Laundry room clean up.

I mentioned before in my laundry routine post how I would LOVE to make-over the laundry room in my in-law's house. Well I decided to just do it. I turned it into a gift to thank my MIL for always being so helpful with Ellie. 

The BEFORES

The AFTERS

I pulled all of the clothes down and swapped out mismatched hangers for matching white ones to eliminate some visual clutter. 

previously this wall was blank and the laundry hamper was shoved on the other wall. Random laundry and misc stuff sat on the floor. 

I got the huge cloth bin on the top because it matched the other small ones. After trying cleaning supplies in it, I realized it was much too big, and destined for much to high up to hold anything heavy. Elsewhere in the house was a costco size package of paper towels, they fit perfectly in the bin. 

I didnt have enough of the fabric bins for everything so I used some plastic shoe boxes. I have an idea to dress up the front to eliminate a little of the visual clutter though, perhaps later. 

The excuse I gave for starting the reorganization was my very tall bottle of Ecos laundry soap that previously lived on the floor, Ellie learned to twist off caps, so it, the bleach and the Clorox 2 had to move. I found some short square drink dispensers at Walmart for $15 and they work great for the laundry soap. ( I wanted to test with my Ecos soap before putting my MIL's ALL in one, it worked great though so now the ALL is in one too. I already had gotten 2 glass canisters for my old soap (before I started using Ecos I used powdered Country Save) and baking soda. I re-purposed the CS one for Oxy-Clean and added one for the IRON OUT my MIL uses on occasion. If I would have had time I would have used vinyl and cut out the labels with my Cricut for the powders and the liquid soaps. maybe later. 

I added a few clear glass jars for pretty items, clothes pins (this is a laundry room), extra dryer balls, and one for loose change from pockets. 

cleaning out another closet in the room (no pics sorry, im a bad blogger) I found the laundry bags on the green shelf thing, I will make a box or jar and label for them too. The open box of bounce sheets didnt fit under the little white shelf thing so I found a shallow plastic storage container. I like that it cleans up the visual clutter. 

NOTHING was purged. This wasn't MY space to decide what to get rid of. a few things were relocated, so that this would be mostly just Laundry. I only threw away actual garbage. 

quick 34 min cleaning session

I was sitting on the couch on motheringdotcom and saw a forum about quick 10-15 minute clean ups, Ellie was in a good mood, so I put her in her Bumbo (best invention ever btw) and got to work, I was able to work for 34 minutes before she was done watching me.

the bathroom:

I hung the baby bath tub behind the door, where it is usually, the mesh insert has a little loop and it had been peed on, and wasnt back together after being cleaned. We dont actually use the tub for bathing, because she prefers to shower with us, but we lay her in it while we wash up, then reach out of the shower to get her, then put her back in it after we wash her up, she is usually quite content to lay in it all bundled in a towel while I dry off and stuff.

the plastic container box on the counter is for all the extra toothpastes and toothbrushes, i put a lable on it finally and put it in the bathroom cabinet.


The kitchen:

yes that is a toilet seat on my kitchen counter, that counter just attracts stuff like crazy! (its a new one, that has a toddler insert, better than an removable ring thingy) not even a year ago there was a toilet on that counter!
(during construction, 8/12/2010)

You can see that I decluttered the fridge again.

Ellie was done watching mommy clean house, and hungry so i fed her and put her down for a nap, had some lunch and now im going to tackle the rest of the house! except the office, that aint happening.

more updates to come, hopefully!

bathroom cabinet redo

I haven't forgotten about my Craft Room Overhaul, I just don't want to spend all of my cleaning/organizing time in my space when other, smaller jobs, that my husband will enjoy being cleaned up, need done also.

Last night, I cleaned and organized my bedroom, and I will share those results later, but hubby is sleeping and probably wouldn't appreciate the camera flash all over the room.

Tonight, I tackled the bathroom cabinets. I had done some organizing about a month ago, and we only moved in 3 months ago, so this isn't really that bad.

As always, lets begin with some BEFORES:

Top shelf:

not pictured is another 1/3rd of this cabinet, the middle, towel shelf. its really not bad, the towels are stacked and rolled and pretty boring.


