OH: Week 29

Organize Your Home: Week Twenty-nine

Organize Your Garage

Still working on catching up on these! I'll get there... 
I don't have a garage but here are the steps for those of you who do! 

Steps for this week's challenge:
1. Declutter Your Garage
2. Make a Plan For Your Garage Using Zones: car zone, workshop, storage zone, kids zone, etc.
3. Organize Items You're Keeping In Your Garage
4. Consider Garage Storage Solutions: hooks and pegs, shelves, storage cabinets, overhead storage, etc. 
5. Label and Inventory Your Garage Storage: free printable available here. 

My future garage would look something like this!

Labeled storage for the kids outdoor toys! 

{source}

Garden Center - with all those cabinets and drawers!

{source}

Ben's work space - I'm sure he would keep it organized too.. 

{source}

OH: Week 29

Organize Your Home: Week Twenty-Nine

Attic Organization

We do have an attic but it creeps me out so... none of our belongings are up in the attic. We do have a few things in the basement (I'll get to that soon) and nothing in the attic. I'll still share the information for this challenge.

1. Get One or More Partners To Help With Attic Organizing: This is likely a big task for those who store items in the attic. You'll need someone to help moving things and since an attic may be a bit dangerous it is nice to have extra support.
2. Declutter Your Attic: Most of the items up there may have been forgotten. Time to find someone else to love them!
3. Categorize Items and Assess Where They Should Be Stored: Is the attic the best place to store the items or is there somewhere else that is better suited. 
4. Create Zones In Your Attic For Your Storage Categories: Think about what items you need most and put those closer to the attic entrance. 
5. Label and Inventory Your Attic Storage:  If you have items in containers, label them and put them in areas together. A free label can be found at the organizing website here.

Some day I hope my attic looks like this!!

This is a beautiful play room! Someday... my attic will look like this!! 

{source}

OH: Week 28

Organize Your Home: Week Twenty-Eight

Organize Photos

Whoa... I take A LOT of photos. And usually take multiple shots of one moment. This means I have tons of duplicates and because of my MASSIVE camera card I haven't taken any photos off my camera. (Terrible I know... if something went wrong goodbye memories of the last 8 months) This challenge will be a difficult and tedious one. But a very important one. I'm going to work hard on this one and will try to document what I've done along the way.

Steps recommended for this weeks' challenge:
1. Gather Loose Photos and Photo Albums From Around The House Into One Central Location
2. Sort Loose Photos Into Categories To Hole In Photo Storage Boxes
    a. Categorize Your Photos
    b. Declutter and Toss Certain Photos While You Sort, When Possible
    c. Label Dividers As Much As Possible
    d. Label The Outside Of Each Photo Box and Store Appropriately
3. Make Plans To Slowly Put Pictures Into Albums Or Scrapbooks From Boxes Over Time
4. Make Plans To Digitize Some or All Of Older Physical Photos (Optional)
5. Rotate and Add New Framed Photos Around Your Home
6. Properly Organize and Store Negatives and Slides
7. Organize Digital Photos and Back Them Up
8. Create Routines and Habits For How to Organize Photos from Now On

Alright.. let's get started.
1. Gather Loose Photos and Photo Albums From Around The House: I had some photos that didn't fit into the photo boxes I had. I went through them and put them into the photo boxes.

These were the random photos I had. 

2. a. Catergorize Photos: Mine are done by date and in photo boxes.
    b. Declutter and Toss: I got rid of more photos than I thought I would. I got rid of doubles, blurry photos, bad photos, etc. 
    c. Label Dividers: Most of my photos were sorted in chronological order and most were even labeled with the date of the event. 
    d. Label Box Outside: I haven't done this before and struggled remembering what box was for what year. A new label changed that! Each box got two address labels marked with what was inside. There was on label on the front and one on the side. 

Labeled by date. 

All of the photos after they have been decluttered and labeled. 

A close up of the label. 

3. Make Plans To Slowly Put Pictures Into Albums Or Scrapbooks From Boxes Over Time: I plan to scrapbook these photos and then start making photobooks online for the rest of the photos I haven't printed. 

