Organization Challenge Week 3: The Pantry

Still catching up on the A Bowl Full of Lemons organization challenge. I've finished the pantry and will move onto the master bedroom this week.

There's not much to say regarding my food pantry.

The before was a cluster f*ck.

The after isn't.

I don't really like the storage bins I'm using, but after nearly pissing myself after looking up the cost of the OXO containers, Imma ride this one out.

Organization Challenge: WEEK 2 Laundry Wrap-Up

This week I was worried I wasn't going to finish, and much less START my organization challenge from A Bowl Full of Lemons. I had a bunch of sewing projects due out the door this week, so my evenings and "free" time were being hogged by that. We also had to select and buy paint for our painter (No, no, we don't do the painting on the walls in our house. I cannot tape to save my life and am reckless with a paintbrush. Bad idea.). He started prep work and painted the trim and walls in our master bath over the weekend. 

Want to see how crazy we got with the paint? Well good luck, because you can hardly even tell a difference.

For the record, we went with the bottom, #3. It's called "Amazing Gray SW7044" from Sherwin Williams. It's a couples shades off from what currently is on the walls but goes more to the "greige" versus beige. I'll update you on how this goes. 

Back to our story of the day. My laundry room is a multipurpose room in our home. It's a laundry room, duh, but also the main entry for our home through our garage, launch pad, and French Bulldog chill out space.  

I have recently purged and cleaned the lower cabinets so those were already in really good shape. The upper cabinets were a hot mess, as you can see below. 

First step: Change the light bulbs! The space was so dark and dreary. There were two of those funny fluorescent blue-ish bulbs, but of course, one was burnt out. I put in two fresh bulbs and Voila! I could see how badly everything needed cleaned. Boo. 

I started by taking everything out of the cabinets like suggested. This nearly gave me a brain aneurism. I posted a picture on Instagram and a friend of mine asked if Husband Dearest had a meltdown yet. Surprisingly, he did well with me stringing things across our kitchen. 

I luckily had some leftover containers and baskets from last week so I employed those with my cleaning items and made a new "whole home" cleaning caddy.  The difference in my cabinets and over all space is dramatic.

I am leaving the big sprucing up and decorating to the Launch Pad dedicated week around week 10. That will be closer to spring and I  will hopefully be ready to make some fun decor changes by then. 

Here it is, one last time. 

Before and after:

This coming week is the Pantry. I do hope that will be the easiest of the three first weeks as I could use a quick project. 

Organization Challenge Kitchen Week Wrap-Up

This was my first week with the A Bowl Full of Lemons Organization Challenge and it was quite the introduction.

Do you have any idea how much STUFF you have in your kitchen? Here's how you get a real, hit yourself over the head idea of it: Walk thru your kitchen and open EVERY drawer. EVERY cabinet. ALL of them.  Now imagine taking every last thing out of all of those drawers and cabinets. I'm talking down to AND INCLUDING the shelf lining out. Pretend you put it it all in a pile... THAT'S how much shit you have.

This challenge calls for you to empty all storage spaces and stack everything on the kitchen table and sort. Well, I must have a tiny kitchen table because as I was doing my glassware cabinet I realized that I have a shit ton of glasses, more plastic bar cups than necessary, and a ton of (very necessary) coffee cups. I decided to work in phases going cabinet by cabinet instead of the mass dumping of crap. It was a good idea too.  It took me a few days to complete the kitchen.  I do understand the value of taking everything out at once, but with E2 and E3 around, plus the dogs... uh uh no way.

I really wish I had taken more before pictures. However, I'd probably be too embarrassed to post them so I suppose it doesn't matter anyway.

Without getting too wordy, here is my Week 1: Kitchen

You won't see major differences in my overall look. Thankfully with a lot of help from Husband Dearest, our home is kept tidy.

Kitchen Before:

Kitchen After:

The biggest changes were decluterring on the sink side counter. Here's a couple hot spot places:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Major strides in the actual organizing were behind the cabinet doors. Woof were things a mess. I don't have before pictures for most things, but here's how it looked as I worked along.

Under sink before and after:

I hung the recommended command strips for my scrub brushes, taking them out of the sink. Also, a caddy versus a disorganized bin makes a huge difference. Only the Sassy Spray was left out, as that's not a cleaner. Unless you have the sassy mouth of a four year old. It will clean that right up.

In Progress:

My purging was rather successful. Most of the fridge and over half of my spices were old and yucky. 

Spices and Baking supplies:

Medicine Mess:

The stackable bins and spice rack were found a Wally World. I was able to separate up medicine by preventative, sickys, kids, and prescription which we only have a couple of.

Glassware:

Obviously the most important one. OBVIOUSLY.

FRIDGE!!

The good old fridge needed purging and scrubbing. Also, I did go to the grocery store to restock before my hungry super fast BMX kid got home from Nationals. 

This whole week I spent at least and hour each day, and a few days several hours, working on getting things organized. Starting tomorrow I get to tackle the laundry room. I have a small laundry space that doubles as a garage entrance so it's going to need some work. I also have a ton of sewing to do for an outstanding order for my Etsy shop. Hopefully I can have that wrapped up and out Tuesday.

I also revamped some kitchen decorating. My favorite items are the three (was four- one broke. Boo!) recipes of my late Grandma's that I have displayed.

Tell me, did you do anything to organize your home this week?

14 Week Organizing Challenge: A Bowl Full of Lemons

Disarray. Disorder. Disorganized. I can definitely Dis on my neat and tidy skills. You see, I live with an OCD husband. No, not like "Oh my gawd, I need my beauty magazines stacked together and my MAC lipsticks lined up. Oh, I'm SO OCD," you might hear from a sorority girl, but a true, OCDer. As in, has his clothing laundered and pressed then hangs t-shirts exactly the same way by type and color.  Thankfully my Husband Dearest is mostly in control and does a good job keeping a lid on what I refer to as, "the cray cray." Side note, calling it "the cray cray" also makes him cray cray. I just like to push that big red button.

As you can expect, a house with three dogs, two small humans, a hot mess and a mostly put together husband can be a bit of a cluster when it comes to keeping things organized. Our house is always CLEAN. Floors swept, dusted, pledged (unless it's after meal time, shit gets strewn everywhere when E3 is eating). But, if you look closely, you'll notice that what you see isn't what you get. That's why when a house guest asks what cabinet they can find something in I usually stop them from searching.

I have clothes piled on my shelves, I have stacks of receipts for my Etsy shop that need filed, mountains of fabric in big containers, the boys have overflowing closets of toys, and my pantry is a damn disaster.

Thus, in an effort to make my life easier in the long run and save some of Husband Dearest's sanity, I have decided to take on the A Bowl Full of Lemon's 14 Week Organizing Challenge.  The blogger outlines step by step instructions for each week. Week 1 is the kitchen, excluding the pantry.  I'm told I have to show before pictures. As this is the night before I officially begin the purge, here's what my kitchen typically looks like at the start of the week:

As I mentioned; clean, but cluttered. My under the sink area and tupperware cabinets are the worst. Throughout the week I'll be working on this scramble-bamble and will hopefully have something darling to post next Sunday.