The bottom shelf:


I failed to take "during" pictures, well because, I was sitting on the floor, and well, my camera was not.



I pulled everything out and using existing boxes, I sorted everything. I had organized before so
things were mostly sorted, just had a few "misc" boxes.


I had a lot of misc boxes because when I clean elsewhere in the house, I usually fill a box of "bathroom" stuff and it gets put in the cabinet. Also, when i have company, everything from the counter gets put in a bin or box or basket and put in the cabinet.

Also, as you see on the top shelf, I had a 3 drawer shelf thingy that was completely empty and has been empty for 3 months, since we moved in. I thought it was awfully wastefull to have a great organization tool just sitting, empty, taking up space. Also, i tend to use the same hair clips/scrunchies all the time because, well my hair stuff was in several places, one was that tall silver star basket, the other was a labeled box at the bottom of the cabinet. I decided to try putting all my hair stuff in the 3 drawer unit.

Top drawer has the "chompers" and headbands. Middle holds scrunchies, pony holders and in a bin in the middle, bobby pins and bendy clips. Bottom drawer holds hair brushes, curling iron, combs. The brushes my hubby and I use are actually out on the counter not in here, the blue brush is my travel brush, the silver one in the middle is my sisters(she left it here), I thought the other 2 were my hubby's until i asked him not his, weird... Ive since got rid of them.

UPDATE: my Brother has since also left his hairbrush at our house, whats up with my siblings? its now in the drawer next to Sister's.

Also, as I was sorting the pony holders, any that were stretched out or too weak were tossed out. Bent out of shape bobby pins were also tossed. The cord of the curling iron is banded to itself with pony holders.

Some of my hair stuff was in one of my stacking Rubbermaid take-along containers, (circled)

Now that one was empty, I decided to do some re-arranging. I also wanted a box for travel size items, so when I pack, I don't have to go through all the different sorted boxes to get the travel size containers from each. Most of the items in the "shower" container were travel sized, so this emptied that container.

Sidenote: I used to have a surplus of shower gels and bath beads and bar soaps,
toothpaste, deodorant etc from gift baskets and sales when I stocked up, I have been slowly, NOT buying any, until I use it all up, as a way of decluttering, and saving money.

So all travel sized items in the bathroom, went into a box.

(review bottom shelf "before" pic) The "face" (extra chap stick, less often used make-up, etc) and "teeth" (extra toothbrushes, toothpaste, teeth whiteneing trays) items moved out of their mismatched unstacking boxes into the freed-up matching containers. (one was repurposed as my "chomper" holder inside the drawer)

I also tossed out any expired medicine and vitamins, sorted the medicine into "rx meds" "over the counter meds" and "cough drops". I cleaned up the 2 first aid boxes (one that is easy to grab and go, the other is surplus of the first one, that stays in the house) they had bunches of band aid wrappers in them. (remember the stitches I mentioned in my under sink redo?)

All of the sorted containers were put back in the cabinet (they were already labeled from before, I do need to make more labels for the new ones though)On the bottom shelf are the following bins: NAILS, MEDS (rx) FIRST AID, FACE, TEETH, SHAVE, LOTIONS/DEODORANT, MEDS (otc), COUGH DROPS/BULK NYQUIL(we had a bunch and hubby got more at Costco) The silver star basket is staying in the cabinet, even though it is empty, because inevitably, there will be bathroom clutter that needs hidden away at some point, its a great place for it, unless I steal it for another area of the home. I also think it would look cool with Christmas ornaments inside to dress up the back of the toilet...

Since I wont be needing the TRAVEL box, or the big Costco size box of Tampax, anytime soon, I moved it, a box holding a surplus pantyliners, Vagisil, and OB tampons, and a Costco size box of face moist towelettes refills, to the back of the cabinet, behind the HAIR drawers, for now. The cabinets are so deep, Its necessary to bury some items, and the lesser used items fit well back there.

(this shelf also traded places with the towel shelf, so towels are alone in the top cabinet, everything else is in the bottom cabinet, it makes more sense this way)

On top of the boxes in the back, is my make up basket, I rarely wear make up, when I do, I pull the basket out to the counter and use it there. The basket got cleaned out, never worn make up, older versions of duplicate items, eyeliner pencil shavings, etc all got tossed.

