Before I start telling you about what I've been doing inside...here's what it's doing outside!
The first thing on my list (minus the bedroom redo that I'm still in the middle of) was my mud room. This room has become an everything room, including laundry, storage, craft supplies for me and the munchkins, filed papers, keeper of the chest freezer, dog kennel, kitty litter box and much more. It has also been my nightmare because everything that does not have a home usually ends up there. Our home was built in the early 1900's and lacks storage space to the extreme, so, after a trip to our local Home Depot, we created some shelving to help with "the stuff."
I originally thought that we'd just buy some brackets and a nice long board that we could cut to size and paint. This was going to take several hours of letting paint dry, etc... My husband suggested that we check out the pre-fab shelves in the back and I nearly fell over with relief when I found a wall full of white shelves at varying lengths and a selection of white brackets. We happily left the store with three shelves, six brackets and some screws to attach it all. Best of all, we spent less than $40 altogether and had a gift card to boot! At home, it only took us about an hour to get it all up--what a difference it has made!
Once I got it all organized, I did have to fight the impulse to run out and buy all matching binders and baskets for the shelves. That would have cost quite a bit of money and even though it would be really pretty, I needed the function more than the aesthetic today. I used bins, baskets and binders that I already had on hand and am quite pleased that I now have a functional storage space for all of my craft items, filed papers, kid crafts and more! I can always get the "prettifying" stuff later on, now that it's all organized! Please note that I already had the tall white shelf on the left.
Here are some "Before's" of my other organization projects from today...
The junk drawer makeover--we all have one or more of these!
The chalkboard nook de-clutter!
Here's all the stuff, ready to sort on my dining room table.
BEWARE!!!!
Once you start going through your junk drawer, you tend to find things that you forgot about....
Like this pair of whatchamathingers that are apparently very important to my husband--I let him keep them, but I'm sure that they will find their way back to the drawer again :)
...and then there are some things that you don't even know what they are or where they came from. "Hello garbage can!"
Now that I've finally gotten that out of my system.... Here are the "After's"...
It's still a junk drawer, but now it's a much more organized and efficient junk drawer. My absolute must haves for a junk drawer include: Scotch tape, packing tape, duct tape, scissors, matches, a candle lighter, a flashlight, pens, pencils, sharpies, safety pins and a pet hair remover roller. I'm always grabbing for one of these items and love that they are all within quick reach. I also find that the best location for my junk drawer is in the kitchen.
I know that my chalkboard nook really wasn't that bad....
...but it looks so much better now that all the piled up stuff has been removed and put away.
As I mentioned before, I was in the middle of several projects all at once--I'd like to say it's because I'm a super productive person who has the incredible ability to multi-task, but no... it's really because I kept getting distracted. Here's one of my "distraction" projects that started because of the junk drawer overhaul.
I have all these pesky cords, chargers, etc... that you have to keep for cameras, printers, TV hookups, etc... I just never know where to put them and then I have no idea what their intended use is. I pulled them all out of their hiding spots, put them each in a labeled baggie (I had to ask my husband several times "what is this cord for?"...) and gave them a new home in a bin labeled as such!
Today, my other distractions included making an organized meal plan for the month and prepping food for the next several day's worth of meals, filing and shredding paperwork that had started to pile up, folding and putting away laundry and writing this post (yes, this was a distraction too). It's been a wonderfully disorganized day of organization--which led to getting more things accomplished than I had originally planned. Now it's time to sit back with a cup 'o Joe, enjoy my organized surroundings and turn into a couch pumpkin!
Blessings!
Megan
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