Girls' Closet Redo

Baby Girl #2 (or The Bean, as I'm calling her, as she doesn't have a name yet) is due to arrive in about 7 weeks, and I've been working hard to prepare for her arrival! Since her and C will be sharing a room, I knew the room needed some major reorganization. So far, I've made great progress, though there are still a few things that need to be addressed. The closet was by far the biggest issue, so I tackled that first.

Here's a "before" shot so you can see what I was working with.

 C insisted on being in the picture, haha. Here's a shot without her cuteness in the way:

 Yikes. Its hard to believe that last August I thought this closet was organized. Of course, it really was, compared to how it started out! I knew this closet needed to hold clothes for 2 kids, though, so it needed some major work. After wracking my brain for a while, I decided on a completely new closet system. I went to Lowe's last Friday and purchased a Homefree system, which had great reviews and seemed super simple to install. I anticipated being able to makeover this closet for around $100.

Well, of course, I spent well over $100 at Lowe's. I used a cool feature on their website to help me figure out which kit to buy, and how much "extra" stuff I'd need. I was pretty shocked at the register when my total was almost $180. But I had a feeling I had purchased too many "extras," and I knew they could easily be returned.

Last Saturday afternoon, me and C completely emptied out the closet. Again. Why am I always amazed at how much STUFF this little space holds?! I should have taken a picture of the room with everything in it, but that was scary.

Luckily, almost half of the clutter in there was immediately able to removed from the house completely. All those Rubbermaid containers and the space bags went out to the shop. Finally!

Once I got everything out of the way, I tackled removing that shelf. Pesky thing! Apparently, everything for mobile homes is way different than things for regular homes. (Our house is a double wide trailer.) I had a time getting that shelf out, and ultimately, my husband had to come inside and do it for me! Most of the problem was with the drill. I just had issues with it. Plus, I  kept having to climb up and down a step ladder to reach everything...not so good when you're heavily pregnant. Anyway, DH got it out in a jiffy, then went back outside to finish mowing the grass.

So I proceeded with the installation of the new closet system. I laid out all the pieces in the box...and immediately felt overwhelmed!

 The instructions were pretty clear, though, so I got right to work. Naturally, it wasn't quite as easy as I thought. Again, I had drill issues. And climbing up and down that dang ladder was killing my hip. I was getting so frustrated. At one point, C ran outside and told her daddy that he HAD to come in and help Mama cause she was struggling! lol

I eventually decided to give up. Maybe if I hadn't been 8 months pregnant this would have been easier for me. But it just wasn't happening.

DH was exhausted that evening from a very busy day, but I was insistent that this closet get installed before C's bedtime. I mean, her clothes were everywhere, and now I had nowhere to put them! He seemed to understand my urgency and frustration, though, and got to work on it. (Its so funny to me how pregnancy makes me get things on my mind and have to get them done RIGHT NOW!!)

The closet system is not quite as simple to install as the instructions make you think. You have to do a ton of measuring and planning in advance. The online tool I had used to help me create the optimal arrangement of shelving was WAY off, even though I used the measurements of the space. I realized after DH had installed the 2 vertical bars that this arrangement that I had come up with online would not be ideal for the space, after all. But at that point, we were both so tired and frustrated that I just let it go. I knew I could make it work.

Here's what we ended up with:

 Technically, I have 3 rods for hanging clothes now. However, the space between the top rod and the middle is not really enough to hang anything, not even newborn clothes. But if we put the middle rod down any further, it would become useless for hanging clothes. As it is now, at least we can use half of the top rod. The bottom shelf and rod are as low as they can possibly go. I wouldn't want them any lower, anyway, or C's clothes will hit the floor. I may eventually go back and make the top shelf and rod a little higher. I'll lose some of the storage space on that shelf, but I think I can live with that.

 I'm sure this space will continue to evolve over time. That is one good thing about this closet system, you can easily move the shelves around to suit your needs.

