Checking back in on my January Cure projects

It's the first day of February, so I am taking stock of my January Cure progress. I'm pretty pleased with how they've held up over the past couple of weeks.

Here's the linen closet in my laundry room:

 A few things have been moved into this closet--the humidifier and sunscreen. But overall, it's still holding up well.

The utensil drawer in my kitchen:

Hasn't changed much. I do think I am going to make this a baking drawer instead, and flip some of the contents with the drawer on the other side of my stove.

And last but not least, our entryway coat closet:

So, this one got off the rails a bit, because the kids managed to yank one of the hooks off the wall, so now the littlest one is tossing his coat on the floor. We've added secure wall hooks to our list of projects for this month.

I like taking stock and reminding myself of the projects I've completed and any tweaks they need. I'm pleased with this start to the year. :)

January Cure 2016: Two Days of Assignments

So, yesterday's Cure assignment was to create a landing strip and a place for coats when you get into your house.

Uh...done?

It's been done for a while (I added the Hemnes storage back on Christmas Eve and redid the closet last week or the week before).

Then today...

I really like this advice. I like it so much that I've been doing it for over a year now.

Well, I don't set the timer. But all told, I do two sweeps, morning and afternoon. The morning one takes about ten minutes and the afternoon one takes about five. And I can attest that it really does help keep clutter under control under normal circumstances.

BUT, a word of warning:

There's a reason this simple task comes in the last week of the Cure and that is that it requires that you already have some organization in place. You need places for the clutter to go or you'll just shift it from one room to the next.

I recommend really focusing on paper storage and filing and toy storage. Those two areas usually significantly cut down on clutter, at least in our home. But it's also surprisingly easy to just make a "to file" pile in a corner or shut the door on the toys and not have to think about it. Having easy and quick storage works best to keep the clutter in check.

Anybody else doing the Cure? What'd you think of these assignments?

January Cure 2016: Another closet

I actually did take just a half hour to do this one. I'm not going to do much in the way of explanation, but here's the before:

The light is terrible. I promise eventually to get better at taking pictures. Bear with me.

Most of the issue with this closet was that top shelf, which had, wonder of wonders, a variety of empty boxes. WTAF, Kay?

Anyway, after I got into the process, here's what the closet looked like:

Naturally, it got a good sweeping and mopping.

And here's what the area around the closet looked like....

Yikes.

But, it all turned out okay:

Still hard to see, but I removed all of the boxes (and all of them went in the recycling...) and used two small organizers to hold umbrellas and our outdoor sitting blanket.

I already had Command hooks set up on the sides. They keep the kids' coats and jackets at their height.

So a few notes for myself to improve this closet:

• I'd like two wicker baskets for the top, the size of the canvas crates that I have used elsewhere.
• I'd like to add another command hook on either side for the kids' coats and jackets (they're cramming these hooks full).

Anybody else tackling closets? I'm enjoying it.

January Cure 2016: 30 Minute Closet Tidy (Except I cheated)

Recently, I flipped things around. I started doing the Kids' Space on Thursdays along with my Guest Bathroom, and doing the Laundry Room, Porch, and Patio on Sundays.

This worked out well for me this weekend, because one of the things the January Cure suggested doing was a thirty minute closet clean up. This was a task last week, but I started it this weekend. So sue me.

So, I decided to do our laundry room linen closet. There's a reason for that, and that reason is...

Yeah........

This closet has kind of become master bedroom linens (towels and sheets)...some random supplies...the pictures we are trying to find spaces for around the house...etc.

Want to see the horror story up close? Here ya go...

It's okay, you can scream. This is a no-judgement zone.

Anyway, the task is to take 30 minutes, but after I completely emptied this closet, it took a bit longer. I didn't take any pictures during the process because I was trying to get as much done as possible during the time period.

But, I have an after for you:

So, I added some bins, cleaned up the floor, did some purging, and put most everything back.

Here's another closeup:

I don't really have any advice that isn't already out there on the web, but here's a rundown of my process for this space in particular:

• I dumped everything, swept, mopped and dusted.
• I created a toss, keep, move, and donate pile.
• I added bins because the wire shelves are a pain to balance some things on.
• I refolded our extra master sheets set and put them in their pillow case, thus keeping everything together a little tighter.

I have a few notes for myself:

• I'd like matching bins.
• Labels...I need to get labels.
• Hang the damn pictures so that they won't linger in the closet and can be enjoyed.

And that's really it. I did another closet today, so I'm sure I'll share that sometime this week! ;-)

January Cure 2016: Clean out a drawer.

So, to be fair, this assignment was another one that I only just got around to although it was supposed to take place a few days ago. But no biggie--I'm not stressing it.

And also to be fair, I don't have that many drawers to choose from right now. This was about my only option. But, I had two purposes for this project:

1. I wanted to clean out the drawer that was looking a li'l jumbled.
2. I wanted to see if I could empty the utensil crocks (vases, as my spouse reminds me) from my counter top into the drawer to give me more counter space and less to move when I cleaned.

I think it turned out alright, although I'll add a few notes at the end. First! Some obligatory before photos.