4. Make Plans To Digitize Some or All Of Older Physical Photos (Optional): Almost all of my photos are already digitized. Except for photos from birth-middle school. I don't have plans of scanning them into my computer now. But maybe at some point just so I don't lose them. 
5. Rotate and Add New Framed Photos Around Your Home: I did that within the year. 
6. Properly Organize and Store Negatives and Slides: We don't have any. (yeah we are that young...)

7. Organize Digital Photos and Back Them Up: Phew... this one was intense! I'm still not done but I figured this was a good start! I spent quite a long time going through all the photos on my computer and organizing them by year and month. I also put them on my external hard drive. Photos safe! 

A big mess! I hadn't put pictures on my computer since January. Whoops! 

A closer look at the mess on my computer! So cluttered! 

SO MUCH BETTER!

I still need to go through the photos and delete the duplicates but this is a start. 

8. Create Routines and Habits For How to Organize Photos from Now On: For how many times I put my camera card in my computer I really need to start putting the photos on my computer on a bi-weekly basis! Let's see if I can do it! 

I'm still not done with photo organization but the rest will have to wait for another day. I've got some work to do! 

OH: Week 27

Organize Your Home: Week Twenty-Seven

Organize Pet Supplies

I am jumping around a bit. I am over a month behind in these challenges and a few will take me some time to complete. I am going to work hard to catch up in the next two weeks. I skipped ahead to a challenge I do not have to complete. Organizing Pet Supplies! But for those of you who do have pets.... time to get organizing. I also want to keep this as a record to reference when we do have pets! :) 

Steps for this weeks challenge:

1. Declutter Your Pet Supplies

2. Organize Your Pet Supplies Into Categories (for example: food/bowls, toys, grooming supplies, etc.)

3. Create A Pet Food Storage Area

4. Pet Toys Storage and Organization

5. Organize Miscellaneous Pet Supplies (pet medications, leashes, collars, grooming tools, etc.)

6. Organize Paperwork and Medical Information About Your Pets

When the time comes and we are able to adopt a dog (or two!) I'd love to be this organized! 

Love the chalkboard to write notes regarding your pets, the place to hang the leashes and of course a picture frame of your beloved family member!

For $50 from Meijer this is a nice {simple} option! 

Place for food and a place for other pet goodies. 

Not as pretty but at least it keeps many pet supplies in one location. This wouldn't look bad in a garage or back entryway. 

OH: Week 26

Organize Your Home: Week Twenty-Six

CD and DVD Storage and Organization

Steps for Completing This Week's Challenge:

1. Gather All Your CDs and DVDs Together From Around Your Home, Car, Etc.

2. Declutter Your Music and Video Collections

3. Organize CDs

4. Organize DVDs

5. Organize Your CDs and DVDs for Your Computer

6. Consider A CD and DVD Storage Solution

Again, we frequently go through our movies and donate the ones we no longer care to keep. Our DVDs are in ABC order and our CDs are put into two CD cases. I got rid of the CD cases years ago and just kept the CDs and CD booklet. I haven't regretted this decision! The space it has saved it so valuable! 

Eventually I want a console table that houses all of our DVDS because right now only half of ours fit on our DVD bookshelf. 

The rest of our DVDs can be found in our entertainment center. 

Gaming supplies, Workout Videos and seasons of our favorite shows. 

All our CDs can be found here! Most are on our computer and backed up on our external hard drive (just in case)

We have a lot of CDs! I really have a hard time letting go of them!

OH: Week 24

Organize Your Home: Week Twenty-Four

Organizing Purses, Handbags and Wallets

Steps for this challenge:
1. Designate a Home Place for Your Bags
2. Dump Out the Contents of Your Hand Bag and Wallet
3. Declutter Your Purse or Other Bag
4. Containerize Your Bag
5. Create a Space for Purse and Handbag Storage
6. Create a Routine for Cleaning Out Your Bags at Least Weekly


Again, I already do this challenge pretty regularly so I didn't complete all the steps. But here is what I did do!


