.  Whether it's a report card, test or something they made in art.

This little box looks pretty on the shelf (it has a lid) and will store all the "keep worthy" keepsakes that Alan may bring home in the next 14 years...

Each tab says daycare, pre-k, kinder, 1, 2, etc etc.  All the way to 12th grade.

This will be fun to go through every once in awhile when he's older.

In each file is also a "coversheet" like this that has his teacher's name, the year, the school and a school portrait space.  This is the coversheet for Alan's 1-Year Toddler class at his daycare.

The labels and coversheets I found online, the files I already had and the box I spent $10 on at Office Depot.  Not bad to store years and years of memories!



Day 17: Mail

I always thought my old way of organizing bills was great:

Don't be fooled, this thing gets pretty full!  I also don't like how messy it can look, so it's in my desk cabinet taking up a lot of space.  Another flaw: it's only for bills or papers that have a due date.

After seeing the Bowl Full of Lemons' "Mail Command Center", I was sold.

So here's what I made:

I'll just call it our "Mail Center".  No "command" involved. :)  Our calendar is clipped to the front and soon I'll have a different highlighter color for Me, Erik, Alan and Whole Family to color code calendar events.

Tabs on the files are:

• Incoming (unsorted mail)
• Outgoing (for the mailbox)
• To Pay (bills)
• To File (paid, done with)
• Sign & Return (like those school forms)
• Erik (his stuff I don't know what to do with)
• Renyel
• Alan
• Dex (I'm thinking vet stuff)
• Grocery List & Coupons (I use this for current grocery ads too!)

So pretty much the purpose of this was to have a fast way to get ANY stack of paper off the desk or counter.  There is a file here for ANYTHING!  It's also more attractive and now I can take that bill box out of my cabinet and make room to organize the space (later)!



Day 16: Fridge

I was so eager I guess I fogot to snap a "before" shot.  But our fridge was PACKED.  So much that it was a balancing act everytime you put something in or took something out.

When I realized I hadn't taken a pic yet, stuff was all over the kitchen:

There was still more we had already thrown away too.

I took out all the drawers and the door units.  Erik helped by washing all of those while I scrubbed the inside down with my new citrus/vinegar cleaner.

AFTER:

Everything has a space now and nothing balancing on top of anything else.  No more toes dodging pickle jars!

I also got the garden squash, broccoli and cauliflower all chopped and bagged so it's ready to cook!

Now I really should finish that bottle of wine in there and help clean it out a little bit more...



Day 15: Medicine Storage

I store all our meds in the closet I already cleaned out on Day 8 of this challenge so this was already done!

BEFORE:

Here's the pic of the closet but you can see our meds in that bottom slide-out drawer.  Everything was thrown into the one drawer and the bigger bottles were just placed around it, wherever they would fit.

We could never find anything in here without a sever amound of digging.

AFTER:

Drawers are labeled Sinus & Flu, Other Med, and 1st Aid (also includes children meds).

Big bottles fit on the top. 

Inside of the 1st Aid/Childrens drawer.  Bandaids have a special basket now so no more half-full boxes in the way!



Day 14: Under Bathroom Sink

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Now that I have my citrus enzyme, I don't need the toilet cleaner or Draino.  I never used the Tilex, so I took it out of there too.  I left just the scrubbing bubbles because I'll use what I have left of that.

With that little shelf added, I was able to fit 2 pull-out baskets.  One has Erik's extra deodarant, etc (from the linen cabinet) and the other has bath stuff for Alan and the dog.  I also like the little basket for cleaning toothbrushes, scrubber and my homemade soft scrub. 



Day 13: Medicine Cabinet

Not sure why they call the shelves above your sink a medicine cabinet anymore.  Beside a few "need to grab now" bottles of headache meds and tums, households usually have more meds than what would fit in this little space.

Anyways,

BEFORE:

AFTER:

 Love the little baskets from dollar store.  I can pull down the whole thing to dig out my makeup instead of little bottles falling into the sink all the time.