The Hand Me Down House: organization

Showing posts with label organization. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Unjunking my Junk Drawer

Last week one of my F-A-V-O-R-I-T-E blogs, Adventures in Renovating a Brooklyn Limestone had the most awesome series on junk drawers!

The ideas that all her guest bloggers had on revamping their junk drawers were wonderful! And they were all ideas that I could use too -- perfect combination, right!?! If you haven't seen these -- head over to her blog and check them out! You won't be disappointed -- I promise!

So after seeing how all the beautiful drawers I opened my junk drawer to assess my damage.......and yes, I will show you -- just to show you the before (can't believe I'm going to show this).........please don't run screaming from your screen.....

Yes, it's true -- my junk drawer is exactly that, a jjjjuuuuunk drawer! You can see by my little organizing baskets though that I did attempt to be organized at one time -- I promise!

The sad thing is, most of what was in this drawer didn't even belong in there. For starters, I threw away half of it's contents (still not sure how garbage ended up in my drawer that is a mere few steps from the garbage can...). We also had some medicine cabinet contents in our junk drawer -- again, not sure??

After purging, there really wasn't a whole lot left to go into my drawer......which means, I could really put some though into the contents of my drawer. I wanted to put things in there that we're using all the time and need to grab quickly.

One the items in our house that we use the most, are these:

If you don't have a little tool set for inside the house -- GET ONE! They are the best thing ever! I actually got them at one of those goofy family gift exchanges a few years ago. I didn't know then that I would absolutely LOVE these....but oh, gosh, do I ever! They save so much time by having them in the house somewhere for little things that need to get fixed in a jiffy.

Enough gushing about my teeny, tiny tool set though. The first thing I did after cleaning out the drawer was to vacuum out all the dust and corner dirt and then I laid down this shelf liner from my favorite store, Target. :)

It just dressed up my drawer a little, plus, it prevents all the contents sliding around (one of my top pet peeves).

I also purchased this cosmetic organizer at Target which works PERFECTLY in my drawer. I liked this one because it's clear and look how tall those compartment are!!?!

I needed a few smaller containers to store things like lotion, chapstick, nail clippers and one for our phone chargers. I had searched Target Boutique for quite sometime to find some cute, little organizing boxes, but no luck. :( Buuuuuuut, I found these cute little tin boxes that I had kept from my hubby's watches and wallet. This is one occasion that I'm SO glad I had the "hoarder instinct" and didn't get rid of them.....the one

occasion. :)

So into one, I loaded up lotion, chapstick, nail clippers, and a nail file. And into the other one went our phone chargers. PERFECT fit!

I also took a left over check box (I'm sure this was still in our house because of that hoarding gene I've inherited) and put in it some odds and ends that we use around the house, but not allll the time. I have in there some felt chair pads (you can never find them when you need one), some 3M wall hooks and adhesive, some touch up paint from our outdoor furniture and some appliance touch up paint.

I had a little white basket left over from the last time I overhauled my drawer and I filled it with my home repair kits, some Gorilla Glue, and some Allen Wrenches......all the things we need to do any home repair quickly and properly.

In the clear cosmetic organizer, I put our camera batteries and chargers in one compartment, gum and mints in another compartment and scissors, tape and a ruler in another compartment.

I'm SO happy how my drawer turned out -- it's SO organized! I'm so glad that I had the inspiration of my favorite bloggers to use for ideas.

Only like a million times better than where we started, right!?!

Now go check out Mrs. Brooklyn Limestone's awesome junk drawer overhaul series from last week -- you'll loooove it!

Linking up to:

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Friday, November 5, 2010

More Silhouette Projects!

I hope you're not getting bored with all this silhouette madness; but I just LOVE using their materials -- so I have to show you another project from the fun package they sent me. :)

This one is not all that creative -- but it was SO fast and simple that I couldn't pass it up!

