Organizing makes me happy

Hey everyone, it's me - Jaime Mac!  Remember?????  I know I've been away too long (AGAIN...) & there's no excuse for it.  Lets just say I've been doing 'stuff', but this gloomy weather we've had has had me DOWN in the dumps, people.  It used to not affect me like this - I guess that's just another joy of getting older.  UGH.

Despite my hubby's disdain for it - I've been in organizing & cleaning mode!  I get in those kinds of moods sometimes & let me tell ya - B-rad just LOVES it...

 I L-O-V-E to organize.  LOVE.  And I love to tell help other people organize.  

(Did I say I love it yet?)

It first started when I needed a way to keep our protein bars & other snackish type bars organized.  We had them in their respective boxes in the cabinet & they were a mess.  I bought some stacking organizers at Wal-mart & found them all a home.  (The boxes stacked on the side on the right are the extra we had because I never knew what we had when I went to the grocery & would always buy more!)

I also cleaned out all the cleaning supplies that I keep under the kitchen sink & bought them a little basket as well.

I also cleaned out what I had shoved into stored in the spare bathroom.  I had all my different make-up bags (& I had a TON) & I had what I called the 'medical drawer' that had band-aids & other various gauzes & related items because my hubby went through a 'I have a goal to cut every finger I possess' stage & we were always using gauze & tape & neosporin.  Most of it was expired & he has done better w/ taking care of his digits so I threw it all out. I bought 2 new containers & one houses my make-up & travel bags & the other has extra toilet paper & cleaning supplies for that bathroom.  

Ok-so our closet... when I get into cleaning/organizing mode I'm like a girl on a mission & I just get started & forget to take pictures - so you need to imagine our closet has that white wire looking shelving stuff... It had one layer of shelving & room to hang clothes underneath.  I also had put another shelving system in there for B-rad's work clothes.  That's what he wears 98% of the time to work & to the farm so he had lots of it.  I couldn't have his silly work clothes taking up perfectly good space on my closet shelves.  

SO-B-rad has a LOT of hats.  I can't fault the boy for that - I have a LOT of purses & his hats are way less expensive than they are & they (the hats) were all over the closet.  I decided (you guessed it) that I wanted to ORGANIZE them.  I noticed that there was a lot of dead space on the top of our closet.  It's toward the middle of the house & the ceiling goes really high (yea, that's my technical description of it) so I asked B-rad to put another shelf up above the existing one so I could store his hats & other various items there.  WELL-I sent B-rad to Home Depot & he found an updated closet system w/ tracks & all kinds of trickery.  You could set it up however you wanted & adjust shelves & that just sounded like heaven.

NOW-ya'll know I can't lie to you, so just know that this process caused much arguing between B-rad & I... I got on his nerves, he got on mine - you know - WEDDED BLISS.

You know how when you make major changes it looks WAY worse before it gets better?  Yea - that was this.  I had clothes ALL over our house but I took no pictures of it because that was when B-rad & I were in the throngs of arguing peacefully trying to figure out how we wanted to lay out the closet.  I had shoes in containers & even hampers...

I bought a large fabric box (I am obsessed w/ these now - just wait - you haven't seen anything yet..) & I stacked all his hats in nice & neat.  Duh.  One side is a farming theme, the other is archery themed... (Think he even noticed that?)

This is the way we chose to set it up.  I know it looks a bit messy - don't judge me.  I'm still figuring out where I want everything.  The grayish lattice (I'm also obsessed w/ lattice lately...) fabric boxes were like $6 at Walmart & they house B-rad's work socks & underwear.  (TMI?)  The tealish lattice fabric boxes house my sweaters.  The little snippet of polka dot you see on the left is a smaller fabric box.  I have one for my socks & one for B-rad's good socks.  (Yes, the boy has 'good' & 'work' of EVERYTHING...except underwear...)  I tried for about 5 min to have a bigger fabric box share our good socks, but that just felt wrong...  The blue fabric box at the tippy top has my summer shoes in it & the original culprit of the whole thing - the fabric boxes of hats-is there on the top left.  The hats you see waaay up top are the hats that B-rad currently wears on a daily basis.

