An Office Transformation

This client had just moved into a new house, and had an amazing space off her (huge!) closet that she wanted to turn into an office. I was SO happy to help make that happen in just a few short hours...
 

Such a big difference!

 

Pretty bins, bookplates, and labels - three of my favorite things!



We de-cluttered her desk, and added a Pottery Barn wall system to help keep her organized.

It's amazing what we can do with a little bit of determination, a few hours, and whole lot of trash bags! :)

 

As the end of the month draws near, have you fulfilled your New Year's Resolution to become more organized?!! Contact me if you need a little nudge in the right direction.....

Peek Inside: A Professional Organizer's House {Master Bath}

Hard to believe it's already the LAST day of April!! But you know what that means...."Peek Inside" day :) I have gotten such great feedback from you guys on this segment, and it's one I look forward to doing every month.

 

Without further ado, I present to you.....my master bath.....

One of the reasons I love doing the "Peek Inside" segments, is because it gives me a space to focus on all month long. I get to tweak it, add some more décor, and de-clutter along the way. Which makes for some pretty great Before & After shots.

 

Our house is 60+ years old, so I guess they didn't get the memo back then that it's nice to have a double vanity. Oh well. So, you're been warned....our master bath is teeny tiny!

 

One area I focused on this month was the our vanity countertop - it was too cluttered! So, I found a new home for a few items, and added a basket over the toilet. (Which now holds/hides extra toilet paper & Kleenex.)

 In addition to clearing the countertop clutter, I wanted to add some storage for my make-up & beauty products. Enter: this shelf and two glass jars from (the dollar section) of Target. And voila! Much-needed extra storage for me.



I love this shelf! And the wooden tags on the jars :)

 Underneath the sink, it was time for a major purge. Even though we kind of had a His/Hers side before, I still needed to de-clutter and then find new homes for some items (ex. cleaning supplies). I also purchased this awesome 2-tiered bath organizer from the Container Store. My husband loves how easy the baskets pull out. (And I love how everything is better categorized & contained now!) I also recovered the top of my old jewelry box with contact paper, to give it a fresh look.

 Another great addition this month was the command hook on the inside of the cabinet door, which now holds my straightener (and gets it off the counter)! And here is a close-up of the bulk items we store on my hubbie's side of the cabinet. See how nicely those drawers pull out?!

 Next up, the 3 vanity drawers. Each one was a bit of a disaster. Let's start with the top drawer, which holds my everyday items. I (you guessed it!) de-cluttered a bit and then purchased 2 simple mesh drawer organizers.

 My husband's drawer:

 The bottom drawer used to hold my make-up bag and a few travel items, but both of those were relocated. (My make-up moved to a basket on my new shelf, and the travel items moved to the large brown basket under the sink.) Now, this deep shelf holds all of our eye care necessities. Cleaning solutions, glasses, extra contacts etc. I love having it all in one spot! (Whereas before, some was on countertop, some was in my drawer, and some was in my husband's drawer.)

 Moving on....behind the door is where I hang my towel & robe, as well as store my jewelry (just earrings and watches).

Right outside our bathroom is a tiny closet, which I think was supposed to be a linen closet. Well...I changed it into a linen / medicine / hair care / socks & undergarments closet. I covered the shelves with contact paper, and used my favorite - chalk labels - on most of the bins.

 

Top shelf: a basket holds our spare towels

(If you're wondering, our spare sheets are in our nightstand drawer)

Middle shelf: medicine & sunscreens

 

 Bottom shelf: my hair products, lotions, and nail care supplies

(I highly recommend a small plastic 3-drawer organizer for all your little items)

Wire basket: my socks

Side view: necklaces hang by command hooks

 Lastly, I store my pajamas & workout clothes in a 2 drawer pull-out system that I have had forever. Like, since high school I think!! (If it ain't broke....)

That concludes the tour of my master bath. (Super exciting, I know!) Please feel free to comment with any questions you may have, or if you wonder where I purchased a certain item.

 

I will be doing a SECOND "Peek Inside" segment tomorrow, on the remaining 3 bathrooms in our house. So....stay tuned!

Peek Inside: A Professional Organizer's House {Kitchen}

**Before I get started, I want to make it clear that by no means am I doing these "Peek Inside" posts as a way to brag, or to insinuate that I have a perfect home. In fact, it's far from perfect. (Hello, I do have two small kids!) In fact, I've actually heard that word a lot...."perfect"....and it really irks me. I do work hard to have a clutter-free home most of the time, but that's because I've spent a lot of time putting systems into place, and "training" my other family members to utilize these systems. It's a lot of work, but to me, it's worth it. So, hopefully, my "Peek Inside" series will inspire you, rather than irritate you!**

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Ok...got that off my chest. Now we can begin!! :)

Since we've been talking about organization in the kitchen all month long, it's time to finally reveal MY kitchen and how I keep it organized....

1. Chore charts - I found these online here, and laminated them for the kids. We've had them for almost a year now, and they have been the best charts I've found to date. (Of course, Nate has to help his little sister read the chart every now & then, but usually he's happy to oblige.)