Included in the giveaway package (you can enter here) is a package of printable magnet sheets -- and they are just awesome!! I had been trying to decide what magnets I wanted to make and design for the fridge when literally as I was trying to decide my husband told me he never knew if the dishwasher was full of clean or dirty dishes. Hmmmmm. Someone else loading and unloading the dishwasher? YES please! :) He had a good point though -- there is no way to tell if the dishes are clean or dirty unless you open the dishwasher and inspect them. That completely settled it -- we needed a dishwasher magnet to tell us the status of our dishes.

This is another project where you can use the Silhouette materials without actually having a coveted Silhouette Machine (although we all know everyone should have one, right?). Are you ready to see just how easy this was?!

I already had the Printable Magnet Paper that Silhouette had sent me:

I created this design on my computer:

If you want to use this design yourself just click on it and it opens in a new page for you to print

Then I took my scissors and cut it out of the magnet paper

and then I put it on the dishwasher for all to see! :)

At first I didn't think I would love this magnetic paper so much -- but oh my gosh! I love it! The magnets look really good just being printed out of a regular printer -- imagine all the things you could make!

And don't forget if you want your own you can enter our giveaway here; or

you can use the special coupon just for The Hand Me Down House readers for 25% off any materials on Silhouette's Website! Just enter the code: MEDOWN at check out!

Linking up to:

Monday, October 4, 2010

Closet Reveal

Have you all been just itching to see what's behind my closet doors since you read my teaser post last week?!? :) Just kidding! But I really could not show you what my closet looked like with out being able to show you the pretty makeover part of it.....I didn't want you all to stop reading and run screaming from your computer screen.

Before I show you -- this is the closet in our entry way of our house. It's one of my favorite things about our house. It's a huge closet my dad put in that's almost the same size as our entry. It's a fantastic storage area -- for everything from shoes, to coats, to Christmas boxes, -- we store a LOT of stuff in there. Alright -- it's time for the before picture.

EEK! See what I mean? I'm really not a complete slob -- I promise!! :) It just was a poorly organized and designed space -- and it needed help. Especially since when people come over I ask them to put their shoes in there so our dog doesn't take them an hide them. How embarrassing -- at least I could ask them to put their shoes in a cute closet -- right!?! I wanted to leave as much of the middle open as possible -- not only does it make the space look bigger, but then there's more space for guest's shoes and purses and bags.

So step one was to clean, clean, clean. Seriously -- it took me almost as much time to clean out the closet as it did to make it pretty. Plus this was a good time to go through coats and shoes and give them away.

Once it was all cleaned out and I had a clean slate to work with, I painted the walls. I chose a darker color because I knew I wanted to paint the shelves white and I felt dark would be okay. I was a bit nervous since I'm usually a play-it-safe-neutral/light-colored painter. But I absolutely LOVE the color I picked. It could be my new favorite. It's a little grey, a little brown and a little purplish -- perfection!

Next step was to install shelves. I drew up plan before I started and made my plan specific to what I needed to store in that closet. Some of the main components being stashed in there are coats, shoes and boots, luggage and Christmas boxes. We also keep some of our counter top kitchen appliances in there -- you know the ones that you don't use every day. Knowing what I wanted to store made it 100 times easier to decide what kind of shelving I wanted to do. I also knew that we wanted a place to sit down near the shoes to take them on and off. And I knew I wanted a mirror so I could make sure the was no paint or sawdust in my hair before I leave the house. :)

My first part of the shelving was to cover up the wire shelves that were there already. I could have taken them down and put up similar shelves, but I figured I could work with what was there -- plus they were really secured into the drywall and studs. My solution was to just cover them and make them prettier. :)

I bought white shelving boards that were the right depth and cut them to the length of each shelf. I laid them on the top of the shelves and then took trim and attached it to the bottom. I actually missed one of my shelves when I was measuring so I had to improvise with regular boards instead of the white shelves. It ended up working out just fine though -- nothing that white paint won't fix! :)

Once the shelves were all up and covered I got down to the bench and shoe shelf. I attached a 1 x 12 (cut 18" high) to the firmly secured shelf that was already there (you could attach it to a wall, or use a shelving bracket to secure it to a stud).

