Our Home Organization Adventure - A Round Up Of My Favourite Projects.. So Far :)

Hi Honeys
I was sitting with a cup of tea and thinking, as you do. As you might know I've been battling a dreadful chest infection and have spent the past three weeks in its clutches feeling like a wrung out wash cloth and shaking the house with a horrid cough that makes me sound like some kind of demented seal. 

On a practical level this has meant that any organizing plans we had for our home have come to a standstill.  This weighs on a lassie it really does.  It's all very well telling myself it's just a blip and we'll get on track again when I'm a bit stronger, but I'm just such an impatient person honeys.  Getting things done is difficult even on good days and when it's my own body preventing me from getting on with all of the tasks running around in my head, well it's annoying!

This past week or so I've found myself getting very discouraged and my mood has really dipped.  As I said, time is rolling past, Hubby has been looking after me, in spite of having a bad cold himself, bless him, and work has stalled.  So, as a way to try and rid myself of those "that's it! we'll never get organized!" feelings,  I decided I'd remind myself of how far we've come in our wee organizing adventure (so far.)  Then I thought why not share and maybe have a smile along the way? 

1. The Tiny Project That Started It All!

A while ago I did something in our home that changed how I saw organizing.  Really, it was one of those "aha!" moments and it all started with a video I saw on You Tube by the wonderful, fabulous Alejandra Costello. 

In the video Alejandra showed how she "filed" t shirts in her dresser drawers and while I watched it something "clicked." Next day after Hubby went to work I went upstairs and tipped out his T shirt drawer.  Not having one of those folding boards that Alejandra has, I had to improvise. 

You can see how, as well as find a step by step tutorial on folding & filing (which is so easy honeys, I promise) here.  It was literally life changing! Quite a claim, I know :) Here we are though well over 2 years later and it's a system still being used.  It's almost doubled the space we had in the dresser drawers and best of all putting fresh laundry away is a dream.  Thank you Alejandra, you're amazing!

This system has been adopted through the rest of the dresser drawers as well as elsewhere in our home.  It's used when putting away t shirts, pyjamas, my vest tops, all number of things :) Just that one piece of the organizing puzzle slotting into place, it changed how I looked at our home.  I had been struggling to make some sense of the piles of papers, books and general clutter everywhere.  This one task taught me to stop trying to work on our whole home and instead to break it down into manageable tasks. 

Instead of being overwhelmed by a whole room, do one drawer in a dresser then move on to another, then another.  Before you know it, a room will be done! This one task really did change my organizing journey from an uphill struggle into an adventure I enjoy to this day.

2 Bathroom

Our bathroom is still a work in progress.  I don't love it yet but, after much work, I do like it :) We only have one bathroom in our home and it's teeny tiny.  As you can imagine honeys, storage is a nightmare.  Hubby had fitted a pretty bathroom cabinet for me but, storage wise, that was it originally.  There were no cabinets under the sink, nothing.  To begin with we had bought an open shelf unit from Ikea and some pretty baskets to fit it.

It certainly helped to coral the mountain of toiletries, shampoos and cleaning products but I wasn't really happy with it.  This lack of storage became a project and seeing a couple of really pretty white wooden cabinets, one which fitted under the sink and another matching freestanding unit, in Argos.  Hubby brought them home, popped them together (they were flat pack) and I was so happy! I still adore these units, so much so that we bought the matching tall unit too. 

We changed them a little by adding pretty crystal handles and we recently added yet more adorable storage by using picture shelves :)  I did say the bathroom is a work in progress and it so is.  I've no idea when we'll get to it, since right now our attention is focused on upstairs, but eventually we plan to have our large rectangular shower removed and swapped for a corner shower enclosure which should free up a little more space in this teeny tiny bathroom.

3 Mudroom

I feel as if I came to the party late when it comes to "mudrooms."  On the face of it it's such a brilliant idea! A designated space used to prevent all of the mud and dirt from outdoors making it's way into your lovely, clean home.  In the UK even if we have a little inner hallway, it's not referred to as a mudroom.  You can imagine then my confusion when I kept hearing about these specially designated spaces on Pinterest. 