So here's how it looks now, after everything was put back in:

The top shelf is for stuff that we rarely use or won't use for a while. The middle shelf holds a few bags that we use quite often, and the shopping car cover (which I used a lot with C, so I'm sure it'll get used again soon with The Bean). On that top rod are C's winter/fall clothes that she'll be able to wear again this fall and winter. Most of her cool season clothes are in storage now, but there were a few things I think she'll be able to wear again. (We also have a ton of clothes for those seasons stored in the wardrobe. That is a project to tackle another time, though!)

On the middle rod I've hung newborn stuff. You can see that even though those outfits are tiny, they still take up every bit of that hanging space. Which means it won't be long before that rod won't be useful for the baby's clothes. Which means I'll have to adjust things in here. Looking at these pictures now, I'm thinking maybe get rid of the 2nd shelf altogether, and move the top shelf down a bit. That way, I'd have 2 full rods to use for hanging clothes, and plenty of space up top for storage.

On the right side of the middle shelf I have all C's bottoms: long pants, shorts, and skirts. I originally wanted to have a slide out drawer to hold all that stuff, but we just couldn't make it work in the space. I'd like to have a basket or something, but for now this is working just fine. Its been almost a week, and I haven't had any problems accessing her bottoms every morning when picking out her clothes for the day.

Finally, the bottom rod holds all of C's current clothes. Yes, she definitely has way too many! But this is ALL of her clothes. All of her tops are hung up, except for her PJs.

So far, I'm pretty happy with the system. Its very organized and is easy to use. C loves it, too.

Oh, for right now I've got that hanging shelf hanging on the inside of the closet door:

Its really nice to have that extra storage (its holding all of C's current and next season shoes, her dance clothes, and some baby blankets), but it gets in the way when I open the door. That might be because of my huge belly, though. I will probably eventually replace it with someone more compact that doesn't stick out quite as far, or have DH install it on one of the side walls of the closet.

DH is also going to build a few small shelves for the side walls. He'll have to custom build them, since we only have 8-9" of space to work with depth-wise, but it'll be great to have more storage. I'm really trying hard to make the most of this space!!

Since I moved all C's bottoms to the closet, I freed up one and 1/2 drawers in the dresser. I intend on using one drawer for onesies and bottoms for the baby. This weekend, I plan to tackle the dresser and completely redo it, though. I need more space for diapers once I add the newborn stuff to the mix. So I'll be back soon with an update on that!

Office Organization

Last Thursday, a friend brought lunch to my office. I guess having someone other than my boss see my work area made me see the space with new eyes. Suddenly, I couldn't stand how junky my desk was! I decided that day that I would organize my work space.

On Friday, I headed to Staples to check out what kind of office organization supplies they had. I immediately grabbed a cart and was all ready to load her up, when I decided to call my friend for advice. She advised me not to purchase anything yet, but to think first about what I wanted from the space, and how I wanted it to look and function. Okay, solid advice. It was hard, but I forced myself to step away from the organizers and leave!

I knew I couldn't go crazy in here. My boss uses the other side of my desk, and he wouldn't appreciate anything too girlie. He likes things to be kept professional around here, which is fine. We already had some black mesh wire things, so I decided to stick with that theme for simplicity.

Well, I thought about it all weekend, and yesterday decided to just go to Office Depot (because its closer to my office than Staples) and get whatever I thought I could use, and return what I didn't end up using. I think I had way too much fun with this project!

First, let's take a look at the "before" shots. Beware, its pretty bad.

I know, I know. How did I work like that???! Amazingly, I knew exactly where everything was there. It might not have looked organized, but I had a system.

This is the area to the left of my desk. (Well, its all one big desk.) Again, even though everything was jumbled and gross-looking, I knew exactly where everything was.

This is the area to the right of my desk. Everything was just piled around. Yuck.

How about a close-up of my desk area? *shudder*

So distracting!

Okay, now how about some refreshing "after" shots? ( :

I took everything off the space and cleaned it really well (uh, hello, dust bunnies!). I sorted everything into piles and tried to think about where I wanted everything to go. For the most part, I liked the overall placement of things, it was just too much going on. I'll just let the "after" pictures speak for themselves.

