Area #13: Main Bathroom

The bathroom was a rewarding area to tackle.  The main spots were the linen closet and behind the mirror.  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of behind the mirror, but I got plenty of the closet.  My biggest trouble area in this closet is with extra stuff.  You know, the bottles of shampoo, soap, rubbing alcohol, deodorant, toothpaste etc. for when the one you're using runs out.  I moved a lot of them behind the mirror.  We have shelves the full length of the sink and up to the ceiling behind the mirror, so there's a lot of space to utilize (and keep organized).  Here are the before and afters from each shelf in the closet from top to bottom.

Before

 Top Shelf:

 The big glass jar was Evelyn's potty reward jar.  It was a lot fuller when we started, but definitely needed to be downsized.  I've been wanting to start making Kombucha again anyway so I need my jar back.

After

 Moving the Kleenex boxes to another shelf opened up space for the treats to tuck in the corner leaving the rags accessible.


 I think I have too many rags.  I need to go through them and throw away the really bad ones and the ones that are really the wrong material to be rags, and maybe donate some to the garage rag tub.

Second Shelf:

Before

After

The second shelf holds a lot  of extras.  Feminine care items, soap, epsom salts.  A lot of them are things that don't get used on a regular basis.  I tried to tuck them as far back and out of the way as possible.

Before I had some soaps here and some soaps behind the mirror, and some soaps on the next shelf.  They all got relocated to the corner of this shelf.  Now all of the soap is together.

The bottom container with the green handle holds all of our first aid items.  It was hard to get at it with the hair cutting supplies tub sitting right on top of it, so I moved it and keep that area clear.

Speaking of first aid supplies, I reused some plastic zippered bags I had found in our bedroom and use them to hold bandaids.  I've been getting tired of opening the box with the picture of the bandaid you're hoping to use only to find that that box is out of that size.  This way I can see exactly where each bandaid size/type is and grab the one I need on the first try.  I also tucked in a tube of antibacterial ointment so that it's handy for those cuts and scrapes too.

Third shelf:

Before

After

This shelf holds things that I use most often.  Some things daily.  It also holds a lot of 'extras'.  I ordered up many of those extras into categories, and put all of the smaller and most frequently used extra items in the blue covered tote.  It now holds toothpaste, contact cases, toothbrushes, q-tips and floss.  The white plastic pull out drawer container holds all of our natural remedy items.  Essential oils, salves, herbs etc.

Last but not least are my hair items.  When they were stored right in front of the drawer to the natural items, it was always a pain to move them in order to open the drawer.  I cleared the area to the right and tucked the hair items in there.  Now I can open all drawers and containers without too much shuffling around.


Fourth Shelf:

Before

This shelf experienced the least transformation in this closet.  It was and still is the towel shelf.  The only thing I did was remove any things that aren't towels or washcloths.

After

I did see an idea after I took these pictures to roll the towels instead of fold them and I might try that.  It would just look a lot cooler to have them rolled and then stacked.

Before

Bottom Shelf:

After

I'm not really sure why I was storing sheets in the bathroom.  In our old house the linen closet wasn't in the bathroom and all these things were in there.  I just tossed everything in the same closet like I had before. I moved the sheets into the bedroom containing the size of bed for each set of sheets.

I decided to reserve this bottom shelf for extra toilet paper and kleenex boxes.  As you can see in my after picture we're almost out of tp.  Having everything organized like this makes it very clear when we're almost out of something.

Having the tp on the bottom will also come in handy for those times when you're using the facilities and realize that the tp is out.  Evelyn can very easily reach them here. :D

It has been very nice to have the bathroom in order.  Even though we have 4 bathrooms in our house, this is the one we use 99% of the time.  Once we have moved into the master bedroom we will use that bathroom more, but until then we've got everything crammed in this one.  Hope that might give you some ideas for your bathroom closets.

Busy Busy Dreadfully Busy

That title comes from a song in the Veggietales movie "Are You My Neighbor?" If you haven't seen it, I recommend watching it with your kids, nieces/nephews, grandkids, whoever.  It's one of Evelyn's favorites.  The song accurately describes me.  "Busy, busy, dreadfully busy.  You've no idea what I have to do."

Well, my house that cleans itself project got put on the back burner for a bit.  Spring just hit us so fast and Kevin and I have been pretty crazy answering phones and organizing work for the year.  I got one more area done and I'm working on the last few upstairs, but just haven't had time to post them yet.  I'm hoping to find time soon.  My 'to do' list fills up all 32 lines on one side of my notebook page, and half of them on the back side.  It seems that for every item I cross off my list, two more get added to it. 

And then yesterday I got an offer from Shutterfly for a free photo book.  I have to have it all made and ordered within 5 days.  Those tend to take me roughly 4-5 hours to complete, so I need to get cracking on that.

Well, it's nap time which is my go to time.  Both girls down for at least 2 hours.  Gotta run - literally - and start crossing things off my list. 

Area #12: Our Closet

Our closet was another trouble spot for dumping.  It also held a lot of non-clothing items.  Not anymore!

Note the messy floor.  I decided to try and keep the floor clear as I did in coat closet #2.  Moved a lot of unnecessaries, and voila!

After I had it all finished, I realized that the only things that are in the closet now are clothes.  I'm looking forward to the day when we move into the master bedroom of the house and Kevin and I will each have our own closets, but until then this is what we've got. 

I decided to try arranging my clothes by color.  I've been hanging them by the type of item (sweater, button-up, long sleeve, etc.) but I think I'll like this way better.  Now when I need a shirt to go with something specific, I don't have to try to remember all the different shirts I have and where they might be hanging. I can just go to the color section and see what's there. 