Here's the countertop I want to free up:

So those three vases are roughly organized as spatulas, spoons, and everything else. They're the ones I'd like to get rid of. We don't have much on our countertops (the other side of the stove is totally bare, and along the other side of the wall I have our coffee station and nada else). This one little corner was starting to feel cramped, though.

And this is the drawer that was my target:

Not a lot of stuff, but definitely some wasted space, and again, pretty jumbled together.

Step One was, naturally, to empty said drawer and wipe it down:

Not bad. I was grateful to have had the contact paper because it made it easy to wipe down.

And then, of course, everything has to find a home again:

I opted to remove the bits of appliance thing (those things in the silvery basket in the bottom right corner of my before picture), and to consolidate my cookie cutters in one basket. I shifted some other things around, and that left space for all of the utensils from my vases, which made me mucho happy, because now that countertop looks like this:

Plenty of space. Since this corner sees a lot of action because of the stand mixer, it made sense to try to parse down what did and didn't need to be on the countertop.

So I'm pretty pleased with this, but it's definitely not done by any means. I really need some kind of dividers in there to keep things in place even when stuff is removed to be used. I also am toying with the idea of flipping this drawer and the one on the other side of the stove. The other side of the stove has a lot of stuff that I use when baking, so it kind of makes sense to switch 'em out and have that stuff closer to the mixer. We'll see. Dividers, definitely. Switcheroo, maybe.

In the mean time, though, I'm glad with the short term solution and the countertop.

January 2016 Cure: Make a project list.

I'm going to bounce around for a minute and step back to last week's cure.

The second assignment in the Cure was to generate a list of projects around the house. At first, I found this pretty difficult, but I've been thinking about it for the past week, and I think I've generated a pretty good list to focus on over the next few months.

Living Room

• Window treatments
• Refinish dresser for turtle habitat
• Hide cords around telephone stand somehow

Office

• Desk drawer
• Catch alls
• Reorganize drawers
• Window treatments

Entry

• Coat closet
• Plant

Kitchen

• Can I fit utensils in the drawer instead of on the countertop in crocks??
• Pantry: longterm storage solutions
• Under sink

Dining

• Trash can
• Wall art
• Window treatment

Guest Bath

• Under sink
• Wall art

Master Bedroom

• Window treatments
• Reading corner

Master Bathroom

• Master closet
• Under sink

Playroom

• Long term storage
• Window treatments

Boys' Room

• Dressers
• Closet

Girls' Room

• Paint

Kids Hall

• Linen Closet
• Wall Art

Laundry Room

• Linen closet

Garage

• Storage shelves
• Purge leftover crap
• Donate the donate boxes

Window treatments are high up on the list pretty much everywhere. The bedrooms have blinds, but the rest of the windows are open, and as I sit here and type this with the dark outside...man, it'd just be nice not to give the neighbors a play by play of pretty much our every movement.

Other than that, it's a good mix of organizing and decorating. Maybe slightly heavier on the decorating side because we nearly doubled our square footage when we moved--we just don't have enough stuff to fill up all of the space, and a lot of our small space solutions for our former abode have translated well. Plus...I'm a hack-and-burn kinda gal. I'm sentimental, but not about things, which makes it easy to toss or donate.

Anyway, today's assignment was supposed to be clean out a closet, but I got distracted. I will probably wind up doing a handful of them altogether on Friday, because the kiddo doesn't have school. Yay.

I'm still enjoying the process. I highly recommend following along.

January Cure 2016: Reorganize Your Pantry

So, I've been doing my first January Cure over at Apartment Therapy. It's been a little more difficult than I thought because a lot of it is stuff that I am already doing, or that the house just doesn't need yet--I suppose that's one of the benefits of moving to a larger place less than a year ago.

Anyway, one assignment from last week that I did enjoy was the Pantry Purge. It had been a while since I'd cleaned out ours, and I knew it needed it.

And it did:

Pantry is hard to photograph...please pardon the quality of the pictures.

So yeah, pretty junk looking. This really happens when we have our whole family together--with six of us, the pantry takes a pretty hard direct hit.

I dumped it all out, and so the pantry looked like this:

But my countertops looked like this:

I rounded up some containers and started sorting everything. Eventually, my countertops were back to looking like this:

And even better, the pantry looked like this:

This was really just a matter of straightening and consolidating things. I also swept and mopped the floor.

I made a note of a few things that I'd like to do in the future too:

• I'd like to add another wire stacking basket for onions.
• I'd like to find more storage that will allow me to stack it--I feel like that will let me utilize the space between the shelves a bit better.
• I'd like to do something with the brooms and mops. They have to be in here; we sweep and mop the kitchen and dining room more than any other in the house, so it makes sense. But they are forever getting messed up, especially since Big A and M are the ones that use them most often.
• I'd like to find something different to store my flour in besides the giant blue rubbermaid tote.
• I'd like to pretty it up. I don't usually worry about "pretty" when I organize, but since we are doing more entertaining in the new place, the pantry is on display a little more. I'd like for it to be a little nicer to look at when it is.

Sooooo...that was it. If you're interested in doing the Cure, I highly recommend it. I definitely think I'll be doing it in the future. You can check it out here.