Ahhh....MUCH better, huh? I feel like my desk is 3 times as big now! I love how open it is under my screens now.

This area didn't change a whole lot, but I think its a big improvement. I love the sorter that holds the binders in the middle. No more falling over binders!

I love my little pen/highlighter/note pad station! Its kind of hard to see (iPad pics, sorry), but I corralled all my everyday supplies (stamps, paperclips, binder clips, hole puncher, stapler, and my stress relieving slinky!) on the top shelf of those stackable trays. At first I had those just neatly placed on the desk, but I realized how much nicer it looked to have them corralled in a tray like that.

So far, I'm very happy with this arrangement! My boss was happy too, so that's a nice bonus.

Oh, I did one other little project at work yesterday, too. I updated my invoice paying system! (How nerdy is it that I'm super excited about this?!) My previous system was just a regular folder with 2 pockets (which was absolutely falling apart). Not very efficient. So I bought this handy dandy expanding file folder and I think I'm gonna like using it for invoices.

I know I'm not the only one who goes gaga for office supplies and organization, cause I read too many blogs to think otherwise! I don't have a home office (well, we have one, but its my husband's; I don't use it, so I don't get to organize or decorate it), so it was fun to get the chance to do something like this. Yep, I'm a nerd! ( :

Labor Day Project

We had a pretty uneventful Labor Day weekend at our house. I had thought about heading to the coast, but in the end decided to just stay home and relax, and that's pretty much what happened!

On Monday, I decided to tackle a small project that's been on my mind for a WHILE now: my desk in our office. It had really gotten out of hand:

Yikes. Actually, this is not as bad as it has been in the past. Since I completed my Master's degree in 2011, my desk has been used as a dumping ground for all types of stuff (as you can see!). Anything I didn't have the time or energy to deal with got thrown onto my desk for me to handle "later." Since I graduated, I've been going through phases with this desk. I'll clean and organize it really well, keep it that way for a month or two, then it goes right back to the mess you see here.

My plan to stop that cycle (cause let's be real, I'm never gonna be good about immediately putting things away rather than just dumpin them on that handy flat surface!) is to get rid of the desk. I'll still need the storage for important papers and what-not, but I think a small bookcase can accomplish the same thing. We'll see what happens. Its not a huge goal on my list right now.

In the meantime, I decided to clean my desk (again). It took me about an hour, but I was so pleased with the results!

Ahhh, much better. The only thing left on there are my laptops (neither of which I use very often at all), a Mary Kay magazine (the current one - I throw out all the old ones now), and those 2 shoe boxes (which I'll explain in a minute). I was amazed at how much junk I was able to throw away!

I didn't do any organization of the drawers. Believe it or not, they're pretty tidy. Not perfect by any means, but I know where everything is in there. Not that I use most of it anymore, but still. There are, however, a ton of papers in both of the bottom (deeper) drawers that really need to be organized and filed better. At some point I'll come up with a system for that - probably when/if we ever get rid of this bulky desk.

My plan is to decorate those shoe boxes so they look prettier. But for now, they work so they're fine. The bottom box is full of craft stuff for C - coloring books, colored pencils, stickers, Modge Podge, etc.

I realize at some point I'll have accumulated enough craft stuff to warrant a much bigger storage solution, but for now this is fine. Its nice to have everything rounded up in one spot!

The other shoe box now houses my hair bow-making supplies: ribbon, scissors, wire, etc.

Such a big improvement over the grocery bag I was keepin this stuff in! I think I'm doin pretty well on the ribbon front, too. I've been making hair bows for C for several months now, and this is all the ribbon I've bought! I thought once I learned how to do it I'd go crazy, but I just don't feel the need to have a bunch of patterned bows for her. I like hers to be solid and simple.

So that's it! It was a simple project for the holiday, but it makes a huge impact on the office as a whole. Now I gotta do the same thing to my Mary Kay space on the other side of the closet..

