Whole Home Organization Support Thread

[greenmamato2]

Hi all!  I looked back a couple pages and didn't see anything like this, so I thought I'd start it. 

We recently moved into a tiny house (about 8 months ago) and I have spent a TON of time just decluttering and getting rid of things we no longer need or want, or can fit into our new home.  It doesn't look like we'll be able to move to a bigger place anytime soon, so I really want to make this place work for us.  Now that we finally "fit" into our home, I want to make it something I enjoy.  There are a few deep cleaning things (like steaming the carpets again) that I really  need to do but most of what I think we need is simplification of our spaces, and organization, so we always know where to put things!!  I'm having to start at the beginning, though!! 

I was wondering if anyone else was going to start doing a big overhaul of their home organizationally, and if anyone would like to go down this road with me? :)  Maybe we could share what we're doing, and hopefully inspire others to do the same. 

Thoughts?

[EarthyMamaofDaisy]

I've been doing this too.  I did our bedrooms but next I need to focus on the kitchen.  I was thinking of getting some of those organizers that helps you see what you have for canned goods.  So much food gets lost in the back of the cabinets and then I buy more without realizing we already have it.  My pantry cabinet is a huge disaster!  No one can ever find anything. 

[mkksmom]

I've been working through my house over the past year or so, and we are doing much better than we were before. However, we still have a ways to go, so this seems like a great thread for me.

I am focusing on painting my kitchen and my dad is painting the other rooms. I'm also decorating and painting furniture. Sherwin Williams had a sale, so I picked up a bunch of their Harmony paints, and now I need to get to work. But next time I get some money, I need to put it toward some more storage.

In the middle of the painting, I am also trying to organize a couple of areas per week. Last week, I organized my kids toy closet and entered a bunch of things for my consignment sale. I also organized most of my bins in my bathroom closet. But not all. I keep ending up with a ton of misc. stuff that I don't know where to put.

I think I am going to have to work on my paperwork soon. It's making me crazy. I moved a lot of furniture around, and boxed things up and now my system is all messed up.

[greenmamato2]

Paperwork is one of my big things too.  I am creating binders for each of us, and one for the family as a whole.  My oldest has special needs so her paperwork is very extensive, and it is important for us to really keep up with it.  The rest of us need a place to keep important things like birth certificates, SS cards, and any records we need to keep  that are important.  The family binder will include copies of birth certificates, SS cards, etc, so we have that information, a listing of our bills, our wills, etc etc etc. 

Our bedroom is going to be first on the "organize the house" list.  I need to move my desk out of here (i think we're going to just get rid of it), and find a better solution for our shoes and our laundry.  Our shoes are overflowing a rubbermaid tote as we speak.  I also need to re-paint our furniture in here, get a couple new sets of blinds, and go through all our clothes.  I think I want to cover our box springs as well, so they look nicer peeking out under our quilt.  I'd like to make a rug for in here as well. Finally I need to go through all the stuff tucked in drawers, desk tops, etc, and find places for it, or toss it.  Hopefully we can get most of that done during the month of March. :)

[MrsGregory]

Oh yes.  Now that I am at home full time I will go completely mad if I have to be surrounded by the results of my husband working from home and me working outside the home for 50+ hours a week for a year.  No.  No no no no no no no!

So far we have torn down his office and have downsized to one computer workstation in said office.  Said office is still full of his...  well, it's crap.  It's full of his crap.  So I am riding his butt about it.  We have one box of donate ready to go.

I'm working on the closets.  Why he thinks the vacuum and the sewing machine belong in the same closet it beyon... oh, nevermind just figured out why he did that, they're both machines.    So I have been taking the contents of the closets out into the hall and then re-closeting it correctly.  This is going well, but slowly.

