Make It Organized

An exciting part of January for us was seeing our master bathroom featured in the latest issue of Make It Organized magazine.  Yet, it felt somewhat ironic because our house has been feeling anything but organized these last few months.  I sat down with that magazine and read it until I was inspired to make some changes in our home.

So, I have been on a mission to organize everything the last few weeks.  There is no closet safe from me, armed with a garbage bag or two.  Living in a busy house, staying organized is a constant struggle.  I know things run so much more smoothly when I plan out how we can currently best use a space.  As kids grow, their needs change.  For us, with 2 teens and a 9 year old who thinks he is a teen, it isn't about organizing legos and trucks anymore.  Rather, we need to keep track of phone chargers.  And laptop chargers.  And earbuds.  I recently took the time to remove the rarely used coats from our front entryway closet.  Our most used jackets hang in our mudroom.  I learned long ago that kids (& husbands) are much better with hooks to hang jackets on rather than a hanger in a closet.  So I moved our extra coats to the basement.  And then I thought about ways to put our front closet to better use.  My main goal was to make room for our vacuum.  With 2 big hairy dogs, I need to keep a vacuum readily accessible on every floor of our house.

I had a bunch of wrapping paper jammed into this closet amongst the coats.  I decided it was time to finally find a better way to organize that wrapping paper.  I purchased this Elfa Over-the-Door storage system at The Container Store.  Now I just need a few more rolls of wrapping paper to fill it up (most of the wrapping paper that had been stuffed in the closet was wrinkled and ripped-another reason why my old "system" wasn't working).  I would also like to add another Elfa shelf or two for the door.  I also have visions of adding another Elfa system to our pantry, but The Container Store is $$ so I will wait a bit for that.

I saw the idea to keep paper towels in a shoe organizer on Pinterest.  I was excited to free up an entire shelf in our pantry by moving the paper towels to this closet.  Where would we be without Pinterest?

I have also been working on organizing this blog.  I knew if I was having trouble finding some of my own projects, that some of you were too (sorry about that!).  I have been busy organizing posts on both the Projects and DIY Tutorials pages.  

And now, in my continued effort to "keep it real", it is time for me to head into the mudroom for some more organizational fun.  This room is rarely clutter free, but I try to remind myself that this is what we built this mudroom for.

Yes, there is a hole in the ceiling soffit near the door.  I am not even quite sure how it got there.  

It. never. ends. :)