I didn't take a picture cause its disgraceful to the Mary Kay brand (lol). My husband had a gorgeous shelf custom-built for my MK stuff, but something fell over and knocked a lot of stuff around, and I've been too lazy to fix it. It looks awful! One day I'd love to completely redo the office - get rid of my desk, get DH a new, nicer looking desk, pretty up the filing cabinet, get some curtains, etc. But the space is so unimportant to me that its not even on my list of house-related things to do (though maybe because its such a long list...haha!). ( :

Kitchen Cabinet Organization

*edited to add pictures!*
We had an impromptu kitchen cabinet organization party last night. (What, doesn't everyone do that sometimes??) When I say impromptu, I mean I walked into the kitchen and my dear husband was taking everything out of one cabinet. Well, alrighty then, we're organizing cabinets tonight!

I wish I had some "before" pictures. If I had known DH wanted to do it this week, I would have taken some, but oh well. Such is life. Just trust me when I say the cabinets were in desperate need of some help.

I think what motivated DH last night was all the dishes and platters still sitting on our kitchen table when we got home last night. (Unfortunately, the dish fairy didn't come while we were at work yesterday and do that for us - bummer.) We already knew we weren't cooking supper, thanks to all the leftover baby shower food, so we had some time on our hands. I got quite a bit of laundry done last night - go me! And DH was very productive, as well.

When we first had our house moved to the land (way back in 2008, before we were even married - though we didn't move in until our wedding night), we had a lot of work to do. It would have been perfect blog content. (And of course, I didn't get a single "before" picture.) One of the things we did was remove the old, probably non-functioning dishwasher in the kitchen. Neither of us had ever had a dishwasher before, and I don't trust the things to get dishes clean, so I told DH I could live without it (there has only been maybe one time since then that I have regretted that decision, and we've been living in this house for almost 5 years now, so I think we're good). We had the space fixed so it looked nice again, and had a shelf put in there for storage. (We also left everything so that if we ever changed our minds, it would be easy to install a new dishwasher.) I even opted out of adding a cabinet door - I just hung a curtain on a dowel rod instead.

In the beginning, I purchased 2 baskets that I used to house our dish rags and dish towels. And for a while, the rest of that cabinet stayed nice and organized and clean. But of course, over time that cabinet became sort of a catch-all for the kitchen. Extra storage containers (please tell me we're not the only ones who save every single Cool Whip container and jelly jar!), extra jars, and a few very random items ended up in that cabinet. It was a mess.

DH decided last night he wanted to put some of our serving dishes and platters in that cabinet. Most of the dishes and bowels were being stored on top of the big freezer in the laundry room, and there's still a ton of serving stuff up there (and yes, we really have a ton of serving dishes! Its kind of our collection, I guess). But the big platters were being stored in the same cabinet where we keep pots and pans, and it was super hard to get them in and out. So they got moved to the old dishwasher space.

My 2 baskets ended up fitting on the top shelf, and a bunch of serving platters went on the bottom. We even had room to store some corningware dishes down there (that come with wire racks to hold them up). When we moved those, it prompted us to work on the cabinet where they were housed. (I'm seeing now that pictures would be really helpful here. I'll try to take some tonight and update this post.) That cabinet was another hot mess.

On the other side of our sink is a cabinet that goes from the floor to the ceiling. I had the fronts of the top 4 cabinet doors removed and replaced with glass, and we store our beautiful china in there. We eat off our china every night, its not just for show! But its such a pretty pattern that we wanted to display it.

See? Pretty, huh? We have enough of this pattern that it takes up 2 full cabinets (and then we have extra stored elsewhere, in case any of it breaks). People were good to us at our wedding showers. ( :

Anyway, we've done a good job over the years of keeping those 2 cabinets neat, since you can see what's in there without opening the doors. But the cabinet below them....*shudder*

It was so bad that sometimes when you opened one of the doors, stuff fell on you. Luckily, it was the bottom cabinet, so stuff didn't have far to fall, but still. Not cool. I usually try to avoid needing anything that's in that cabinet, that's how bad it was.

