Okay! Maybe I’m nesting or I’m just tired of not being organized, but it’s time! I’ve recently been obsessed with reading about other people’s organized homes and how they did/do it. My two current inspirations are A Bowl Full of Lemons and iHeart Organizing. I mean, these ladies seem to have it all together. Plus, I have always wanted to do a blog series and this feels like something I can manage. I can give you practical tips on how I organize my spaces (big and small) on a real life budget. Don’t worry, I won’t make you feel like you need to run out and get baskets from Pottery Barn and Target (love their baskets though, don’t you??). Also, I’m not pretending to be some sort of organizing guru. I’m so not that, but I’m here to show you that even the most right-brained person can be organized! So join me, won’t you?
I definitely wasn’t born with the organizing gene. My mom was. My sister was. Maybe I take after my dad? (Sorry, dad!) I was born with a messy, artsy brain. Organizing is not easy for me. Well, getting organized is easy, I can organize with the best of them. It’s the staying organized part that really stumps me. I’m a tosser, piler, make-it-fit kind of girl (read: lazy). Doesn’t exactly go hand in hand with staying organized. So I’m determined to find a system that works for me and the rest of the family.
I’ve really been trying to see how we use different spaces and paying attention to where things pile up. That way, I can figure out what we need to stop the problems from happening.
My first task was to get our bathroom linen closet together. We don’t actually use it for linens, as we are lucky enough to have an actual linen closet in the hallway, so we keep all of our bathroom stuff in there. We keep our vanity empty because little hands really enjoy emptying the drawers and cupboard, which just isn’t flying with this mama anymore! Can I just say how refreshing it is to have an empty vanity?? It’s pretty great. But, our closet needed a little bit of organizing love.
So, I started by taking everything out of the closet and I laid out my four baskets that I got from Dollar Tree (love that place!) Then, I put everything into categories. The four things that had the most items were our extra toiletries, extra paper/cotton products, my hair tools, and our first aid supplies. Those each got their own red basket. The two that didn’t have very much went into the smaller green baskets (I got those quite a while ago, also from Dollar Tree). Those were our oral hygiene and feminine hygiene items. Sorry, I failed to take pictures of this step because I had a little helper =]
The top shelf holds our extra travel bags and a cleaning caddy that I put together last week. That caddy is one of my thrift shop scores from last Monday!
The next shelf holds the two little green bins and John’s hair cutting stuff along with his travel bag (which is always packed).
Below that sits our extra toiletries and paper/cotton products. And on the next shelf is our first aid and my hair things.
Earlier in the week, I put our extra toilet paper in this bin that I got from Target and just set it on the floor. Pay no attention to that amazing linoleum. It’s definitely on our long list of to-dos.
It is so nice to have such an organized space that we use every day. I know exactly where everything is! And it only cost me about $16 to organize it all! Plus, if I didn’t already have that bin on the bottom, you know I would have bought a dollar store laundry basket to hold the TP. That would have made it a $7 organization makeover. Whaaaaat???
