Project Organization 2010

So I've been complaining for a LONG time that we just don't have any space and blah blah blah. Over the last few weeks as I started to look around the house, I realized that a little re-organization would drastically improve the clutter problem we were having. And so began what I call Project Organization 2010....

Madelyn's room before. She has these toy bins in the corner of her room, and there ALWAYS seem to be little toys ALL over the floor. UGH!!!!

I just LOVE when things aren't cluttered and messy!! Madelyn loves having her bookcase closer to her bed. And yes, she was asleep when I took this picture about 10 minutes ago - OOPS : )

The pantry - again I noticed that we have a huge space between the floor and the bottom shelf of the pantry. We used to put all kinds of junk down there. These drawers were the perfect size to do the job. I didn't take a Before pic, but just imagine lots of JUNK.

I decided to start small - the laundry closet. I doubt anyone has noticed, but we don't have a single linen closet in our house. So we have old towels and rags that are used for cleaning and such that get tossed in the laundry closet. It BUGS me, and has for a while....

BEFORE

AFTER

We have been very blessed with small children who can wear clothes for more than one season before outgrowing them (yesterday Madelyn wore size 2 shorts to school and I had to adjust the waist because they were too big). So at the end of the fall and winter, we boxed up Madelyn's clothes and threw them in her closet. Then on top of that we threw extra balnkets and sheets. In the past we have put her shoes in the little hamper basket in her closet. So each morning Madelyn was digging around trying to find matching shoes.

AFTER - I was SOOO glad to be able to move Madelyn's toy bins into her closet instead of her bedroom! Once I took all the boxes of clothes out and put them in Space Bags (which, by the way, are my new favorite invention ever) I had all kinds of space in her closet!

The kids LOVE this shoe organizer. They think it's a game to get their shoes in and out of it! And because their shoes are so small, we can fit one pair of shoes in each opening, so it actually fits both of their shoes. Every spot is filled up now, because we ALL know how little Aubrey feels about shoes :) I think she has about 8 pair in there....

It's not that Aubrey's closet was super messy before, it just had a lot of space that we weren't using. And in a house where we are completely out of space, I realized this was a problem...

I was able to organize all my wrapping paper and gift bags which usually fell out of Aubrey's closet everytime I opened the door. We also cleared out a space for the BIG toys that had been taking up tons of space in the middle of her bedroom.

We added a couple of drawers for storage on the right side of her closet. Before it was just WASTED space. Now we have some toys and clothes in there.

Aubrey's cluttered bedroom BEFORE

Because we were able to make room in the closet, I was able to actually clear out some of the toys. Her room seems SO much bigger now, and she loves it!

The garage - BEFORE

Ok, before you judge me you have to realize that we haven't really USED the garage since Clint got a take home car for work in December. A few weeks ago we "gave" the Altima to Clay and Kelly to drive for a few months. That's when I noticed how totally nasty our garage was!! It had basically been used as a storage area for everything - especially trash!! We were putting so much stuff out on the curb that a woman actually thought we were having a garage sale and stopped to ask me how much for some of the girls' toys! That's when you KNOW you have too much junk!

AFTER

I still have a LOT of work to do in the garage. The shelves are currently packed with boxes that I need to go through, and we have a lot of toys that are going to Aunt A's house in October. but look - we have a garage floor!!! WHO KNEW??

LOTS of thanks to Amanda for shopping with me and helping me figure out what all I needed to organize properly, and to Christopher who came over and helped clean out the garage :) We're so blessed with our family and friends!!

And by the way - next up is the coat closet and master bedroom. Anyone looking to help - BRING IT ON!!