Not anymore! Its nice and neat in there now, too. Yep, definitely gonna have to take some pictures tonight. This morning I glanced in both cabinets that we reorganized and just stared in awe. Seriously. I'm weird like that.

And please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks her husband is seriously hot when he's organizing kitchen cabinets? ( ; hehe (Any type of cleaning, really...lol!)

Next on my mind (and DH's, too, I believe) is to tackle the cabinets of pots and pans. Talk about a mess. Probably at that same time we'll organize the cabinet under the island. I don't even know what's all in that one. I think if we had a day or 2 to stay home and do stuff around the house, we could accomplish a lot. If only....!

This hot mess is what's under the island. Yikes.

Pots/pans cabinet. Oh my...

The other side of that cabinet. Scary!

Closet Organization

I haven't done an organizing post in a while! That's because not much organizing has taken place in my house lately...whoops. I have tons of projects I want to take on, but limited funds and time makes it difficult. Plus, my husband has been talking about some major renovations to the house at some point in the near future, so I feel like I can't justify spending money on little things that are not absolute necessities. (Third world problems, much?)

Anyway, my daughter's closet has been LONG overdue for some help. Around this time last year, I bought a bunch of space bags and packed up all her baby clothes in them. (I really hope we put those bags in the shop, cause now I can't find them - oops). For about a month, we were organized. The problem with children is, though, that they just keep growing and outgrowing clothes! Every time I think I've got her clothes sorted so that only what fits is hanging up and in her drawers, she shoots up a size. So its a never ending battle.

My tactic for dealing with said clothes for the past year has been to just pile them in the bottom of C's closet. (I don't want to get rid of anything in case we ever have another girl baby.) At first, I had neat little stacks, just waiting to be stuffed into space bags or Rubbermaid containers. Over time, though, the piles got way out of control. It got to the point where I was ashamed to let anyone see her closet. Seriously. It was bad. Don't believe me? See for yourself:

anyone know why I randomly get dark spots on my pictures like this?? that's not a shadow!

 

See? I wasn't lyin! Embarrassing.

Last Friday I had finally had ENOUGH! I went to Target on my lunch break and noticed that they had some nice Rubbermaid containers for a good price. I think they were cheaper cause they were an ugly brown/beige color. But who cares about color? They will eventually be moved into our shop, so I am not concerned at all with how they look. I got 3 of them, and it turned out to be just enough (for right now).

When I got home from work, me and C completely emptied her closet. I was amazed at how much I had stuffed in there. It took over her entire room. For serious, you couldn't see the floor anymore (and C has a pretty big room). DH walked in at one point and his jaw dropped, haha. I told him to just turn around and pretend he hadn't seen anything! hehe

I found stuff I had completely forgotten about in that closet. C was thrilled to find new things to play with (as if she doesn't have a zillion toys already!). Once I got everything out of the closet and got it vacuumed, I sorted all the clothes and shoes (and oh boy, I clearly have a shoe obsession for my child...) by size. After a while, C got bored and asked if she could play in her crib. I don't know why she gets such a kick out of being in there when she's not sleeping, but whatever.

The whole ordeal took me over 2 hours, but it was well worth it! I have a pretty big pile of trash waiting to go to the dump - mostly damaged shoe boxes and bags. I found a bag of ancient cloth diapers that someone gave me a few years ago. I got them mainly to see what I thought about the whole cloth thing, but I quickly realized that these were not usable anymore. Completely worn out. Why was I holding on to them??? Hello, pack rat.

After all that work, I was left with this:

I know it doesn't really look much better to most people. There's still a ton of clothes in this closet. But now its all organized and neat! The 3 containers and those space bags will eventually put into the shop (as soon as DH makes some room out there), so the closet will have more room after that. I debated on whether I should keep that hanging organizer or not. The only thing I have stored in there now are shoes that C currently wears and baby blankets (that we no longer use, but I just don't have another place for them right now). I might see if DH can help me figure out how to hang that thing on the side of her closet. There's plenty of room, and that way I could still use it and have more space for hanging clothes.