The tray on top the HAIR drawers holds a tray of bunch of perfumes, they don't store well laying down in the stacking containers, and I do use different scents on different days, so this is a pretty/practical way to store them.

On the right of the HAIR drawers are extra shampoo, dog shampoo, and extra bar soap (since I don't have a "shower" box anymore) I have converted my husband over from bar soap to shower gel, when this bar is gone, we will just have a bottle in the shower hangy thing.

Speaking of which, it got hung (i know, it only took 3 months) I had intended on getting some "bath" Command Hooks (printable coupons on their website), but hadn't yet. Cleaning out my junk drawer, I found one! YAY! so up it went! Its about time too, because my worrier husband would come running to the bathroom whenever I would bump the big bottles of shampoo off the corner ledges sending them crashing down, (sounding too much like a pregnant klutz falling for his comfort).

more Command Hook Love: our loofahs used to hang off of the shampoo and conditioner pump spouts (adding to their fall-ability), until one day I got command hook happy.

The problem with our bathroom, is, no drawers, none. looks like we have some, nope, those aren't real.

(oh by the way, you will eventually get a peek in those cabinets, its cleaning supplies and TP, not ready for their blog debut yet) ETA check it out here

The counter usually holds items that we don't want to constantly open the cabinet for, and therefore gets cluttered up easily. Leading to the "declutter-for-company-by-tossing-it-all-in-a-basket-in-the-cabinet-to-be-hidden" problem. Or we have to reach into the cabinet for stuff all the time.

I wanted to be able to put out everyday items in an attractive way, so I didn't feel like i had to clear off the counter for presentation. This will also save steps to the cabinet for a Q-tip or something.

I always love the look of NO lables(for obvious items) or packaging.

I grabbed some inspiration from Jess from Our Life in His Grace, who upcycled some mason-esque jars with spray painted lids in her pantry: So clean and uncluttered looking! love this look!
Not realising it, I got (what looks to be) the same jar set from Bed Bath and Beyond. I had a gift card, a 20% off coupon and a $5 off coupon so they ended up costing $11 (gift card money) for a set of 4 (down from $19.99) I ended up only using 3 of them. I like the look of odd numbered items better anyway. I'm sure I will find something to do with the last one. Inside are Q-Tips, cotton rounds, and flossers. Much prettier than the packages sitting out on the counter!

Because counter items are inevitable with no drawers (and well, even with them, my old place had drawers that weren't really used often) I grabbed a little basket to put hair brushes and the air freshener in.

Moving above the sink, lets take a look into the medicine (although it doesn't hold medicine) cabinet behind the mirror.

I tried to only let items used daily stay in here, everything else moved into the sorted containers in the the cabinet.

Inside, organized left to right: are lotion, hubby's shave cream, deodorants, face washing items, teeth cleaning items. On the bottom shelf is a pretty awesome re-purpose.

I love Glade Scented Oil Candles, but, my husband is very sensitive to all smells, so I cant burn scented candles often, I had this great heavy glass holder that comes with the candles (they sit in the middle, via magnet, and burn beautifully into a pool of scented oil)

I flipped the candle holder over and ta-da! a little bowl for small items!

This was actually in my cabinet before I organized, and was in the "doesn't belong in the bathroom" box but it's perfect to hold nail clippers, nailbrush and tweezers, in the medicine cabinet.

Things from the pictures I haven't mentioned yet:

Fire extinguisher: was moved to under the sink, a more readily accessible area, and not in the way of more commonly used items.

Dog Shampoo: We don't actually have a dog full time, but we live on hubby's parents' property so we dog-sit often, our shower has a sprayer wand, and its easier for us to give her baths than his parents.

The towel bar: has yet to be installed, 3 months after we moved in, we have a "robe" hook, and a double shower curtain rod that hold our towels, so this might not ever be installed. I will be thinking that over in the next few days.

Hubby's Magazines: I know it seems silly to keep magazines in the bathroom, but if my hubby didn't have a place to put them in there, they would accumulate on the counter anyway, like they did in our old bathroom. This solution has been working since I renewed his weekly subscription last month.

