Home Management Binder

What is a home management binder?  Well let me tell you!  It is one of the best tools you can employ to keep you, your family, and your home organized!  This binder should have all of the information you need for your home to run smoothly.  You'll see what I mean in a minute!

Here is a picture of my NEW household binder.  It just got a makeover and I am so pleased with how it turned out.

Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I got the cover and pages from my friend Jen over at I Heart Organizing. She put together such an amazing kit and I loved the pages and colors, so rather than recreate my own asked her if she would let me promote her wonderful kit to YOU!  If you haven't checked out her website, you MUST!  She has amazing ideas and a fabulous sense of style.  Not to mention, she is super nice too!  She is one of the few organizing blogs that I MUST read and ALWAYS come back to.  So thanks Jen!  You can purchase this Household Binder Kit in her Etsy Store.

Household binders really need to be tailored to you and your family.  Every family is different and has different needs.  What works for one may not work for another.  So like any other organizing project, your household binder may need tweaking.  When I was first looking for information on home management binders, I scoured the internet and found so many ideas and printables.  So here is a pretty comprehensive list of sections you may want to consider for yours.  

Sections

• School
• Finance
• Contact Info
• Sitter 
• Home maintenance
• Media Tracking
• Auto Maintenance
• Important Dates
• Food
• Medical

Within these sections you can have different sheets that cover everything from party planning to an illness record sheet.  The kit from I Heart Organizing comes with just about everything I wanted except for a medical section (which she told me she will be working on!)

So let me show you the inside of my binder!

Here are the different sections in my binder - Calendar, Cleaning, Phone, Finance, Inventory, Medical, Outings, and Misc.  After a lot of tweaking, I find that these are the categories that best suit my life and needs.

In the front of my binder I have a sheet to write my daily goals and tasks.  By writing this down every morning I am able to see what I need to get done today.  I can also look back and see what didn't get done yesterday.

The first section is my Calendar section.  I primarily use Google Calendars for my calendaring and I also have the calendar in my Command Center. But this section holds my Weekly Meal Plan, Week at a Glance page, Important Dates page, as well as calendars from the kids school.  I also sometimes print out my Google Calendar and stick it in here if I think I might need it.  I find I am always flipping through it to find when so-and-so's birthday is, what letter are the kids studying in Preschool, or when the kids have off school.  It is all at my fingertips and not cluttering up counters or bulletin boards!

The next section is cleaning. This is really a "Home Maintenance" section, but that didn't fit on the divider tab.    My dividers have pockets in them and this is where I store the cleaning checklists that I laminated for my kids.  I also have my cleaning checklist, household maintenance list, auto maintenance list, honey-do list, and even my laundry stain cheat sheets.

The third section is Phone.  This is really just contact information and important numbers.  I keep a sheet in there with numbers of our extended family as well as neighbors and people we go to church with.  I also keep a sheet with the kids friends names, parents names, and contact information.  

The fourth section is Finance.  I do most of my finance stuff online with Mint.com and online banking but it is nice to have a few things written down and I always know where to find my checkbook!

The next section is Inventory.  This section is about food.  But I do all of my meal planning on PlanToEat.com, which also creates my shopping list.  I keep info sheets on food conversions, the seasonal purchasing, and purchasing organic in my Recipe Binder.  But in this section I keep my food inventories.  We have an extensive Food Storage Room as well as a fridge/freezer in our garage, and a chest freezer in our basement.  If I didn't keep an inventory of what I have on hand, I would never know what we have!  So I created an inventory (Jen includes some in her kit as well) and I update it monthly.  It really comes in handy when I am meal planning.  I don't have to go looking through the food storage or freezers to know what I have to work with.  

The next section is Medical.  This section is extremely important to our family.  There are a few of us that have some major health issues and knowing what medicine was given when and proper dosages is essential. In addition to illness record charts, I also have a personal medical information sheet for each person in our family.  I can't tell you what a lifesaver (literally) this is.  