I follow a lot of blogs, and I keep seeing posts on organized children's closets. And in those closets are like 8 outfits. With exactly an inch between each hanger. And then at the bottom of the closet is a stockpile of diapers and wipes. And that's it. What are those children wearing every day??! If C had so few clothes, I'd be washing every single day. Honestly, she has way too many clothes, but they're almost all given to me, and I don't turn down free stuff! And I like havin options for what to let her wear every day.

C has one dresser in her room, which is also used as a changing table. It has 3 drawers and 2 shelves (which are covered by a door). The shelves store cloth diapers (she's still in them at night). The top drawer holds panties and socks and hair ties; the middle drawer holds shorts and skirts; and the bottom drawer holds long pants and pajamas. And all the drawers are completely stuffed. So everything else gets hung in her closet. Maybe other mothers fold all their children's clothes??

Also in C's room is an antique cedar wardrobe and a cedar chest. The chest holds a gazillion blankets and quilts. It really needs to be gone through, but I just don't know where else to store that stuff. And the wardrobe is stuffed full of clothes for the next season. My mother and I buy stuff when its on sale, so we've been getting C some pretty cheap fall and winter clothes. Plus a family I know gave me a ton of clothes that C will be able to wear this winter.

I can't decide if I really hope we have another girl or not. If we do, we'll have plenty of clothes for her. If we have a boy next, we'll have to start all over. If C ends up being an only child, there's no need in keepin all this stuff! But how do you know?

So that's one more thing I can cross off my list. I still like opening up the door to C's closet and just smiling at how much better it looks! I'm a nerd like that. ( :


While cleaning out the closet, I found the t-ball stand that goes with a set C's had since she was a newborn. She's been playing with the super soft bat and balls (they're made for toddlers), but I had put the stand away for later, and then forgot about it. I had to explain to C what it was, but she immediately wanted to go outside and play ball. Then I found her tutu, and she said, "Mama, I want to wear my tutu and play ball!" So when the closet was finished, that's exactly what we did. I tied that tutu around her waist and we headed outside for some ball time. Man, I love my kid! ( :

Bathroom: Organized!

One of the great things about blogging to me is being able to use this thing for accountability. If I say I'm gonna do something on the blog, I feel like I really have to git 'er done (sorry for you non-Southerners, haha!). Friday I posted about a wife's role of being a help meet for her husband - since then its been on my mind even more than usual, and though this weekend was a challenge (due to my current sickness and medication reaction - ugh), I was still able to try really hard to be what God's called me to be. (Did I succeed? Probably not, but the point is I'm trying all the time. God doesn't demand perfection, thankfully!!)

I'm also happy to report that C and I successfully got the master bathroom organized. I said on Friday that would be my project for the weekend. I wondered if I'd actually get it done, given how I've been feeling physically for the past week, but we did it! I intended to tackle this project Saturday morning, but when C and I got home Friday afternoon, I told her I had a fun project for us to do that weekend. She asked what it was (that kid loves projects, and loves to help her mama!), and I told her we were gonna organize the bathroom. She said "ooh! I want to or-gize!" and got really excited. It was precious. She immediately went to the bathroom and opened up the cabinets - don't tell me my child hasn't witnessed a few organizational projects!

So I figured why not start right then? No time like the present, right?

Here's a wide shot of our bathroom. In my post last year on this room's makeover, I didn't include any wide angles. So here ya go, our master bath in all its glory. Haha.

 And here's a few shots of what lies beneath the counters.... (or what did lie beneath!)

This is my side of the cabinets.

 I completely forgot I had purchased baskets a few years ago. Even though I see this one daily, I don't actually see it.

This next shot is the middle of the cabinets.

 And this is DH's side. 

