Home Interior Design Ideas: organization

Showing posts with label organization. Show all posts

My biggest purge yet!

Hello there! Hope you’re having a GREAT week!

I mentioned earlier this week that I’m DONE with the decluttering of the basement…this is huge for me peeps. HUGE. Every year for the past few years, I spend what seems like half the year decrapifying this space.

This time, it only took me a whole year. :)

For reals. Seriously. A YEAR.

One thing I have learned on my decrapification journey is that ridding your home of STUFF is not something you can do just once every twelve months. At least in our house – it’s a constant process.

Now our home is a bit different than most. I mean, I tend to gather stuff faster than the average person. It’s the nature of my “job” – being a home decor blogger. Add to that a thrifty home decor blogger, and it just spells T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

It physically pains a thrifty blogger to leave that perfect such-and-such or so-and-so at their local Goodwill because if I see it, leave it and walk out without it, OHDEARLORDIMIGHTNEEDIT!!!

Like, tomorrow! Or next week. Or next year?

Or something like that. :)

Sheesh. It is intense people.

But over the past year, I was increasingly over the STUFF. I wanted our house back. I wanted empty shelves back. And I was tired of seeing wasted money sitting around.

I got really intense with it late last summer when my father-in-law passed away. As we went through his house (for weeks), I found my tolerance for our unused, unappreciated stuff was less and less.

I decided then that I only wanted items in our house that 1.) we found useful (and currently USED) 2.) were meaningful to us or 3.) we loved (things that were passed down, or that we truly enjoyed).

If it didn’t meet one of these three, it was gone. Our biggest problem area has always been our basement. It’s just a prime landing spot for junk, obviously.

I’m happy to announce I have gone through and organized every. little. bitty. thing in the space now. It’s done.

I started with my craft area back in January:

This spot holds extra pantry and entertaining items, tools, craft supplies, electronics and my stash of decor stuff. Those plastic shelves are awesome! I think they run about $20 each and really hold up great.

The area to the left of my craft room will be our future movie viewing spot:

Hubs envisions a very large flat screen on that long wall. I see some gorgeous built ins. ;)

We used to have a massive weight system in that space:

And it had turned into a perch for STUFF. We never, ever used it. EVER. For months and years, we kept it, thinking we’d use it again.

We didn’t. :)

(In our defense, there were a few problems that needed to be fixed. We kept saying we’d fix them. We didn’t.)

And then I decided it didn’t meet our criteria – so it was GONE. I called a company to see how much they’d charge to take it down, and it was $250. PuSHAW. I figured I could totally do that myself – so I did.

I spent a few days with a socket wrench and took that baby down. It felt SO GOOD.

We didn’t use it, didn’t love it, so why keep it? Yes, I know it was an investment at one time. But I’d rather it go to someone who would use it, rather than sitting in our basement, acting as a coat rack.

Over the last few months, I’ve moved the majority of the Bub’s toys down to this space:

His DIY train tables are a perfect play surface and there’s plenty of floor space (covered with a carpet remnant). It’s so nice to have a spot dedicated to the toys!

The plastic shelves make an appearance in this area too:

We keep the kitty litter in the spot behind these (under the stairs), so to keep that area as separate as possible, I stapled some cheap muslin up on the studs behind the shelves.

I also hot glued a fun polka-dot fabric to the backs of the shelves:

It helps to keep the toys put and it’s just a dash of cute. :)

We already have some great lighting in the basement, but there’s a few spots that need a little extra. I’ve found these plug-in lights at most hardware stores:

They ROCK. Ours hold up to a 150 watt bulb. It’s fantastic for extra light! (They run about $7 each.)

One of my favorite changes in our basement is hubby’s office. It used to look like this:

Actually, it usually looked like a pit of despair. The floor was always covered with fake snow, ornaments, fall leaves and Easter basket filler. :)

Both walls were filled with storage bins, and eventually I realized it was a waste of great space. After MUCH purging, I moved them to the end of the basement instead:

I’m hoping to get some fantabulous shelving to organize these even more. It is ridiculous that shelving makes me so giddy. :)

Now that former bin-filled space is hubby’s office:

It’s actually a really cozy space! As cozy as cement walls and floors can be anyway. I like to think of it as loft-like. ;) Hubs writes music, so he LOVES this spot. It’s far enough away so that he doesn’t bother us with the music and we don’t bother him.

When I said I went through every little thing in this space, I’m not kidding. I can’t even believe how many paint cans we had:

Insanity!!