I'm so happy to have a space to get ideas and babble away about this.  I have about 1200 sq. ft., two baths three bedrooms, kitchen/dining combo, living room and 2 closets in addition to the bedroom closets.  I also have built-ins in the living room which are about half closed storage.  I have an attic, but it's Texas and I just found out that many items are melt-able...  ooops.

[OkiMom]

I need something like this.. Organization is like a 4 letter word to me. We moved into a place thats bigger but it has less storage space (I know, makes no sense but there only like 10 cupboards/drawers in the kitchen for example.. my last place had at least double). Im so hopeless when it comes to organizing things but Im going to get this place unpacked and cleaned up then Im working at one room at a time. I figure I should get it done in just enough time for the military to move us again

[greenmamato2]

That's always how it works Okimom!  We were military for 9 years. :) 

[OkiMom]

Green- My husband jokes I should leave one box totally unopened so that it takes longer for them to move us again. Its an on-running joke between the two of us as soon as we are comfortable somewhere he gets orders or they decide to move us to another part of housing. We are actually "fortunate" compared to some, in our 6 years of marriage we have "only" moved 5 times.

[triscuitsmom]

I'm going to join you all too. We moved across the province in December and some of our stuff is still in storage back where we came from. We need to overhaul and purge and organize the whole house. It's a big job but I'm excited that warmer weather has started to find us because it makes it easier for me.

[bamakathy]

I started today with my dresser in my bedroom, with plans to work my way around the whole house. I feel so happy to have gotten this done! I started a blog to keep myself accountable, and hopefully get some ideas and encouragement from readers. My blog is at eliminatetheunnecessary.blogspot.com. What do you think?

[mkksmom]

Well, my house looks worse, but there is some progress. I bought 3 cabinets to fill a wall in my dining room. They are like china cabinets and look formal but hold my craft supplies. I still have to organize about half of it, but I've been doing other things.
I just prepped tons of items for a consignment sale happening this weekend, so that stuff is on its way out.
Yesterday, we painted the family room and so all of the stuff in that room is out. So I have to basically move back in and figure out which stuff goes. All this stuff at once. Plus I am in the middle of painting my kitchen cabinets. I have to take my girls to the dentist tomorrow and then I will try to get things put back together around here. Then paint more cabinet doors and then tackle an organizing project.... hopefully all this week. Kind of tricky with a 2 year-old "helping" me all day, but any progress is good.

[LoveOurBabies]

Yes! Me. :)

We also moved into a small home (approx 900 sq ft).

We renovated/are still renovating the home but it should be finished in the next 3-4 weeks. The first thing I am doing is what I term as radical decluttering. Anything that is not used on a daily or weekly basis (at most) - is OUT. The only exceptions are for festive items and even they have been pared down to the all time favorites. I will also keep a few extra toys purely for rotation and some out of season, in between sizes clothes for the kids. That's it! Then we start on organizing what is left... the fun part. :)

I am starting with the children's room first. We will have built ins put in soon which will help tremendously with organization, however even built in space is limited and I'm determined to not let it be chaotic for the sake of 'storing more stuff'. I'm a little anally retentive when it comes to asthetics so I will be going to the full extent with matching baskets/storage contraptions/hangers etc. It's not hard to find neat items inexpensively and it can be done over time.

Anyone have any before/after pictures to share?

[LoveOurBabies]

Originally Posted by bamakathy 

I started today with my dresser in my bedroom, with plans to work my way around the whole house. I feel so happy to have gotten this done! I started a blog to keep myself accountable, and hopefully get some ideas and encouragement from readers. My blog is at eliminatetheunnecessary.blogspot.com. What do you think?

Love your blog!

[Choose2Reuse]

Can I join in too?  We're moving from Palo Alto, CA to Portland, OR next week, so I'm purging junk like crazy.  We have intended to move back to Portland (it's my hometown) for the entire almost-five-years we've been married, so we never bought any nice furniture or anything.  We'll be starting over almost from scratch in our new apartment, and I really really want to make sure that this time it's organized and noncluttered, and that I keep the home life running like a well-oiled machine!