1. Designate a Home Place for Your Bags - Ben and I place our bags in a closet when we get home. They may start off on the floor or on a counter by they quickly get moved to the closet. 
2. Skipped. :)
3. Skipped. I clean out my purse almost every weekend. 
4. Containerize Your Bag: The way my purse is made everything already has a compartment. 

Front pocket for keys and cell phones. 

Front pocket for pens/pencils/highlighter and sunglasses. 

Middle pocket for lotion, wallet, sanitizer, chapstick and other misc. goodies.

Back pocket for work items: keys, receipts, name tag, etc.

I use my bag for a mix of personal and work. 

5. Create a Space for Purse and Handbag Storage:

All our bags/purses/etc. go in this piece of luggage. 

An explosion occurs when it is opened!

But after straightening everything it fits much better.

All the little bags go into the smaller red bag off to the side and then put on top. 

OH: Weeks 22 and 23

Organize Your Home: Week Twenty-Two

Laundry Room Organization

Steps for this week's challenge:
1. Consider The Functions Of Your Laundry Room. What do you do there - fold laundry, store laundry supplies, iron, pre-laundry activities (like soaking stained clothing) or drying clothes on a rack/line. 
2. Declutter Your Laundry Room
3. Organize Laundry Room Areas To Perform Functions Efficiently
4. Make Your Laundry Room Pretty and Inviting


For me.. 
1. Our laundry room is in the basement.. and I fear the basement.. many many many spiders live there and I fear them. In saying that.. I spend as little time there as possible. The only function for my laundry room is to wash and dry clothes. 
2. Our laundry area is already decluttered. The only thing around is our laundry detergent bucket and a trash can. 
3. I have laundry areas upstairs which I will show below.
4. Ideally we will have a pretty and inviting laundry area.. but again the spiders have taken over.. so I'm not decorating anything down there! 


Now for some pictures of our laundry areas!

Before

After

I cleaned off the tops of the machine. Emptied the trash and put in a garbage bag, got rid of the old Tide laundry detergent from a previous tenant and swept up a pile of gunk on the floor. See that big white bucket on the left side of the picture? 

Let's look inside...

I make our own Laundry Detergent! Get the recipe here! 

The rest of our laundry supplies are upstairs in our pantry. 

Iron, laundry detergent (I transfer it from that big bucket to an old bottle), dryer sheets, all the ingredients to make the laundry detergent and a basket with a lint roller, stain stick, fuzz buzzer, cloths pins and a Felz-Naptha bar. 

I have two drying racks in the closet in the dining room. The dining room/bedroom becomes my drying area. 

I use a bucket for my foot soaks but also for soaking clothes to get out stains, the bucket hides under the bathroom sink in the bank. 

See it! The tan thing in the WAY back! When I need to soak clothes I do it in the bathroom next to the sink. 

Organize Your Home: Week Twenty-Three

Laundry Organization

Steps for this week's challenge:
1. Consider Where To Place Laundry Baskets 
2. Put A System In Place To Collect and Sort Dirty Clothes
3. Put A System In Place To Put Clean Clothes Back Where They Belong When Laundry Is Done
4. Create A Laundry Schedule And Stick To It


For our family of two in a small apartment our laundry situation is an easy one. 

In the white basket: towels, whites, sheets

In the white hamper: everything else 

I do laundry on the weekends or the occasional Friday or Monday. Pretty easy! Usually two loads a week. I fold the laundry in the living room while watching something on TV and then jam out to music as I put the laundry away. 

OH: Week 21

Organize Your Home: Week Twenty-One

Organize Dining Room 

Our Dining Room is quite bare. In the past it has become a dumping ground for my work but I've really been trying to keep the table cleared off. Since Ben made our new dining room table I have been MUCH better with keeping our dining room clean. So this challenge was very easy because there really isn't much in our dining room so there isn't anything to organize. But here is a glimpse into our dining room and I'll still record the steps suggested for this weeks' challenge here. 


1. Consider How You Want To Use Your Dining Room Space
2. Declutter Your Dining Room 
3. Make A Home For The Stuff You're Keeping With Storage Solutions


Our Dining Room is a work in progress. Here is a glimpse at the first pictures I posted of our Dining Room. 