Even though I had purged the holiday stuff last Christmas, I still had a pile of STUFF that I hadn’t organized:

My tower of junk had fallen, so it gives a little extra drama to the madness. ;)

And I even went through each and every CD and floppy disk from up to ten years ago:

I spent hours at the computer going through files. I was determined to get it ALL done.

I took the last of the purge upstairs over the weekend and I was SO HAPPY when I saw the amount of storage stuff I didn’t need anymore:

Over the past year, I kept count of the large storage bins I’ve sold or given away. It was right at 17. Seventeen big bins – and I didn’t keep ONE. That doesn’t even count all of the baskets, small bins, shelves…whatever. All of them are gone!

I didn’t want the temptation.

From now on, if I can’t fit an item the storage we have, then something has to go. My hope is to never buy another storage bin again…forever and ever AMEN.

I snapped that picture above and texted my girlfriends to come and get free storage stuff…and even after one showed up and took a bunch of them, I still ended up finding more to add to the pile:

And then more:

I was on a roll. :) I gave a bunch to friends, and the rest was donated or taken to consignment.

Obviously, we still have lots of things. I like things. Pretty things, shiny things, thrifty things. I’m just not going to let them take over our home anymore.

So now, our foyer looks like this again:

It’s the first time in months I haven’t had a Goodwill pile by the front door. It feels good. :)

And our problem area, the spot where STUFF went to die…is now organized and ready for the (hopefully this year, crossing my fingers, pretty pretty please!) finished basement:

Whew. Just…WHEW. It nearly beat me people. But I overcame the clutter. :) Now…if I can just keep it in check!

So that’s the tale of my biggest decrapification yet. It didn’t happen over a weekend. Or a month…or even a few months. But it happened. And that’s all that mattered.

WHOO!! :)

Now…onto more decorating and DIY! (Double whoo!)

Organize It Party!

Well howdy! Hope you had a fantastic weekend and President’s Day! Did you get any purging done? Organizing? Getting rid of STUFF?? :)

If not, hopefully you’ll be inspired to do just that after this shindig!

One of my favorite little tricks of late is a bit of a decluttering/organizing combo. I’ve discovered a new love when it comes to organizing, and it’s not rocket science.

It’s the good old Ziploc bag:

This certainly isn’t anything new – I’ve seen folks all over blogland use them often. But it was just recently that it clicked how AWESOME they are for the kid stuff.

I have a love/hate relationship with the boxes that the Bub’s toys and puzzles come in. I love that they are so easily stacked and put away, but hate that they fall apart so easily and take up SO MUCH space:

Especially those memory games – the actual pieces take up so little space in that big box.

So, I started using bags instead, and I LOVE IT:

It’s such a simple thing! They’ve made a difference though. It must be something about seeing the pieces, or just the ease of getting to them -- but the Bub seems to want to play with his games even more now, and is so helpful when it comes to putting everything away.

Now, we just toss the baggies in big bin, which helps the clean up too:

I now have 14 different games in that one bin – there’s no way 14 boxes would have fit.

This makes Momma HAPPY. And you know when Momma’s happy, everyone’s happy. :) Ha!

But really…it’s the truth. For reals. YouknowwhatI’msayin’.

I also used the baggies to organize the little addition I showed you in our living room:

I pulled the former changing table/former office storage dresser into the room last week and LOVE it.

Like I mentioned, even though this is our “formal” living room, we use the space pretty much every day. I thought the dresser would be a great spot for all of our puzzles.

Oh, the puzzles. And…puzzles. Big ones, little ones, so many puzzles:

But you can see that I could barely fit four large boxes in one drawer, and that wasn’t going to work at all.

Baggies to the rescue again:

Four boxes took up almost the whole drawer, and now six big puzzles take up just over half of the space:

Do you hear the singing? I. love. it. It’s just such a satisfying mix of decluttering and organizing – getting rid of the bulky, torn up boxes, but still having everything separated and easy to get to.

I’ve got the little puzzle pieces in bins, but am planning on putting them each in their own bags as well:

For the floor puzzles, I cut out a picture off the box so we have something to refer to when putting it together. :)

Someday when we’re done with these, I’ll just donate them in the bag – I doubt the box will matter that much to the next family. It’s working out GREAT for us!

So…let’s see what you’ve got! Link up any organization ideas, decluttering tips, even cleaning suggestions. Anything that will help us get our lives under control is perfect for this party!

Make sure to link up to your post – not your blog. The party will be open through next Monday evening.