Many items got transferred to the closet at the end of the hallway which I didn't originally number because there was nothing there before.  I will have to add a 26th area and organize that closet too.

On to the bathroom.  I've discovered that the further I go in my house, the longer areas tend to take.  This is because I keep deciding on new places for things that are in areas I haven't organized yet.  So then when I finally get there, there's twice as much stuff to sort through.  I don't even want to think about when I get to the basement rooms.  Yikes, I've been stashing a lot of stuff downstairs.

Area #11: Our Bedroom

I had a revelation while cleaning and organizing our bedroom.  We store and bring in a lot of things into our bedroom that don't need to be there.  Why are we storing things like elementary school art drawing, child birth info, ski goggles, bike lights, and many more misc items in our bedroom?  I wasn't sure, so I decided to limit what gets stored in our bedroom to those things that we use on a daily basis.  Wow, that was a lot of stuff to get rid of or find a new home for.  The main places for me were our dressers and the closet, but the closet is area #12, so I'll wait to tell about that one.  Here's what our dressers looked like before.

My Dresser

Kevin's Dresser

I probably didn't need to label whose is whose.  The items on them kind of give it away.  I actually really enjoyed going through our dressers.  I finally parted with the tacky looking bracelet holder that I made in high school.  I don't wear bracelets that much, and it took up a lot of space. 

Here are the dressers after my clean off.

I added a small jar to each of our dressers.  Mine is to hold bobby pins and chapstick.  Those are the two little items that I use daily that seemed to be spread all over my dresser.  Kevin's holds, you guessed it misc. ammo and ear plugs.  These items are frequently found in pockets and were more abundant than any other items I found. 

I am loving the look and looking forward to sticking with our goal to not clutter up our bedroom with things that we don't use on a daily basis.  We own an entire house and our bedroom does not need to be our dumping spot. 

Packaging

Almost a month ago, I came across two examples of packaging.  One that I love, and one that frustrates me.  The former was a Target find.  I didn't even realize it until I got home and opened my giant bag of pretzels that there was this sweet sticky strip that you can peel off the bag and use to keep the bag sealed.  That way you don't have to use a clip.  I heart Target and Market Pantry.

The other example of packaging that frustrated me was from, you guessed it, Menards.  I went there to get a few screws, washers, and nuts to hold down the cover of Evelyn's car seat.  Here's what I had to buy:

All the same size, but I ended up with 9 screws, 10 washers, and 8 nuts.  BAHHH!  It's a good thing I didn't need an even amount of any of these and there were more than what I ended up using, but still.  I know it's just a scheme to get you to buy more than what you'll need, lose what you didn't use, and have to buy more.  Or if you needed say 10 screws with washers and nuts you'd have to buy an extra package of screws and nuts and have tons left over, but no left over washers.  This is where your local hardware store is a much better option than Menards.  I always forget that we have a little True Value hardware store just a few blocks away.  I need to go there more often.

Yay for Target and Boo for Menards.

Area #10: Other Coat Closet

Our house has a plethora of coat closets.  Makes me wonder if my grandparents had a thing for lots of coats.  There are three coat closets on the main floor.  One by each entry door, and one at the end of the hallway.  I'm guessing that eventually we will turn the one at the end of the hallway into more of a linen closet with more shelves.  It just isn't very practical to have a coat closet at the back end of the hallway by all of the bedrooms.  All of our off season coats go in the basement anyway.  Here's what the closet looked like before I touched it.

I heard one idea for having orderly closets is to have nothing on the floor of the closet.  I think that it really does help the closet look and stay less cluttered, but I also don't think it's 100% practical.  I did decide to limit what gets stored on the floor.  If it can go up, it does, otherwise it can stay.  I moved all of the duffel bags to the end of hall closet along with our beach towels.  There were two fans in this closet that will be handy to store here during hot summer months, but we don't need them here in the winter.  I rearranged some things like putting the folding chairs where you can easily get to them, and simplified the hangers to be all the same type.  Here's my result:

Now there's plenty of room for guest coats if they come in our front door.  The floor is pretty clear, and things are orderly.  The only thing I need for this area is a better bin to hold all of the hand vacuum attachments.  They are all just tossed in the box that came with it which is too small for some of the pieces (as you can see).

This was one of the areas that was fun to tell Kevin, "Go look in the closet."  His reaction to each of my areas has been fun.  Sometimes he exaggerates his surprise at the cleanliness so that I grin from ear to ear even though he's half teasing.  Most of the time he's genuinely impressed with what I've done.  Husbands are great.

Area #9: Dining Room Desk

This cute little desk comes in very handy.  I've seen homes with a desk in the kitchen area, and never really thought twice about it, but now that I have one I really like it.  I think it's especially nice in our house because our business office is down in the basement, so without this desk I would either have to go all the way down stairs to get something or clutter up a kitchen drawer with office things.  After throwing out many things, moving some over to the real junk drawer, I now have one practically empty drawer.  I'm not sure what will have it's home there, but I'm sure I'll find something.  The top drawer is my main desk drawer.  It has a nice big organizer that holds pens, pencils, paperclips, note pads, rubber bands, etc.  The only other things that I want to add are a stapler and a business checkbook for paying business bills. (We already have a personal one there.)

One point that the author makes in the book is that horizontal spaces (such as this desk) tend to be dumping spots that gather things.  This desk has been a victim of that quite a bit. I haven't come up with a system to handle it yet because I still need to determine what types of things gather  here.