This weekend, I tackled the extremely needed and long overdue project of organizing the craziness under our bathroom sink. Usually I buy bath stuff on sale that we always use, so there are always a few of them around. And we have ended up with enough sunscreen over the years to open up a sunscreen store; a perk of being married to an analyst who covers pharma companies which also produce their own sunscreens and after sun… After we moved into our house 5 years ago, I just never got around to actually putting some order under the sink.
It wasn’t the biggest disaster area ever, but I had absolutely no clue what was in there. Bath stuff was mixed with cleaning stuff and other stuff. I would buy things only to find out later that we had a few tubes of toothpaste hiding in the back of the cabinet already — or more shampoo than we knew what to do with. Plus, even if I knew something was in there, I had to take out half the stuff in the cabinet just to get to it. So it was just time to end the madness.
We had to run to the home improvement store this weekend to grab some other things, so I measured my cabinet openings and hoped for the best. I happened to find two cheap plastic baskets for €2.50 each and they fit inside the cabinet perfectly! Bath stuff in one, lotions and sunscreens in another, and in a smaller basket I put a bunch of tester bottles for our Newf Brand products plus tooth care goodies. So not only can I now get to all the frequently used items, but all our first aid gear is also now easily accessible (instead of having to dig it out from under a huge pile of stuff in the very back of the cabinet).
Now this setup actually leaves quite a bit of space around the edges of each basket, so I have the things we use a bit less often at the back and on the sides. Whenever I need to get at that stuff, I just pull out the bin and grab it. Easy peasy. It may not be the sexiest looking under-sink area (since we still have so much bath stuff to use up) but now we can actually find things we are looking for, which will keep us from buying a bunch of extra stuff that we couldn’t use up during the rest of our lifetimes.
I’ve basically been trying to target one area every few weeks which is really in trouble. In general I’d really love for our whole house to be organized and decluttered, but that’s just not going to happen overnight. So I’m starting with the areas that are most important to us and that we see/use on a regular basis. This is not only so that we can take note of what we have and use it, but also so that we recognize just how awesome it is to have things organized and how nice it is to know that things have their own place. It makes cleaning things up so much nicer when you don’t have to search for a place to stick things!
Boxes in my spice overflow cabinet. The box on the top shelf has all sorts of spices bought in bulk (which I also have an inventory list for on the cabinet door), and the smaller one has jars of spice mixes we've created ourselves but don't use on a daily basis.
Sometimes I’ve actually bought something to increase the organization — but as often as I can, I just try to use boxes I already have laying around. The one thing we never have a shortage of around here is boxes. I would love to one day get crafty with some of the more boring ones and make some fabulous looking boxes (like these repurposed diaper boxes) , but I just have not had the time as of yet. So plain brown or funky patterned it is…
A few of the IKEA storage boxes I have in the shelves in my office to keep things organized. Now I just wish that my shelving was deeper so they didn't hang over the edge. Or that I had doors on the shelves to hide everything...
Two of the most crucial things to have when you are organizing, are a method and a means for the task at hand. Sure you can get rid of a bunch of stuff you no longer need which will already make the organizing task a lot easier. But if you still have no way to keep things on the shelf or grouped together, you will soon be in the midst of chaos again.
Take Mackenzie’s toy boxes in our living room, for example. These boxes are fairly large and a lot of toys will fit in there. But those are pretty much the only toys she is allowed to have downstairs at once. I keep a lot of her other stuff in boxes in her closet to rotate out after a few weeks (once she starts getting bored with them). These huge boxes make it easier for us to keep things cleaned up and they look pretty nice on their own (especially with the lid on).
Organizing your belongings may not always turn out the way you want, and you may find that you have to redo things a time or two to get it just right. But we have found time and time again that once we can actually find the things we need, when we need them, we are all a lot happier. It’s so easy to just buy things and never get around to the project, then just stuff those items somewhere until you think you’ll need them again. Inevitably, you forget you’ve bought them, or just can’t find them later, and end up buying everything all over again.
Just figure out a system that works for you; and if you are starting on a huge project, make sure to break it down into smaller sections. Tackle one box at a time until you’ve got a whole shelf squared away. That’s exactly the procedure we’ll be undertaking in our barn, which so far has worked really well for us.
What’s your organizing method & madness?
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