Have fun and enjoy! (I accidentally made the boxes a little small, sorry about that! Tried fixing it but can’t for some reason.)

Do you love Pottery Barn and Ballard Designs?
You’ll LOVE Knock Off Decor!

One linen closet down

Hello all! How are ya?!

If you were anywhere in…well…the country a couple of weeks ago…you were most likely getting some wicked crazy weather. We certainly did. The temps here have been in the 40’s and high 50’s this week, and we STILL have three inches of ice on our lawn.

The first day or so, I was kinda digging being iced in…by the third day of not leaving (we couldn’t even get out to the mailbox), it was starting to make me twitch. Just a tad.

So I put the twitching to good use. :) We are SO lucky to have a ton of closet space in our house. We have a fantastic linen closet it our downstairs powder room that we use a TON.

Although my before pics are horrendous cell phone pics (bad blogger!), they don’t look too horribly messy, right?:

I didn’t think it was that bad either…till I actually started going through everything.

I plopped my booty on the floor and went bin by bin…and I GOT RID OF CRAP. :)

It’s quite amazing how much STUFF hides in those storage bins:

Seriously? This was the stuff I didn’t keep.

Ummm…I really hope the toilet was clean for the picture. Huh.

No really, seriously? That’s insane people! That’s all stuff we didn’t need or don’t use. Taking up lovely storage space. (In the closet and in my head.)

Well, except the potty step…that just got caught up in the mess. :)

You don’t even get the full effect with that picture since stuff is piled high. Here’s what I bagged up from the closet:

The little bag went to Goodwill. The donate bag was full of cleaning rags and supplies that we DON’T NEED FOR GOODNESS SAKES, and that went to a local shelter. The last bag was just trash.

And some of that pile went down to the basement. Crayzay!

After all of that, I actually got rid of one of the bins, and just reorganized the others.

Here’s the after with a real camera:

I know, the whole good camera thing helps the after pics a bit. :)

This helps too:

Smartie me didn’t have lights installed in our closets, and this one is especially dark. I’ve had this little dodad for years and haven’t really used it till now.

DUH. It works GREAT! I lost the back part that you attach to the wall, so I just nestled it into the wire shelves. See, wire shelves are good for something! :)

Let’s take a little tour, shall we?

The top shelf is just extras and our hand towels rolled up in a small bin:

The next one holds a bin for batteries and random toy parts. (I put broken pieces in here so when I find the match, I know where to look.) There’s also a bin for light bulbs:

LIGHT. BULB! Sorry, couldn’t resist the Despicable Me reference. :) Lurve.

This is one of the shelves that gives me little bitty hives cause a bin doesn’t match:

Just go with it Sarah. Breathe. Life will go on. You’ll survive this.

Anyhoo, that odd one there holds all floor care stuff, and the other holds all other cleaning supplies. You can see I only kept the stuff we USE and got rid of or stored the extra stuff that we didn’t.

On the next shelf, we have a bin for air fresheners (cause it is a bathroom) and my Bath and Body Works plug in jobbies that I’m obsessed with. I keep the supply for the house here:

The other bin is for dirty clothing and towels. I learned about two days after bringing the Bub home from the hospital that I needed a spot for dirty clothes downstairs. It works great for random socks and kitchen towels.

Down one more shelf (isn’t this SO EXCITING???) is a bin for the vacuum parts and one for rags:

I had an obscene amount of rags. I mean, it was positively ridiculous. Got rid of half of them.

I’ve always used the back of the door for storage, but I added a couple more hooks – one for covers for the floor broom (upper left), and one for the potty seat on the bottom:

This space is ALL about function over form. :) But I am thrilled that we now have a spot for that seat. Now when friends drop by, they’re not greeted with a bright yellow potty seat. You know what I’m sayin’.

The closet can now breathe again:

And the very best part? I was so excited to have it organized again, I finally got rid of the brassy knob and hinges on the door:

WHOO HOO! I’ve had them for a YEAR now…that’s how slow that process has gone. Almost done switching them all out – when I’m done I’ll tell you more about that DIY project. :)

So…have you been decrapifying? Organizing? Loving it? :) I hope so! If you haven’t, maybe a little shindig will get you in the mood:

This coming Monday, come one come all! :) Link up all of your decluttering or cleaning projects. Can’t wait to see your tips and tricks!

P.S. There is usually a child proof door handle on the knob to the closet. Because I had just changed it out it’s not on for the pictures. :)