Bathroom Closet Organization

Last week I wrote about how I rearranged things in the Spencinator's room and because I just can't work on one thing at a time, I was also reorganizing the kids' bathroom closet.  

Well I'm back to day to show you what I've done.

Here's the BEFORE pictures of what I started with:

The top shelf housed our beach towels, some cleaning rags and some extra bathroom accessories like a rug and shower curtain.

The shelf second from the top held some baby lotions and such, as well as my nicer towels (the tan ones).

Rearranging Bedrooms AGAIN

Friday I mentioned how I decided to rearrange the Spencinator's room - AGAIN.
The reason I wanted to rearrange it was because it wasn't working out.
To see what his room used to look like, you can check out this post HERE.

The yellow table next to the lego storage unit wasn't being used like I thought it should.  Plus the Spencinator said he didn't like it and wouldn't build legos on it, he prefered to use the floor.
See what I mean:

The mess was not contained to the lego side of his bed, legos spilled out to the other side too:

It was a hot mess:

So you see, I was totally justified in having to rearrange his furniture again.

The Improved Reading Corner

In my last post about how I DIY-ed a Littlest Pet Shop House for Sweetie Pie, I gave you a sneak peak of the new and improved reading corner in her room:

Here is what that reading corner looked like before:

 It had a bookcase for all her books, plus another Ikea trofast toy storage unit for her toys.  It was crowded and didn't have a cozy place for her to read.

The first thing I did was to move the Ikea trofast unit into the Babes' room.  That freed up some space for a spot to read.

Pots and Pans Organization

This summer is turning out to be busy, just like last summer, and I am loving it.  I'm running the kids around to various camps, activities, and trying to do fun stuff at home.  However, I still managed to squeeze in time to organize my pots and pans.  Actually I bought this lid organizing rack a couple of months ago and finally got around to using it.

Here is what my pots and pans cabinet looked like before:

 Not too bad, but lets take a closer look:

I know I have a lot, more than I need, although we do use most of it.  The pile of pans in the front right corner is toppling over because of the pot on top, and there is a jumbled mess of lids in the back right corner.

And here is what it looks like now:

Creating A Toy and Book Corner

As I mentioned in this post HERE when Sweetie Pie got injured while reading in bed, I would have to rearrange her furniture to prevent further accidents.
Here is the before:

You can see where her books were right next to her bed.

Still not sure how she hurt herself putting one away, but I've never liked this Ikea trofast storage system with all her trinkets displayed on top of it being the first thing you see when you look in her bedroom.  So of course I took this opportunity to arrange something better.

Organizing My Food Storage - part 2

I linked THIS post about organizing my food storage to a couple of linky parties and it ended up being one of the most viewed posts over at:

organizeyourstuffnow

and at:

Junkintheirtrunk

Thanks to all who stopped by to check it out.

So here is what my food storage area looked like yesterday before I decided to cozy it up a bit:

Meal Planning

When I made my kitchen command center, I had the intention of using part of it for keeping track of and planning my dinners.   At first I just printed out my meals and slipped that paper into the command center.  

But I didn't know where at on the list I was, so I needed a better solution.  And remember it had to be something flexible since we usually have leftovers for the next night so Monday's aren't always Pasta Night. 

So here's what I came up with:

Still Organizing My Kitchen

Yesterday when I wrote about organizing my kitchen pantry, I still had more work to do.  The pantry, or at least that's what I call the tall cabinet in our kitchen, houses most of our can goods.  The cabinet to the right of it houses most of our boxed food.  Well, that cabinet was in need of some organization too.
Here is what it looked like before:

Mounds Brownies and Pantry Organization

I've been making some new desserts recently.  You can read about the other things I've made HERE and HERE.  Last night for Family Home Evening, we had Mounds Brownies for dessert.

I found the recipe HERE over at Katrina's Kitchen.

And the verdict is.....

Organizing My Food Storage

Thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to keep up with all of our craziness, be sure to follow along using one of the options on the right sidebar.

Today I'm going to show you how I organize my food storage.

Our church encourages us to be prepared and have a basic supply of food, water and money in savings.  You can read more about that HERE.  Today I'll show you how I organized my food storage.  We are still working on it, and try to stock up on items we use often.  We buy it when it's on sale or in bulk.  Usually we come home from the grocery store and just pile up the cans and boxes in the basement, thinking we'll get around to organizing it later.  Well, this is what it was looking like before I organized it:

An Organized Dresser

Sweetie Pie has a lot of clothes,  and they get all messed up in her dresser drawers when she digs through them to find something to wear.  I've been looking for a better way to organizer her clothes in her drawers.

Becky over at Organizing Made Fun has found a great way to fit more clothes in your dresser drawers AND make it easy to see what clothes you have.

 

I Can Do Hard Things

As mentioned on Friday's post, I had plans to use the quote:

I CAN DO HARD THINGS

We are currently working with Sweetie Pie on 3 areas that need improvement: 
trying new foods/eating dinner,
being nice to her brother, and
cleaning. 

We even made up a simple chart using graph paper and hung it on the side of the fridge to help her keep track of when she does these things. 

Holey Moley

So I've had this mop/broom organizer for a while, a couple of  months actually, and yesterday I finally got around to putting it up.

It took way longer than I thought to hang that darn thing, but I perservered and got it done.












It attaches to the wall with five screws.  So that means I had to drill five 1/4 inch holes:

Then according to the directions I was to hammer in five plastic anchors.  Which I did.
The next step should have been easy, just place the organizer over the holes and screw in the screws.
But as in so many DIY projects, it's rarely easy....

Shoe Organization

When I reorganized the laundry room closet in THIS post, I needed to do something about all those shoes.

Closet Confessions

Confession #1:
As I mentioned in this post HERE, I made the Spencinator's closet into a reading/calming nook:

What I didn't tell you was where I put all his toys that used to be in his closet.....

Furniture Rearranging (part 2)

I'm back to show you how I rearranged the Spencinator's room.
You can check out part 1 HERE.
I'm warning you, I took lots of pictures in trying to figure out the best arrangement.
Here is what the room looked like before:

I know, not a very good picture, but you can see that all the furniture is on the perimeter of the room.  

More Closet Organization

I'm on an organizing kick.  And this time I've been working on the closet in our laundry room.  This is the room we enter into from the garage, and the kids keep their shoes and coats in here.  Their hats, gloves and scarves are also stored here and with it being winter, those items are getting more use.
Here is the before:

A Reading Nook / Calming Closet

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I put the changing table back into The Babes closet to use as shelving.  It used to be in the Spencinator's closet which used to look like this:

I wanted to create a little quite, calming space where the Spencinator could go to relax and read.   Anyone who has a child with autism knows how important it is to have a calming space for them.
After a little rearranging, his closet now looks like this:

A Work In Progress

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the state of my house these last few days.  You know how one project leads to another to another.....  which has lead to about 5 areas I am trying to organize at the same time and none of them are done.  I have lost my motivation or don't have the right supplies.  I hope to finish something soon and share it with you.  Right now, I have one closet mostly done and it looks like this now:

Organizing My Dinner Plan

I'm not a very good cook.  I don't really enjoy cooking but mostly because I am not organized.   We usually have dinner around 6:30pm because that is what works for us with my husband's work schedule.  And there are plenty of nights at 6pm when I still don't know what to cook.  I want to make something but don't have all the ingredients, or the meat isn't thawed out.  I have plenty of recipes so that's not the problem, the problem was getting on a schedule and STAYING on that schedule.