As promised, (thrilling, I know) I'm checking in to report the results of my "Five Days to a Fresh Start" challenge. I took a bit more than 5 days, and I didn't get everything done, but I put a large dent in it and I'm really proud of my progress. It feels really good to have everything a little neater and more organized. Let's hope we can keep things this way for a while!
Declutter
• my closet- done
• office- mostly done
• night stands/dressers- done
• linen closet- done
(what, that wasn't on the list before?!? Well I added it to the list, and it's done!)
Donate/Recycle
• clothes from closet- mostly done
(not donated yet, but they're in piles and ready to go)
• old office desk- done
(we listed it on craigslist- for free- weeks ago, and each interested seller fell through. Finally someone picked it up!)
• stuff from office- mostly done
(we had a lot of working, but old electronics that we are able to donate, and the non-working ones we recycled. I still have to go through the books and CDs to see what we can donate.)
• old dishes/glasses- mostly done
(In piles, ready to go. I just have to check to see if my brother wants any for his apartment before they go to goodwill.)
Organize
• my closet- done
(feels so good to be able to walk through it. It used to be a total waste of a perfectly good walk-in closet)
• kitchen cabinets- mostly done
Store/File
• As organized as I am, H is usually the one who takes care of filing bills, tax info, medical stuff, etc. I have a tendency to "clean" too often and throw away things we need, so important papers are safer in his hands. I'll see if I can interest him in filing away some mail, pay stubs, and papers. However, this is something I try to do on a daily basis so I'm not sure how it will turn out...- done!!!
(I am so thrilled, he cleaned out the filing cabinet! He got rid of so much that we didn't need, it feels 50 lbs lighter. I love him so much!)
• holiday decorations- done
(I was able to sort out everything from the old "wedding" bin and store our Christmas decorations there.
Clean
This constantly needs to be done throughout the whole house, but I guess that's a bit ambitious... but what really needs a good, thorough scrubbing is:
• the upstairs bathroom- done
• laundry area- done
• downstairs bathroom- not so much... maybe this week
I promise my next post will be a little more interesting!
Showing posts with label organizing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organizing. Show all posts
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
One Very Handy Kitchen Shelf
You know how when you move into a new place, and you look around at all of the empty rooms and closets and cabinets and think, "what am I even going to do with all this storage space!?!" And then you get all your pots and pans/ furniture/clothes/what-have-you in there and all suddenly all this space all but disappears.
Well, it's happened to me. Multiple times. Perhaps I need to become a better judge of space, but what's done is done. And that being said, I really do like our kitchen; the problem is a lack of a pantry. My parent's house growing up and even my old apartment both had pantries so I've become used to the huge amount of extra storage space they provide. Without one, our food has begun to take over the space for our pots, pans, dishes, glasses, and gadgets. We decided to do something about the pots and pans, because they were the biggest headache to store and would give us the most room by moving somewhere else.
I decided my ideal solution would be to put a stainless steel grated shelf on the empty wall above the "coffee corner" and hang the pots and pans from S hooks all sexy commercial kitchen style.
So we took a trip to Lowe's and looked at kitchen shelving- it was pricey and smaller than I preferred. So then we looked at garage shelving, and found some that was the perfect size and only $50 for 2 shelves. That was about a quarter of the average price of the kitchen shelving! And eventually we'll put the other one in the garage, so it won't be a waste to have two. I debated it for a while, wondering if it looked too industrial. But I decided the most industrial-looking part of it was the slightly textured black/silver finish, and that could easily be taken care of with a couple coats of spray paint come spring.
(we obviously need to shorten the light fixture that is just resting on top of it now)
Another problem our kitchen had was my height. That's right- all 5'2 of me. Each kitchen cabinet had 3 shelves, which would have been great- had I been able to reach them all. The top one was just out of my reach, and I've strained my neck and shoulders countless times trying to reach something up there. Enough is enough. So I had H take out the top divider and move the bottom one slightly up to create 2 larger shelves instead of 3 smaller ones. Now I'm able to stack boxes and cans and tall bottles on the top shelf and still reach them by grabbing the bottom one.