Last June, I was living with my parents before my husband and I got married.  I had only recently been diagnosed with Asthma in march.  My parents were redoing their wood floors and it really made my asthma bad.  Kevin and I had just recently taken engagement photos as well and my allergies were out of control, again, causing my asthma to flare up.  So between the allergies and the dust, I could not breathe.  One night, I had a horrible asthma attack.  I could barely breathe and was only getting 1-2 words out per breath.  I woke up my parents for my dad to take me to the ER.  I grabbed my Medical Information sheet to take with me.  When I got to the ER, I could barely talk, but I was able to hand over my sheet and give them all of the information that they required in order to treat me.

• Personal Information (name, birthdate, ss#, address, phone)
• Insurance Information (carrier, ID#, Group#, policy holder)
• Primary Care Doctor
• Medical History (pass illnesses, vaccinations, surgeries, hospitalizations, allergies)
• Current Medication (name & dosage)
• Family History

The last section I call Outings.  It has a list of places we want to visit and things we want to do.  Ideas for boring rainy days.  Travel plans and pack lists, etc.

And the last section is a Misc.  In here I have babysitter notes (not really filled out because we don't use babysitters since we have older kids), party planning worksheets, gift giving ideas, and a few other pages from Jen's kit that I don't have a need for right now, but may want them in the future.

So, my challenge to you is to get your own Home Management Binder put together.  Whether you purchase a kit, find something online, or make your own, make it work for you!

You can check my Pinterest board for more ideas and printables.

Transformers Birthday Party

What a crazy week!  I'm sorry I have not gotten the next challenge posted.  My son turned 5 and we not only had a family birthday party for him, but he got to have his very first friend birthday party.  I spent a LOT of time planning and preparing his party and I am really happy with the way it turned out.  Disclaimer: I am NOT a party planner!  Most of my ideas came from Pinterest.  But I will be happy to show you what I did!  The party was a great success and he and his friends loved it!

The Cake:

For the cake I did a traditional 9x13 Devil's Food cake.  I didn't even make it from scratch...just good ol' Betty Crocker.  And when it came time to decorate it...well I guess I hadn't been THAT organized and didn't not have a piece of cardboard anywhere in the house to put it on.  So I just flipped over a cookie sheet, put down some tin foil, and made do!  I baked the cake on Saturday and let it cool all night/day and frosted it Sunday afternoon.  I used this recipe from Martha Steward for the basic buttercream frosting, and it was really yummy!  I used Wilson food coloring gels instead of just food coloring drops so that I could get a rich dark color (although it still took quite a bit of gel!).

For the Transformer logo I used this recipe for sculptable frosting.  I probably could have just gotten the sugar sheets or fondant...but what is the fun in that?  So I printed out the logo (I got it from google images) and laid it on top of a rolled out recipe of the sculptable frosting.  I then used an X-acto knife to cut the image out of the frosting.

 

When it was all cut out, I pulled up the pieces and was left with the image.  I then had to cut it out and clean it up.

When I had it all layed out, I put another piece of wax paper over the top and put a cutting board on it and flipped it over and then layed it on top of the cake.  As you can see, it is FAR from perfect.  But, I was fairly pleased with my first attempt and such an undertaking. And kids don't care if it is perfect!

We ate part of the cake on Sunday with the family birthday party and then I saved the rest to serve (cut up) at the friend birthday party.  I had originally thought about making a second cake for the party or even some cupcakes.  But my husband convinced me that my sanity was more important and Luke was totally happy with what I had already done.  He was right.  So, I put my efforts on the rest of his party!

This banner and matching game took me more time than anything else.  I used my Cricut to cut the banner triangles out and then borrowed my cousin's Silhouette to cut out the letters and logos.  But, her silhouette wasn't working very well for me and was only scoring the cardstock (despite me trying everything I could think of!) and so I ended up staying up until 2am cutting it all out with an X-acto knife.  Oh well...

Luke and his friends had a great time and I'm so glad!  But whew! That was a lot of work!

An Organized Reader: Organized in Austin!

Tamma, a reader from Austin, TX has been doing an awesome job getting organized in her home.  From the looks of it she has been inspired by our challenges and has been working hard!

First off, is her 10-year old son's room, who she loving calls "A Collector."  He had collected a lot of stuff over the last few months and it was time to clean it out!

It looks like Tamma used a great system to make the pile disappear!

She did a great job figuring out what could be donated and trashed.