I then cut two pieces of wood the same size for the other "legs". I laid a long board over that to act as the top of my bench. Once the frame was built for the bench, I added a decorative trim to dress it up.

I did the same thing for a "luggage cubby" I built to house all our luggage and bags.

The last thing I did was I hung an unused curtain underneath one of my lower shelves. I hid our fold table and chairs behind there along with some odds and ends that don't have a great place to go in my closet.

I just had to take a picture of it's beauty before I filled it up with all our junk :)

And then I filled it up with anything and everything that would fit in there -- okay not really, just the things that were in there before.

Okay, so I know it looks like we have about a million coats, but in all fairness we DO live in Minnesota. :)

And here's my favorite part of the whole closet -- where I added a mirror and some hooks above our new bench.

How 'bout a side-by-side before and after....just for kicks:

I was SO excited because we were still able to store everything in there -- just much prettier! Don't you think??

Linking up to:

Monday, August 23, 2010

Broom Closet Makeover

I'm going to guess that most people have a junk drawer in their house -- you know that place where any odd or end could get shoved in and it seems to be it's permanent home. Well in our house we have a junk closet. Yes it's true -- a whole closet that is full of stuff -- from cleaning supplies, to dog treats, to shopping bags and more -- it all ended up there. I didn't realize how messy this was until I tried to put my new Swiffer Sweeper Vac (that I won from Kuzak's Closet -- be sure to link up for the Sister Sister Sunday link party they have!) in my broom closet and there was no room for it. Then I saw how scary it was...so look at the mess below at your own risk.

EEEEK! Didn't I tell you it was ghastly!?! Seriously -- this is how we live behind closet doors sometimes. I had tried several times to clean it out and make it a bit more organized, but it never stayed that way. There just wasn't enough useful storage space in this closet; or as my Mom's family calls it, the telephone booth (apparently when she was growing up in a house of four kids and one phone, they would take the phone into the "telephone booth" and make their calls in privacy -- away from the rest of the eaves droppers. To this day, that is what a broom closet is called -- the phone booth).

So the first step, obviously, is to clean that puppy out! I removed my million and two plastic shopping bags and recycled most of them at Target. (They have bins you can drop off unwanted plastic bags at each store).

At least we're starting with a blank slate now. After I constructed my own shelves in our bathroom nook -- I knew this would be a perfect place for similar shelves. I wanted white shelves, but I thought it might look weird with with the oak inside. On the other hand I DEFINITELY didn't want to paint the inside of that closet white -- that sounded extremely tedious and a little overkill -- although I won't lie -- it would be SO nice. That's when I had the idea to use adhesive drawer liner for the inside.

I bought this stuff at Target for only $5.60! And there is plenty of it left over. I measured, cut and adhered my liner to the inside of my closet.

Then I constructed my shelves, just like the ones in our bathroom. They have a 1x2 on each side with a board laid across them and some trim in front to keep it pretty. You can read more about how to make these shelves here.

Much better, right?

I also bought a plastic bag dispenser from SimpleHuman at Target for $8.99 and put some baskets that I found a for a few dollars at Joanne's and thrift stores inside too. Now we have a much more organized space to hold daily cleaning supplies, bags, and doggy treats.

On that first shelf I have my homemade disinfecting wipes in a Rubbermaid container , along with some baskets full of ready to use garbage bags and Swiffer Sweepers and then a basket full of our chargers for vacuums and other household things. Our middle shelf is full of Ruby's treats and food and the bottom shelf holds a recycling bin (otherwise we have empty cans, bottles and boxes sitting on top of our fridge waiting to be brought outside) and our beloved Swiffer. I also added some cork board squares to the door to post things like stamps, important phone numbers -- you know all the good stuff.

I usually have my Dust Buster and my apron hanging up in there -- but I took them down so you could see the rest of the closet. :) Most of the original "junk" stayed in the closet -- just more organized; but some of it got moved to other, more practical places in the house.