Before

Our dining table was so small and looks so silly in this large room.

We did have artwork on the wall and at this point Ben had made our pallet mirror. 

Again this picture shows how funny the proportions are.

After

Big table for a big room!

The room works so much better now with a bigger table. We also have switched around the artwork. Our art never stays in one place for too long 

Two new chairs. We are making plans for seating on the other two sides of the table. We are thinking a bench and two low-backed chairs. 

Table Runner from World Market. 

Hosta leaves from our yard. In a Mason Jar of course! I love the look of Mason Jars as a vase! 

OH: Week Twenty

Organize Your Home: Week 20

Organizing Living Room

The living room challenge came at a good time. We bought new furniture for our living room so it was a good time to put together the new furniture, clean every nook and cranny and rearrange our room. Honestly, I didn't do much organizing. The living room was the first room that I organized upon moving in last July and our system has worked out great. If you are following along (or just curious) here are the steps of this week's challenge.


Read more about the challenge here.
1. Think of What You Use the Living Room For. We gather with friends and family, play video games, entertain little ones, watch movies, read books and magazines and relax.
2. Declutter The Room, Rearrange Furniture as Needed and Move Things Out That Don't Belong.
3. Set Up Stations or Center That Reflect the Room's Functions
4. Make Sure You've Got Adequate Family Room Storage Solutions
5. Create A Daily Pickup Routine For The Room

Before

Mismatched colors/fabrics

Boring window sill. It was a main focal point int the room yet nothing exciting was happening here. 

Too much blank space.

After

New chair and footstool are next to the window. Perfect for reading!

New layout! We love how the paintings Ben got for his birthday bring out the red in our new chair. 

The photos above the couch might go and a big piece of artwork above the couch.

We love our new couch!!!!

We choose a layout that didn't put the TV in the center of the room. We wanted the focus to be on the room itself. 

Before this space was very bare with our TV stand. Our TV stand was too short and looked funny in this tall space. With a taller bookshelf and a piece of art this area fits well in this space. 

Our blanket/my craft basket looks so out of place. I hid it in the corner until I can spray paint it. Maybe red? 

OH: Week Nineteen

Organize Your Home: Week 19

Mudroom & Entryway Organization

This week the challenge was to work on the entrance into the home. If you have multiple ways to enter the home - work on all of those! We have a main entrance and an emergency exit door. We don't use the side emergency door so we focused on the main entrance. Ben and I attacked this challenge together since many of the items in the foyer were his. 

Before

The entry was was filled with bikes, gardening materials, BBQ gear, construction equipment and dirt!

We got busy and ended up making a mess down here. It was awful!

Gardening supplies from our work over Memorial Weekend. 

The walls were filled with scuff marks. I have scrubbed most of the walls with a magic eraser but still have some more areas to work on. 

A pile of Ben's shoes usually collects outside the door. 

YIKES! This is the leftovers from Ben's woodworking projects and "cleaning" out his truck. 

After

Now the only items downstairs is our bikes, housemate's chairs, and a tote for BBQ items and car items. 

Ben used the tote to house the random things that didn't have a home before. 

Much cleaner looking!

I scrubbed these walls! Now all we need is our landlord to repaint our foyer and it looks brand new!

Trying to limit Ben's shoes to 1 or 2. 

The nice coat hanging area Ben made using a piece of an old pallet. The painted drift wood was a Christmas gift from a friend. 

Steps for this challenge:

1. Clear out EVERYTHING!

2. Clean the floors and get all reachable cob webs. 

3. Put everything back where it belongs. Gardening supplies in milk crates in the basement. Car cleaning supplies in a tote upstairs. All other random items in a tote by the door. 

4. Do a quick clean up in the front yard - sweep deck and pick weeds growing next to the front steps. 

Items to still consider:

1. A place for items that need to go somewhere else: library books, etc. Maybe get a small basket to place by the door. 

2. What to do with wet shoes in the winter. Maybe buy a small rug to go next to the welcome mat.