I was surprised to find out what a mudroom was, and even more surprised (and pleased) to find that we had one! Our mud room is where our coats are hung up, we have shoe storage out there and as you can see in the photograph below, Hubby hung a little shelf unit.  I've used this shelf unit to store two baskets, one each for Hubby & myself.  These baskets are used to store hats, scarfs & gloves. 

Our little mudroom also has a set of green plastic crates, stored on their sides, which are used to create a home for items such as bottles of water.  One crate is home to our furbaby Jade's jackets, she also has a little basket for her harnesses & leads for her walkies.  We store our re-useable grocery bags in a crate here too.  This keeps them safely by the front door and ready to grab as I go out the door.  I even made some pretty labels for the shelves out here, which you can download here honeys.  This little area greets me when I get home from work and it still makes me smile :)

4 Master Bedroom 

No prizes for guessing which other area makes me smile :) We've done so much work on our master bedroom! Everything from adding a Ribba shelf from Ikea to store our tablets & ereaders, to handbag storage, to a massive purge & de-clutter which really has changed how the whole room feels.  One of the biggest changes though was to a space which had been just ignored really.

We have this built in cupboard in our master bedroom. It wasn't being used, in fact it still had boxes in there from our original move to this house! It was essentially a shocking waste of some very useful storage real estate.  This sweet little cupboard is now one of my favourite places in our home, and it's used every day :) Hubby turned it into a closet for me, bless him and I love it!

It really is a joy to get dressed in the mornings now. I know where everything is and it's so easy to match up an outfit with jewellery & shoes too.  My much loved pashminas, which I'd taken such pains to organize & keep safe, now have a permanent home too.  Such a silly thing, on the face of it, to be so happy about, but I can't help it honeys, even thinking about my wee closet makes me smile :)

5 Kitchen

I've saved the very best for last on my wee list dear ones and I'll bet you can guess which project it is :) Yep, it's the kitchen! I know how nutty this sounds, but I still walk in there just to look at it :)  

The change in our kitchen is just wonderful! It's practical, it's organized and is such a joy to work in.  Yes, it would have been fabulous to have gotten the whole kitchen torn out and re-modelled but we simply couldn't afford that, so we made the best of what we had, we added an extra counter/worktop & unit and made our walls pretty & practical :) 

From a purely organizing perspective a lot of the work went into organizing cupboards, such as under the sink, and of course the larder or pantry cupboard.  We're still happily using the little plastic "bins" we organized the fridge with too. We're still loving the extra wall storage we added  in order to keep our kitchen counter/worktops free of clutter, you can see details & photos of that here and also here honeys. 

You know the great thing about all of the work that's been done so far has been that it's been so easy to upkeep.  Everything that's been organized has remained that way.  I hadn't really stopped to think of that but now that I have, it does make me feel a little better about the last three weeks of non organizing thanks to a nasty chest infection.

Our little home has come a long way, but there's still so much more to do.  It'll get done, but as with all of the projects above, it'll just take time is all.  I'm hoping that when I get a little stronger we can get back to work on our front bedroom upstairs.  This room is Hubby's office/man cave and should be fun to work on. We already have this room planned out, so completing all of the various projects involved in it should be (hopefully) easy to accomplish.

So, that's it honeys. My favourite organizing projects in our home, so far at least :) Looking back on these rooms, and how they've changed, really has been a tonic and has cheered me up. I hope it's made you smile too :)

Would you like to share some of your favourite projects? How do you cope when life stuff holds you back from getting stuff done? Do share in the comments section below? If you have blogged any of your favourite organizing projects why not leave a link to share?

Well honeys, I have to go get ready for work.  I hope you have a fabulous weekend full of smiles & hugs. Thank you for keeping me company, till next time dear ones, hugs always xx