Box of Air Fresheners in Swiffer box: Those were moved to the cabinet under the sink, with cleaning supplies. I need to get rid of them since hubby is sensitive to smell but there should be more under there, I will tackle that cabinet another day.

Orange soap pumps between the stacks on the bottom shelf: Mary Kay, Satin Hands, I love them, but I don't tend to need to use them often enough to keep them out, the caddy is actually from another gift I had gotten, I pull it out to use it once in a while, then it fits perfect between the stacks.

Little blue treasure chest in the bottom shelf: Actually, this is empty, not sure what i am going to do with it yet.

OK, the moment you have all been waiting (a long time, this post is crazy long!) for:

SIDE BY SIDE BEFORE AND AFTER

AHHH so pretty!

April, from Home Hinges, did an amazing job on her bathroom, check it out!

Mindy at This Little Light Of Mine made some adorable labels for her bathroom organization:

im linking to Somewhat Simple's Strut Your Stuff Thursdays

and

Medicine Cabinets A Bowl Full of Lemons' Day 13 Organizing Challenge

Craft Room Overhaul Continues!

I'm sure all 5 of my followers are dying to know how my Craft Room Overhaul is going, no? oh well its getting better. Here are some updates...

After wanting to make a quick Thanksgiving card to go with my pumpkin cheesecakes for the nurses at the hospital, I decided unpacking and organizing all my papercrafting stuff needed to be next on the to-do list.

This is what it looked like after rummaging through boxes for the card supplies:

Remember that nicely cleaned off changing table?

Well in the last couple weeks, it became a landing spot for items that belong elsewhere when I was cleaning up before. Christmas items, Attic-bound items, and misc items that didnt belong in here.

Everything found its way home and it more resembeled the cleared off picture.

Until I used it for sorting as I unpacked the clear totes. I have bins for: Felt, Misc, Chipboard, Stamps&ink, Brads/embellies, Stickers, More stickers, Iron-0ns, Paint/glitter. and a pile for upcoming projects. Also, not pictured, i have boxes labeled: Cut, Glue, Ribbon, Keepsakes. and a box for blank cards.

Scrapbooking totes stack all gone!

most of the boxes had stacks of paper, for packing purposes, they were not all corralled so as I upacked the boxes, I filled up my new paper rack. It will not stay like this, must be more organized eventually, and i have a tote full of more various papers, so this is just a during picture:
Ok, so this post is just proof that I havent forgotten about this little project of mine while I was working on my other organizing endevors, like the Junk Drawer Clean-Up and Under Sink Re-Do

Next, I will be organizing the scrapbooking stickers!

Under Sink Re-Do

OK, so this doesnt really qualify as a "re-do" because I never really set up the under sink cabinet, I just put stuff under there when we moved in, and occasionally since. It wasnt serving the purposes I wanted it to serve. This was on my "to-do/to-blog" list but I was inspired to finally do it, by my blog crush Jen at Iheart Organizing and her Solution to over reliance on wastefull paper towels. (check her out, youll heart her!)

THE BEFORE:

Ok, I know this isnt as bad as it could be, (its WAAYYY better than my old apartment was) but I didnt want it to get bad. And i was tired of not having anywhere for my dirty dish towels, and I would precariousely balance my drying rack inside when it wasnt used. I also wanted to steal Jen's idea with the paper towels, and also store my disinfecting wipes there too, so I wont use them more than needed.

Many items in here belonged in here, but I really dont think the boxes of extra plumbing supplies need to be there (they've been there since before we moved in.) they moved to the attic with the rest of the loft construction "spare parts".

The stack of wire shelves were left over from my old apartment, our cupboards didn't have adjustable shelves, and the extra shelves were a great solution for dishes, canned goods etc. I just didnt need as many in our loft... I will likely find other uses for them (like I already did in my cleaning supply cupboard), in the meantime, they can sit at the back of the cabinet.

After cutting my hand up pretty bad washing a drinking glass (it busted around my hand)

~ 8 stitches, eek!, I promised my husband I would use bottle/cup brushes for our glasses from now on. I had one, I just didnt ever feel like getting it out and switching from sponge to brush for the 2 glasses in the sink, This solution gave the new brush, and the old one, (I now use for icky-er dishes) an easy access home that also allows them to dry after use. I'm a big fan of Command Hooks! (there are printable coupons on their website)
While I was sitting on the floor, I decided to refill my dish soap pumps. (I'm 6 months pregnant, who knows when I can get down to the floor/then back up again?) I love having dish soap in a pump built into my sink (its where the sprayer hose is on other sinks)

If you do not use your sprayer hose, you can get a kit at Home Depot to convert the sprayer hole into a soap pump.