 And look how nice this room looks after she was done!  Way to go Tamma!    I like the bins with labels!

Next, Tamma tackled some spaces in her kitchen.

Some great before and after's of her medicine cabinet.  I really like how she used bins and labeled things to make it easy to keep things organized and separated.  Labels help her family to keep it that way too.

Onto her spice cabinet.  More bins and labels and other organization tools.  Awesome!

She again did a great job on her pantry making sure everything had a home.

And last, but not least, her office closet.

Seeing these pictures (and others that you are sending) make me heart happy.  I love seeing the changes you are making and how you too are becoming An Organized Family.

Until next time...

Laundry Room Reveal

Hello everyone!  I am so excited to show you my Laundry Room reveal today.  I am so pleased with the way it turned out.   Eventually I would like to paint the little room, but for now, it is D-O-N-E!

Now, as you can see, my laundry room is not very big.  But that doesn't mean it can't be the space that I want it to be.  I would love to someday have a large laundry room that I can have built in laundry sorters, drying racks, etc.  But for now, I can still have a space I love!  Let's take a tour, shall we?

First off, my washer and dryer.  I purchased these Kenmore Frontloaders a couple of years ago and have never regretted the quite large purchase.  I didn't have the funds to get all the bells and whistles but I did look at Consumer Reports and for my price range, these were the best.  Having these machines literally CHANGED MY LIFE.  I know that sounds dramatic but it is so true.  When I purchased them, I only had the three children but felt like I was ALWAYS doing laundry.  It felt like such a chore and I really despised the task.  But with these babies....laundry has some how magically become not the worst thing in the world.  The wash cycle is about the same as my old one, but the dry cycle is quite fast.  I once dried a load of whites in 12 (YES TWELVE!!!!) minutes.  Some people have complained of smells from their Front Loaders.  If you make sure to leave your washer door open to let it air out, use the clean cycle once a month, and clean out the filters once a month, you shouldn't have a problem.  I have also heard (from very picky people) that they don't get clothes as clean.  But I think in her case, she doesn't have children at home any more and her loads are quite small, so they may not work as well.  Because they don't have an agitator, the washers rely on the other clothes and gravity to help scrub and clean.  I do small loads in mine (once in a great while) and haven't noticed things not being clean, but for the most part, most of my loads are regular to large size.

Now, let's look on what is on top of the washer and dryer.  On top of my dryer I have a lazy-susan that I purchased at IKEA for about $12 I think.  I really liked this one because it is sturdy (made of wood) and big enough to handle a few big bottles.  I love that I am not having to shift bottles around to get to the one I want.  I would have LOVED to have had this on top of my washer (instead of my dryer) but I found that the bottles fell off quite often during a spin cycle.

You can also see in this photo, that on the shelf above my washer and dryer I have two bins.  One is labeled (with vinyl lettering I did on my Cricut, but you could also use sticky labels, or a hang tag) return and the other donate.  I LOVE having these bins in general (always a place to put things!) but I love having them right there because through my laundry room is the entrance to my garage.  So when I am headed out the door to the store, I can grab my return bin and return anything while I am there or I can grab my donate bin and drop things off at a nearby donation center.  I got these big plastic tubs at Target.  Another reason I love them is because of their colors.  Red always makes me happy.

On top of my washer is my laundry detergent and a big white tin I grabbed at Target last summer (it was supposed to be for drinks.)  I again used my Cricut machine and did vinyl lettering to say "Laundry."  It seriously made my day when I made the vinyl lettering for these bins.  I always love things when they are labeled AND pretty!  I use this big tin to throw any dirty laundry in during the week.  Rags, towels, dish rags, tableclothes, etc.   If you look closely you can see that I have added little pads to the bottom of the bucket.  Again...during that spin cycle this tin bucket would rattle and you would have thought the house was coming down!  It was so LOUD!!!!  So I added these pads (like the kind you put on the bottom of furniture so it doesn't scratch your floors) that I got at Home Depot to the bottom and now it is quiet during the spin cycle. Yeah!

On the shelf behind the bucket, I have a few other cleaning products I don't use very often as well as extra laundry detergent.  My husband actually works for a company that makes laundry detergent, dish soap, fabric softener, etc. so we usually have quite a bit on hand.

