Organizing Pictures Coming Tomorrow

I am going to start posting pictures of my organizing endeavors. My New Year's Resolution was to be totally organized by December 31, 2008. I've kind of slacked off lately so I decided that if I promised to post pictures of my results here it would make me get my butt in gear and get the rest of it done. For some reason I work well under pressure.

Coming up tomorrow will be pictures of Carson's bedroom and explanations of what we did. I have to work in the morning so I'll post it in the afternoon. I hope by seeing my pictures other people will get some good ideas for their own organizing. I also hope that if someone who sees them has great ideas of what might work better they will let me know. I need all the help I can get.

The List

I've made my list for my eight-week project. Right now there are 50 items on it, but I keep adding more as I think of them. That means I need to do at least one a day with a few days here and there doing more than one. Some of the items will only take a few minutes, some will take a few hours, and at least one will probably take a week. During the week I do the big one I will still do small ones each day so I don't get behind.

So far there are a few projects in the works and only one totally finished. The finished one is the hallway. There are two closets in it, which were already organized. There is a coat closet and a linen closet. This was the first item because it was one of the easiest. One of the best organizing tips I used in the coat closet was to hang up an over-the-door bathroom organizer with pockets in it to put hats, scarves and gloves in. There are seven rows of pockets. Mike and I each get two rows and the kids each get one row. I used to have a three-drawer unit in the closet for these items, but everything would always be shoved in the drawers and it was hard to find anything. This works much better. The kids can get their own things out and put them back. I didn't make this brilliant idea up, but I can't remember where I got it. I get so many great tips from reading blogs, and I write down all the good ones, but I don't write down where I get them. I should start doing that so I can give credit where credit is due. Here is the hat, scarf and glove organizer:


Our hall is very small so there's not much in it. There is only a hamper and these pictures:

About 12 years ago I was working at an accounting firm as a secretary and at the opposite end of the building from us was an interior design firm. They had a storage area that opened up into the main hallway which I had to walk past every time I went to the bathroom. One day I saw these pictures leaned up against a wall in their storage room. I thought they were really cool. They are drawings of old-fashioned golf clubs. One of the neatest parts is the matting. Here is a not-so-good picture of the matting. It has lists of the scores from golf tournaments. It is fun to look at it and find the famous names. Sorry, this is the best I could get with my less-than-perfect camera.

These prints are limited edition prints and are beautifully framed. At the time I had never bought any expensive artwork, but I loved these pictures. You should know that by "expensive" I don't mean thousands of dollars. Unfortunately for me, hundreds of dollars was expensive. Every day for a week I walked by and admired these pictures, but they were expensive. One day the owner of the business was moving some stuff around and I asked him about the pictures. He said a client had wanted them, but after they had ordered them she decided she didn't want them. I decided that if I wanted them I'd better say something fast, so I asked him if I could buy them and he said I could. I was so excited, but also nervous because of the cost. But I loved them. I bought them and brought them home and they actually sat in the basement for a few years because we didn't have a good place to put them. I didn't want them in our family room. I wanted them for the fabulous game room we were going to have when we bought a real house. After coming to the sad conclusion that we weren't going to have a real house for many, many years, I decided we'd just better put them in the hall; otherwise, they would stay stashed in the basement forever. So that's where they remain to this day.

One down, 49 to go.