The dispenser bottle is kind of a pain to reach past the plumbing underneith though. It was still 1/3 FULL after 3 months, so its not a big deal to refill once in awhile, its worth NOT having another soap bottle on the sink, or having to get it out from under the sink. The refill bottle is also cheaper, and now has a home at the back of the cabinet. I really love Dawn Direct Foam. It uses lots less water than traditional dish soap, and cuts grease better, its perfect for hand washing a few dishes. I use the regular soap for a sink full of dishes, but the dawn is used for a few items at a time. Their website describes it's wonderfullness better than I do.

Nothing in this Re-Do is mind boggling, just a simple solution that was over due.

AFTER:

On the left is a shower hanger organizer thing leftover from my old apartment, It fits nicely in here to house extra sponges, scrubbers etc.

The new towel hamper is actually the bucket I use for mopping floors (very rarely, I use a swiffer mop usually), with things shifted around, it can sit under the sink for towels, EXACTLY why I wanted to do this Re-Do. At mopping time, I will just empty the laundry into the bathroom hamper.

The AFTER picture does look a bit more cluttered than the before, but the area is serving more purposes (decluttering more visable areas elsewhere), and everything has a home now.

Also after wearing a rubber glove over my stitched up hand, I got used to it (never really did before) I fully intend on stealing another one of Jen's great ideas: (she hearts command hooks also!) I just need to pick me up some of those clips for the other cabinet door...

COST of Project: $FREE so far... everything I had on hand.

you can get a 3 pack of the The command hooks for about $3 at Walmart though

I found the command clips online for $5.99 each, hopefully I can find a better deal than that...

I am also super impressed with Jill's under sink organization that only took her 30 minutes to fix this problem:

{Edited to add: }

Thanks a lot Command Hooks Facebook page for linking up to my blog! Your products really make organizing sooo much easier!

I'm Linking to We're Organized Wednesday at Organize and Decorate Everything

and

A Bowl Full of Lemon's 21 Day Organizing Challenge Day 5~ under the kitchen sink

Junk Drawer clean up

This is one of those places that once you have an organized set-up, you just need a quick touch up once in awhile.

THE BEFORE: on the left is just after opening drawer, on the right, I pulled out some big items on top and the top tray in the organizer tray, so you can see how bad it was.

I pulled the entire drawer out and set it on a table, spreading out, I sorted out things that dont belong in this drawer, garbage and recycling.

one of the items that really didnt have another home, but didnt like to stay put in the junk drawer are the Activia yogurt Cups of Hope lids. (similar to Yoplait, they donate $0.10 to breast cancer research, but you enter a code online instead of mailing the lids in)

It occured to me that I didnt need to save the lids, just the codes. AND I just happended to have a Pink Ribbon Post-it pad in the drawer, and a pen, so I jotted down the codes and tossed the garbage in the garbage.

Everything that was going back in the drawer was organized with the cool little stickers (some were stuck from before, some were still on their backing and just placed under items in the organizer... Things that were better in other homes, bathroom, tool box, craft room, were evicted. Usually I would wipe down the drawer, and tray, but I only moved in about 3 months ago, and it simply didnt need that this time.

THE AFTERS:

I got the organizer tray at Wal-Mart years ago, but I found one at Organize-It dot com for 7.99

COST of Project: $FREE or $8 if you need the organizer. Before I got the organizer, I used ice cube trays, muffin tins, checkbook boxes and other varying sized boxes to corral items in the drawer. all at minimum cost.

ETA: this having been organized for a while now, I am LOVING it, so nice to be able to see everything, actually CLOSE and OPEN the drawer everytime. My husband can find things easily too!

I'm linking to We're Organized Wednesday at Organize and Decorate Everything

and to 21 Day Organization Challenge DAY ONE~ Junk Drawers at A Bowl Full of Lemons