 No organization whatsoever! I had no idea what all was in there, and if we needed something we don't use on a daily basis, sometimes it took forever to find it.

So the first step was to take everything out. C loved this part:

I purged a grocery store bag full of stuff. I was amazed at how much I was holding on to that I will never use!

Then I separated everything into piles that made sense to me, grouping like things together. After that, putting everything back in the cabinets was simple! Well, maybe not simple, since C decided she much preferred to keep taking things back out...!

My side:

It still looks like a lot of junk, but now its organized and I know exactly what's in there and where it is. Behind the two wooden baskets sits one of the dollar store white baskets I bought Friday - it holds all my lotions and potions that I don't use every day. Most of it is Mary Kay. I think I have tried every single Mary Kay moisturizer!

I have always used one of the wood baskets to house my styling tools - hair dryer, curling iron, flat iron, etc, and that didn't change. Now I use the other one to hold my styling products and brushes. I love having everything right there in one place.

Here's a shot of the middle cabinet now:

Those little drawers proved to be perfect for storing extra razors, toothpaste samples, bandaids, etc! If I was really crafty I'd make little labels to go on the drawers, but that's not really me. Plus we all know how much I appreciate a quick project!

On to DH's side:

I realized after I started that I really need one more of the white baskets for his side. I plan to pick one up today. Just so there's not anything randomly laying around in there like you see in the shot above. Oh, and I realize that there is still a lot of stuff crammed into Ziploc bags here. That's DH's system and I have learned not to mess with his system! So while its not my style and doesn't help me at all, that's the way he likes it, and that's the way it will stay. Somehow, he knows exactly what is in those bags.

So that's it! Not a glamorous makeover by any means, but it sure does make this mama happy! I may have opened the cabinet doors several times this weekend just to bask in the new-found order...Its the little things. Don't you love how doing something so simple and quick can make such a huge impact? ( :



I'm linking up with Jen over at IHeart Organizing for her March organizational challenge of Linens and the Loo! 

Weekend Project: Bathroom Organization

One of my favorite blogs (don't I say that an awful lot?? haha), IHeart Organizing, is hosting monthly challenges this year to get people motivated to organize their house. Each month, she focuses on a different room or area of the house. Last month she did the kitchen, and I sort of got on board with that challenge with my Quick Kitchen Project - the hanging organizer, though I did it this month - and then that one weekend last month where DH and I organized some in the kitchen and our office. Its good to be motivated and I'm grateful that the woman behind IHeart is issuing these monthly challenges to get our juices flowing.

This month IHeart's challenge room is the bathroom and the linen closet. I did a makeover on our spare bathroom last fall, but there's nothing in there to organize since we don't really use it much. Not long after we got married, I made over our master bathroom, but I never tackled the mess under the sinks. This weekend, that changes!!

source: IHeart Organizing

Our master bathroom is a fairly decent size, I think. We have a shower, a garden tub, a pretty big closet (linen closet, I guess you'd say), the toilet of course, and a double sink with a good amount of counter space between the sinks. There are no drawers, but lots of cabinet area under the sinks. Right now, everything is just kind of thrown into that space. I'll take "before" pictures this weekend so you can see the mess, but beware! The space has the potential to be very functional, so that's my goal this weekend.

My plan is to take everything out of the cabinets, organize it, purge what we don't use, and put everything back in a way that makes sense and hopefully looks prettier than it does now. I'm kinda scared to tackle this project, because to be honest I don't even know exactly what is hiding in those cabinets! I figure C can help me take everything out - she's great at that already, haha.

Today I went to the Family Dollar and bought some supplies to help me get organized. For $13, I think I got some good stuff:

Those stacking drawers were the most expensive, at $5.50 each. But I think they'll really come in handy in my deep cabinets. If not, I'll return them! I got two of the big white baskets and two of the small red ones. Red doesn't go with anything in that bathroom, but I figure it'll be under the cabinet so who cares?

I can't wait to get started on my new project! I'll be back either tomorrow or some time this weekend with hopefully the finished project! ( :