I have my washer and dryer on pedestals. When I got them, I was not married to the wonderfully handy (not to mention handsome!) man I am married to now so I wanted them to not only provide storage, but also put them not so close to the ground.  This was also before the days of Pinterest.  If I were to do it again, I would NOT buy the pedestals, and probably do a laundry basket storage/sorting thing like this instead.  But, since I have them, I use them.  The drawer on the right stores full-size rag towels.  The drawer on the left is divided into two sections.  The left section stores microfiber clothes for dusting and moping.  The section on the right has hand towel and wash cloth size rags.

Now let's flip around to the opposite wall.  On this side of the room I had my handy husband hang a drying rack I got at Ikea for $20.  I love that it is down when I don't need it.  It can also go on an angle which comes in hand when I am drying pants or rugs or something.  It can also go out straight so I can lie something flat on top or hang my laundry hanging dryer (also from Ikea for $5) to dry delicates or even beach towels in the summer.  One thing to note is that I had my husband hang the rack just high enough that I can still stand under it when it is open.  That works for me because I am fairly short.  And because it is a tight space, I still need to be able to get into my washer.

You can also see I have some cute little frames on the wall.  They were actually black frames I had on hand and I just spray painted them white.  I found this cute printable on Pinterest and put it in one frame and then in Photoshop I create my Laundry schedule in similar fonts and colors.  (I also found this printable recently on Pinterest and may have to change the colors and hang it as well.) 

I do, what I think is, an insane amount of laundry for our family of 7.  Probably 15 loads a week.  There is NO WAY I can do that in a day.  It is just too overwhelming.  So I have broken it down into 6 days (no laundry on Sunday) so that I am doing a little each day.  Then, if I get behind, it still isn't overwhelming to make it up on another day.  Also, I do all the laundry do the school year, but my kids do their own during the summer.  So, this schedule works for that too!

Monday - Clothes (mainly mine and my husbands)

Tuesday - Girls (I have a 10, 8, and 4 year old.  The older girls do theirs and the little ones during the summer.)

Wednesday - Boy (I have a 13 and 5 year old. The oldest does it during the summer.)

Thursday - Sheets.  Everyone rips theirs off in the morning and has a clean set ready to put on when they get home from school.  During the summer they put on new sheets right away because we have extra sets.

Friday - Clothes (mine and my husbands again)

Saturday - Towels. Everyone brings theirs up.  I usually do the laundry that is in the tin bucket on this day as well.

On that same wall, I stack my empty laundry baskets on the floor and have my trash can.  Most of my laundry baskets are red too. Happy!!!

Next is my closet.  As you can see, on the door we hang our iron and ironing board.  This is great except for the fact that we have 8 ft. doors and so I actually have to get a stool to get the iron down.  But...I rarely iron, so I can handle doing that every once in a great while.

The closet is fairly small but because I rarely clean with chemicals I don't have a lot of cleaning supplies.  What supplies I do have are on the shelves and the bottles, along with cleaning products I have made, hang on the rod.

I like to hang pretty much anything I can to keep things off the floor.  So, I have Command Hooks all over this closet.

The green bag on the left is a little bag with elastic on the bottom and holds empty plastic grocery sacks.  The big TJ-Maxx bag holds all of my reusable shopping bags.  I also have my Norwex dusting cloth as some other dusters I got at Ikea (that don't work very well, but the kids like using them.)  I also hang my floor duster and swiffer.

So, the only things I have on the floor are my Spot-Bot, my Floor Steamer, my Dyson Vacuum, my long duster in the corner, and a yardstick.

And last but not least, behind the door is my key rack.  During the summer I mainly use my front entryway.  Mr. Handy has his workshop in the garage and it is usually too dirty and full of his projects for me to park in there.  But during the winter, his business slows down, and he cleans things up so I can park in the garage.  So I keep my keys and my cute Mayli Jade Cell Phone Clutch on the key rack so I can grab things and go.

Well, that is it for my laundry room.  Hopefully I've inspired you!  Now send me some pictures by email or post on our facebook and show me what you have been up to!

For more ideas on decorating and organizing your laundry room, check my Pinterest pages!