Most of the stuff we're not using at this point (basically everything but kitchen things, baby things and some of our clothes) is packed.  Next up is the kitchen!  My wonderful mom came and stayed with us for a week to help clean and play with the baby while I packed, but she left this morning.  Sure hope I can keep getting stuff done!

[willfulmama]

I'd love to join in on this, too. We're expecting baby #2 in the fall which means that our current "office" is going to have to be rearranged to accommodate our growing family. Right now, the office is really a craft space - I have an overabundance of craft supplies (yarn!) which means that I'm going to have to take an honest look through our space and only keep what I truly love.

We're planning on having a yard sale sometime this spring/summer with our neighbors. We're already stacking piles of things up. I've been reading Simplicity Parenting and it's really inspiring me to start cutting out all the extraneous things we've accumulated.

[Choose2Reuse]

Finally our kitchen is pretty much packed (aside a single pot, cutting board, etc. that we're still using) and DD & I are headed to Portland tomorrow!  DH is following with the moving van in a couple of days (poor DH).

We have purged SO MUCH STUFF. It's embarrassing.  And I'm not convinced that half the stuff we're taking is necessary (but that might be the packing fatigue talking).

My new resolution is that when we move into our new apartment, I'm going to go out and buy shelves/dressers/organizational stuff right away, before I start unpacking, so everything starts out organized.  And after we're unpacked and set up, I'm going to keep a "clutter box" and toss all the clutter into it every night, and anything that doesn't get rescued and put away by the end of the week is going to Goodwill.  DH and I are really messy, so I think I really need to enforce that one.

Anybody got any good tips for how to start out organized in a new place?  We have no furniture or really anything much beyond kitchen stuff, clothes and baby toys.  And cloth diapers.  Yay starting over from scratch.

[OkiMom]

I'm working on organizing the kitchen today! Lets see what I can get done :) My husband finally put together the entertainment center we bought for the TV so now its in its new home :)

[willfulmama]

Originally Posted by Choose2Reuse 

 And after we're unpacked and set up, I'm going to keep a "clutter box" and toss all the clutter into it every night, and anything that doesn't get rescued and put away by the end of the week is going to Goodwill.  DH and I are really messy, so I think I really need to enforce that one.

I think this is a really great idea! Hopefully, it'll be a good mechanism to keep the clutter in check for both you and DH!

Plus, starting off with a new place is a great way to get organized! The feeling of starting off fresh, where everything can be properly organized and have its own home - it's exciting. 

We spent the weekend moving around the former office. We're designating the office as the "yard sale room" so that we can store things we're planning to get rid of there, out of the way for everything else. We moved one of our giant bookcases into our dining room (I was even able to reduce our books so that ALL of them fit onto ONE bookcase!) and the other bookcase in the living room to hold my yarn stash. I was proud of myself yesterday - my husband looked at it yesterday and said that it wasn't really that much. I'm pretty sure that in the 8 years we've known one another, that's the only time he's said that. :)

[MrsGregory]

Ugh - a week plus later, and I have finally gotten rid of my cold.  Little girl has gotten rid of her cold as well, and we have her highchair, so she can watch me organize the kitchen!  Huzzah!  I bought some clear airtight containers to make sense of my bags and bags of grains and beans.  I'll start in the pantry and see what happens...

[amyandelle]

I would love to join you too :) We are a family of six living in a small attic apartment. I don't even know where to begin getting organized. Usually I wake up in the morning thinking that I will be very productive and get stuff done but that rarely happens. I will clean up some but nothing major gets done. I get caught up with the kids and now I am taking care of my Grandma too who just started chemo (she lives downstairs) and thankfully has a cleaning lady who comes to clean for her ;)

Anyway, I think I am going to take some pics of what it looks like over here now so that way I will be able to come back and show my progress ;)

Be back soon ;)

Amy