Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Continuing the clean up...

After finishing up in the bedroom closet yesterday, I got to cleaning out the refrigerator. Since I had been gone for 2 weeks the fridge was needing restocked so I knew that this was the perfect time to give it a good cleaning before refilling it. Once I got everything out of it and washed all the drawers and shelves I didn't have much of anything in it except the condiments and jams. There were some baked potatoes hiding out in one of the drawers to make home fries with and a bowl that had cheese dip, a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. Time to go to the store and get stocked up. Here is how my fridge looks after its cleaning.

Not one of the most exciting of jobs but when the fridge is cleaned out and not a science project gone awry it makes a mom feel good. So now on to some more enjoyable jobs today. I have a little laundry to finish up, not too bad, and I have to get my projects sorted out and packed up for this weekend. I will have to start packing tomorrow so I best be getting at it.

I have been asked to help make a quilt for a young girl who has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor so I am going to go meet with the woman who is organizing this today. That will be next on my agenda to get done asap. I can see that this next 6 weeks is going to shape up to be a very busy and full time. There is so much to be done before I head on out to Hawaii. My to do list that I made up Monday evening had 21 items on it that I wanted to get done before I leave this weekend. I got about 7 of them done so far, just another 14. Will I be able to get them done? I am not so sure about that. I will do the best I can and get the most important ones done.
So today, I will try to get my phone calls done. I had 3 calls while I was gone about quilting jobs so I need to get those returned today, go to the meeting up at the school, and get started packing for this weekend, which includes getting some quilty gifts lined up for my secret sister for the retreat. I think my day will be pretty full.

I hope you have a wonderful day and can get lots of stuff on your to do list crossed off. I am off and running.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Hooray for the closet clean up...

Good Morning. It is so good to be back home and back to my "?normal?" routine. I arrived home last evening around 6 PM and just relaxed, unpacked and made a list of the most important things that I need to do before Friday when I head out again for a week end quilting retreat. The first 2 things on my list were to organize my closet for the New Years Organizing Revolution challenge and then to get this post written so I could link up to said challenge. I am really excited about this week's area of organizing which is the bedroom closet. Why am I excited? Because I found some wasted space that I can use to store some uncommon items that I didn't have a permanent home for when we aren't needing to use them. Let me explain and show you with my before and after photos.

The closet is about 12 feet long, my husband and I split up the space equally but used different configurations when putting in the closet organizer units, the type you can get at the big box stores. Here is what my half of the closet looked like before.
At a quick glance it might not look too bad until you really look at what is falling out...
of the bottom shelves of the center tower. This is where my casual clothes such as t- shirts, sweatshirts and shorts are supposed to live. You can't see what is in there let alone find it when you want it.
The top shoe area isn't too bad except, do you see those boxer shorts on the right hand side? They don't belong in with the shoes. Also the ledge is pretty cluttered up with junk.
Let me explain this area. We have a door in our bedroom that leads straight to the bathroom, do you see the doorknob?... nothing wrong with that, but we have never ever used that door to enter the bathroom. So I hung a shower tension rod in between the walls and used it for over flow for special occasion attire. Unfortunately, as you can see the rod usually falls down because it is holding too much weight. When that happens then everything that usually gets stored in there gets thrown ontop of the clothes that are supposed to be hanging.
Back to the closet. The bottom drawer is for my swimsuits and bras.
The top drawer is for the underwear.
Here is the closet after I removed everything from it, sorted, purged and relocated everything as should be.
Look at all the space that I have after purging these shelves and hanging up those things that were supposed to be hanging.
Now I have my pants on the bottom hanging bar along with my camis since I have a lot more tops than pants. (I still have 3 pairs of jeans to hang up after I get the laundry done but I have enough room for them.)
On the top bar I have all my tops and sweaters.

I am having technical difficulties adding the photos of my 2 drawers in the closet tower. Let me just say that I have plenty of room in them so that when I get my laundry all done up everything will still fit into the drawers without any problems.

This side has my long dresses, skirts and a bulky jacket, not too many of those.
I have room for my boots on the floor here and they don't get knocked over since the dresses don't touch them. (I added another pair of boots to this area after I took this photo.)
Now here is the photo of that awkward space I reclaimed for storing the car seat and pack and play that we have for when the grandkids come and stay. I purged a lot of clothing items from this area so now maybe that rod won't fall down. I store my purses on the shelves of the small table that is on the left. You can see that I have floor space now for the...
car seat and the pack and play.
This is what this area looks like in the bedroom when it is closed off with the curtain...
and because of the door in the bathroom I have access to the space from there also.
Here I have my nicely cleaned and organized closet all hidden behind closed doors. I also found a nice way to add some photos to my boring closet doors. The frames are attached to the doors with velcro so they don't move when the doors are opened and shut. They have been on there for over 10 years and not a one of them has budged.
These 2 bags are items that I purged. They are going to go straight away to my car so I can drop them off at Goodwill on my next trip to town.

Thanks for visiting my most intimate of places in my home. I hope that you found some helpful tips that you might be able to use in your spaces or that my little foray has inspired you to just dive in and clean out and organize your own closet. I would appreciate it if you would vote for me if you have found any of the ideas I shared helpful. I am number 47. That my friend is the end of my organizing story for today.

PS. I don't have to do a before and after of my husband's half of the closet since the only thing I found wrong with it were 2 pair of socks lying on the floor and empty hangers that will be filled up with his shirts and pants once I get that laundry done. His shirts are even sorted by color and in order for his work week. By the way, a little secret here, shhh...He has more clothes than I do.