 2. Pantry - I did a post earlier in the month about pantry tips; click here to check that out. Since we have a narrow cabinet, the pull-out features are a must, and I also made sure to utilize the height of each cabinet. Click here to view the Etsy store where I got my custom red vinyl labels.

 3. Freezer - Click here to read my recent post with "before & after" pictures of my newly updated freezer. My new bins make all the difference!

4. Fridge - I'll be honest, when I at these pictures of my fridge, it looks kinda empty for a family of four. But then I remember, we are lucky in that we have a second fridge in our basement to store bulk quantities of water, juice boxes, beer, etc. With that being said, I still try to keep things in "zones"....yogurts in a bin, kids' applesauces in a bin, juice boxes in a bin, condiments together, lunch supplies together in a drawer, and breads together.

 5. The "Junk" Drawer - yes, even Professional Organizers have a junk drawer in the kitchen! Ours holds a bunch of miscellaneous items - pens, chip clips, wine stoppers, scotch tape, etc. But the key is to corral them with a few plastic organizers, so they don't get out of hand.

(All of mine are from the Dollar Store!)

 6. Baking dishes - Under our junk drawer is where we keep our recipe books & pyrex dishes. Pretty straightforward here....just stack the rectangle ones together and the square ones together!

 7. Tupperware - Oh, the dreaded Tupperware cabinet! We store ours in the (awkward) corner cabinet, and again, store them by shape. I think the key for us is to not have too many, and to make sure the lids are either stacked underneath them, or to the side.

 8. Appliances & Pot/Pan Lids - This corner cabinet holds our crockpots, rice cooker, mixer blender, mixing bowls, and pot/pan lids. So, a little bit of everything! :) The lid racks are key to keeping our pot/pan lids organized.

 9. Open Shelving - I would never imagined having open shelving in my "dream house," but....it has it. And I love it. Sure, it gets dusty more often, but goodness, it's pretty to look at! And since the dishwasher is almost right below the shelving, it makes unloading dishes go very quickly.

 10. Utensils - We use a mix of metal & mesh organizers for our utensils,

all from Bed, Bath & Beyond.

 11. Pots & Pans - Again, we were super lucky to move into a house that already had pull-out features for the pots & pans. We stack by size/type, and store the lids in a different cabinet (see #8).

 12. Miscellaneous Utensils - This drawer can easily get out of hand, so we try not to have duplicates of any item. (Exception: pizza cutter - we eat a lot of pizza in this house!) I store my cooking utensils in a bucket on the countertop by the stove, so this drawer just houses a few odds & ends. Again, drawer organizers are key!

 13. Paper goods & food wraps - We have a super deep drawer that holds our paper plates, cups, ziplocks, plastic utensils, and food wraps. Of course, only a small amount of paper plates & cups can fit at a time, so the remainder are stored in the basement.

 Now we move onto the right side of the kitchen, where I spend most of my time slaving over a hot stove :) Good thing it has 6 burners!!

 14. Under the Kitchen Sink - Click here to see the "before & after" post about this cabinet. It was easy to simplify this cabinet, once I emptied it all and saw all the duplicates / junk / unnecessary items in there! My most favorite DIY project was recovering a wipes bin with contact paper to make a new trash bag dispenser :)

 15. Coffee Station - My husband is the only coffee drinker in our family, yet we have a whole cabinet dedicated to his obsession habit. (Well, I have a few measuring cups thrown in there on the bottom shelf, since I'm a shrimp and can't reach much higher!)

 16. Spices - Click here to read my recent post on our spice cabinet. Those spice clips are a lifesaver, since it's a narrow cabinet. As are the $1 baskets I found from Target and the white bins that hold cookie cutters and toppings on the higher shelves.

I attached the mini-chalkboard labels with Velcro!

 To the right of the stove & carport door, we have our family's command center. I wish we had a bigger area, but this house came with about a 2 feet wide wall there, so that's what we have to work with. I designate daily activities for each child on the wipe board (N=Nate & A=Abby), and then each child gets a wall pocket that holds their weekly work and things they bring home. I clean these out at the end of each week & change the wipe-board schedule when necessary.

 

**UPDATE: As of May 2016, our family command center has gotten a facelift. It's still in the same tiny spot, but now looks like this:

 I added a nail to hold 2 clipboards - each of my children has a clipboard with important announcements or homework assignments for the week. Plus, one of my fabulous clients told me about this Erin Condren schedule pad. It is amazing!! I've color-coded our family's activities. Abby=pink, Nate=purple, and Greg & I= teal. It's so nice to have everything all in one place, and I've found my husband using it quite a bit too! I usually post up 3 weeks at a time, and just have them pinned behind the current week.

 

 

 And here is our humble little kitchen table. It's perfectly suitable for our little family, but I have grand plans of building some shelving on this big open wall, as well as getting a custom farmhouse table & banquette seating. Who knows when that will happen, but a girl can dream, eh?!

 And that concludes my kitchen tour! Thanks for stopping by and hopefully you saw something that you can implement into your own kitchen.

 

Starting tomorrow, March 1st, I will be discussing kids' bedrooms (all month long), so make sure to check back for that!