I chose to put all our hanging clothes on the bottom.  It just wastes so much space (for us) when we tried to put it up higher & it would block the shelves.  My section is on the left & B-rad's tiny section is on the right.   There is a rounded piece in the middle connecting them & that is where I have my TWO hanger of scarves.  Really-who needs TWO scarve organizers packed full?  THIS GIRL.

The other thing I love about having more shelf space is that I don't have to switch between summer & winter clothes.  I can't tell you how much I LOATHE doing that.  Between our dressers & the closet I have all clothes out at all times.  It does come in handy when during the winter we had a 60 degree day!

On the right side of the closet is where the extra shelving unit we bought had B-rad's work clothes so he hung real shelves there.  His 'good' hoodies are on the tippy top (because he doesn't wear them that often.  But when he does & I wash them I have to get out a step stool to reach up that high.)  The rest of the shelves are for his work clothes.  T-shirt, long sleeve t-shirts, hoodies & jeans.  I tried to keep all of his stuff contained to this area, but it wouldn't work.  He said, 'You know - this is my closet too...I can have more than just this section.'  

My most favorite part of the closet is something I found on Pinterest that actually worked!  I hung up (yes, I did it...{I won't tell you how the first night it all fell & crashed to the floor - whatever...}) tension rods & bought shower hooks to hang up my jewelry.  Even tho I'm allergic I still wear it from time to time.  I'm still working on how to organize my earrings...

If you look closely, I have all the jewelry organized by color.  Like all silver together, all gold & all 'colorful' jewelry.  Yes, I'm insane...

Last week was the cleaning of my office.  I haven't touched it since I retired from the jewelry biz a year & a half ago.  I don't have a problem throwing stuff away, but I need to wait an appropriate amount of time out of respect to said items.  My rule is 'if I haven't worn it, looked at it, touched it or remembered it existed' for a year it's gone.  I had 7 large bags of 'stuff'.   A lot of it was little trinkets I had for jewelry & other supplies.  I cleaned out the shelving system in the closet & it now holds actual office supplies.  I still have some little things left, but they fit nicely on these shelves now rather than strewn about in the office.

I also organized & threw away some tote bags.  Listen to this nonsense - I put my favorite tote bags inside a larger Vera Bradley tote bag & it's placed beside the shelving system in the office closet.  The polka dot thingie on top is a neck pillow I bought for a road trip we were taking to Florida next week.  It got cancelled (more on that in the next post - or previous depending on how you are reading...) so it's waiting for me when I need it next.  I did keep all the jewelry I didn't sell...it's in the clear square totes on the left...

B-rad & I have flip flips & house slippers we wear in the basement & around the house that never had a home.  They were just sitting on the floor.  Nope, can't have that anymore.  Poor Sonny's food dish got moved over & I bought a shelving unit for the shoes.  It's right by the front door, but I don't really care.  It looks better there than flips flops & other shoes laying around.

I also bought organizers for the laundry room.   I have white storage containers for my laundry room related items.  YES I have two containers of detergent - the blue one is chocked full of smelly goodness for B-rad's work clothes & the stupid white one is for anything that comes in contact w/ ME (towels, bedding & good clothes).  Oh goody... 

I figured B-rad shouldn't have to suffer the fate of no good smelling laundry when he's at work.  One time I washed his 'bed' clothes in the smelly stuff & we were in bed & the smell nearly knocked me over.  I'm SO not used to that anymore...

The blue fabric box has extra towels we use to put down in front of the shower.  I don't like to get the rug wet because it will stink.  I can wash the towels easier than the rugs.  

There you have it - my recent flurry of organization   See-this is what happens when ya'll harass me about not posting - you get ORGANIZING overload...