(this one is the corner cabinet, so much room now!)
Well, it's happened to me. Multiple times. Perhaps I need to become a better judge of space, but what's done is done. And that being said, I really do like our kitchen; the problem is a lack of a pantry. My parent's house growing up and even my old apartment both had pantries so I've become used to the huge amount of extra storage space they provide. Without one, our food has begun to take over the space for our pots, pans, dishes, glasses, and gadgets. We decided to do something about the pots and pans, because they were the biggest headache to store and would give us the most room by moving somewhere else.
I decided my ideal solution would be to put a stainless steel grated shelf on the empty wall above the "coffee corner" and hang the pots and pans from S hooks all sexy commercial kitchen style.
So we took a trip to Lowe's and looked at kitchen shelving- it was pricey and smaller than I preferred. So then we looked at garage shelving, and found some that was the perfect size and only $50 for 2 shelves. That was about a quarter of the average price of the kitchen shelving! And eventually we'll put the other one in the garage, so it won't be a waste to have two. I debated it for a while, wondering if it looked too industrial. But I decided the most industrial-looking part of it was the slightly textured black/silver finish, and that could easily be taken care of with a couple coats of spray paint come spring.
(we obviously need to shorten the light fixture that is just resting on top of it now)Another problem our kitchen had was my height. That's right- all 5'2 of me. Each kitchen cabinet had 3 shelves, which would have been great- had I been able to reach them all. The top one was just out of my reach, and I've strained my neck and shoulders countless times trying to reach something up there. Enough is enough. So I had H take out the top divider and move the bottom one slightly up to create 2 larger shelves instead of 3 smaller ones. Now I'm able to stack boxes and cans and tall bottles on the top shelf and still reach them by grabbing the bottom one.
(this one is the corner cabinet, so much room now!)Nice! We've tackled two top cabinets so far. I'm not sure if we'll do the other two, since they do provide some extra storage for things we don't use as often.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Five Days to a Fresh Start
I read about this challenge on Kate's blog Centsational Girl, and I knew I had to try it. Our house is absolutely crying for this! I'm so excited, I might start early...
So here is my list of places to tackle:
Declutter
• my closet
• office
• night stands/dressers
Donate/Recycle
• clothes from closet
• old office desk
• stuff from office
• old dishes/glasses
Organize
• my closet
• kitchen cabinets
Store/File
As organized as I am, H is usually the one who takes care of filing bills, tax info, medical stuff, etc. I have a tendency to "clean" too often and throw away things we need, so important papers are safer in his hands. I'll see if I can interest him in filing away some mail, pay stubs, and papers. However, this is something I try to do on a daily basis so I'm not sure how it will turn out...
• holiday decorations
Clean
This constantly needs to be done throughout the whole house, but I guess that's a bit ambitious... but what really needs a good, thorough scrubbing is:
• the upstairs bathroom
• laundry area
• downstairs bathroom
I'll give myself a goal of Sunday, January 10th. Let's see how it goes!
Friday, November 6, 2009
It's not even 11 o'clock AM...
and I already turned this:
into:
The previous owners put a wall up in the back of the garage and created a little studio there. It's a pretty nice space. However, for us, it was home to old furniture, painting supplies, old electronics, and junk. There was SO much storage in here, but we weren't utilizing ANY of it. I only threw out two little things, too (and moved a coffee table into the garage). OK, so maybe I cheated a little, but I'm still feeling pretty good :) I even hung up some art we weren't using anywhere else (the three separate canvases done by me).
into:
The previous owners put a wall up in the back of the garage and created a little studio there. It's a pretty nice space. However, for us, it was home to old furniture, painting supplies, old electronics, and junk. There was SO much storage in here, but we weren't utilizing ANY of it. I only threw out two little things, too (and moved a coffee table into the garage). OK, so maybe I cheated a little, but I'm still feeling pretty good :) I even hung up some art we weren't using anywhere else (the three separate canvases done by me).
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