Organizing Your Spring Closet

Now that it is finally warming up outside (and hopefully stays that way) it was time to get my closet switched from my winter wardrobe to my summer one.  I love this seasonal task.  I love pulling out clothes that I have missed for the last 6 months.  I also love the chance it gives me to go through my closet and get rid of items that I don't wear, I'm tired of, don't fit, etc.

One of the things I loved about the floorpan of this house was the quite large master closet.  I have big plans to sometime make it really organized and beautiful with built-ins.  But for now, we still have quite a bit of space with what the builder put in.  With this closet, I am able to keep most of my off-season clothes still hung up, but a few things I put away in bins on the top shelf.  But I usually move my off-season clothes to the back, so what I am wearing is front and center.  So all of my short-sleeve shirts were pushed to the right of the closet.  

Photo courtesy of The Every Girl

As I went through all of my shirts, switching the summer items to the left and the winter items to the right I ask myself the 7 Questions to Ask When Cleaning Out Your Closet by the Every Girl.  These are great questions that really help you evaluate if you should keep and item of clothing and why.  It also helps you make sure you are only keeping the best items in your closet.  I was happy to get rid of a full trash bag full of clothing that will bless someone else.

When I organize my shirts, I like to keep like items together.  Starting from the left we have tanks, old tees (I mainly use for working out in the yard), layering tees, tees, nicer shirts, short-sleeve sweaters, dressy shirts.

From dressy shirts we move to jackets, and then into some of my winter shirts that I didn't put up in the bin.

On the lower rod I hang capri's, shorts, a few jeans, cardigans, hoodies, and then some other jeans (that are actually too big right now.)  My capri/shorts/pants section is looking pretty skimpy right now because I am in the process of losing 30lbs (already down 22!).  Once I finish losing my weight I will purchase a few more in the right size.

On the right side of my closet I have my skirts and dresses, hanging shelves with my PJs, and shoes.  That cute chevron bin (from Marshall's) is my 80% bin.  You know that pile of clothes on your floor of things that can be worn again but don't necessarily get hung up? Like my sweats I quickly threw on to take the kids to school.  That goes in this cute bin instead of getting thrown on the floor.  Kevin has one on his side of the closet too.

Now my closet is all set for Spring! Have you gotten out your Spring wardrobe yet? Do you switch things with the season?

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Tips to Organization #6

Organizing Your Food Storage

When we first moved into our new home, one of the first things we did was build shelves in our cold storage and I set to work organizing it.  Then the case-lot sales happened.  And then it got cold.  And going down into the cold storage and spending time putting away all of the case-lot purchases would have required a coat, gloves, and hat.  And it would still be cold.  I do NOT like the cold.  I lived in Texas for 11 years and loved the heat there.  I dread each and every winter in Utah.  So, I put off re-organizing and putting away everything until spring.  Well spring has arrived and it was finally warm enough this week (and I had time) to spend some time down in the cold storage and tidy things up.

There was so much to put away, that it couldn't even be contained in the cold-storage and spilled out into the storage room.

It took me a few hours and lots of rearranging but I finally got everything put away.  And it makes me happy to have an organized cold-storage again.

One of the things I tell people when I am helping them organize is "Put the things you use the most closest and at eye-level."  Well that is exactly what we have here.  The first shelves when you walk in is toilet paper, paper towels, beans, condiments, breakfast items, and my 5-gallon buckets of flour and sugar. The items we use the most.

The next set of shelves has soups, pasta, and vegetables. The third set of shelves is baking items, fruit, drinks, and snacks.   Snacks are actually something that we use a lot, but I don't like to put them front and center or they tend to disappear.  So they get stuck in the back so they aren't as easy for the kids to grab.  

The end shelf has canning supplies, some extra household items, paper goods, packaged foods (which we don't eat very often), and drink and water storage.

It's so nice to have my storage room back.  Things are accessible and easy to find.  Make this organizer heart happy.

Do you have food storage? How do you organize it?

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Tips to Organization #5

Project: Master Bathroom Update with Shutters and Storage

Hello friends! We've made a few update to our master bathroom since we moved in that have made such a difference in the space!  I absolutely adore my spacious bathroom, but there are a few things that I knew we needed right away in order to make the space work for us; shutters and storage!

This is the giant window over the tub in our master bathroom.  It offers a beautiful view to our backyard, the horses running in the fields, and the equestrian/walking trail that runs behind our home.  It brings in so much beautiful natural light in the bathroom.  What it doesn't offer is a lot of privacy!  I am not a huge fan of blinds, and plantation shutters are a bit pricey, so I needed to find another solution for this window.  I considered cafe curtains, but found nothing that I liked.  Then, I saw my friend and neighbor's blog, Amy's Casablanca, with her homemade shutters and I knew Kevin could build them and I LOVED them! They were the perfect solution.  They looked beautiful, offered plenty of privacy when needed, and yet could be opened to let in more light, and we could build them ourselves for a fraction of the price of plantation shutters! Win! Win! Win!

When we moved in, we hung up a sheet in the window to get us by, but Kevin quickly set to work and had them built within a few months.  The first ones he built were the ones in the toilet room. With only one set, they were his test run.  He built them out of MDF Trim and board that was already primed.  He also trimmed out the top and sides of the windows to give something to attach the hinges to and make the window look nicer (I hope to do this to all the windows in the house eventually).

Kevin built the shutters for the main window after working out the kinks and I absolutely adore how they turned out! I love that I can close the bottom for privacy, but have the top open to let in plenty of light.  I love the black hardware he chose.  It goes perfectly with the room and really makes a statement with the stark contrast to the white shutters and trim.

Even with our bathroom being so large, we don't have much storage in there.  We each get two drawers and a small cabinet under our sinks and I have a makeup drawer in the middle.  I was finding it difficult to find a place to put our extra towels and toiletries.  With the 5 kids sharing one bathroom, a lot of their extras are in the linen closet in the hallway, and there really wasn't room for our stuff too.  For a little white we were putting it up in the top of our closet, but that wasn't working either.  Then I found this great cabinet at Target.com.

The cabinet was perfect for our needs.  It was tall and thin and fit in the space we had between the door to our bedroom and our closet door.  It had a cabinet with glass and a cabinet that could hide things. And it had another drawer! Perfect! I purchased it and as soon as it came put it together!

In the top section with glass, I store our extra bath towels, hand towels, and wash cloths.  It is so much more convenient to grab them out of this cabinet rather than have to get a chair and climb into the to[ of the closet to grab a new wash cloth (I'm too short to reach the upper shelves!)

The bottom cabinet holds a lot of my extra toiletries and items that I use on a regular basis, but not daily.

The little drawer conveniently holds extra razors, lipsticks, and my stash of Homemade Peppermint Lip Balm.

These couple of changes have really transformed our space and made it work much better for us.  I love that they are not only functional changes, but they look great as well!

What changes have you made to your bathroom to function better? I'd love to see them!

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Tips to Organization #4

Project: Finishing the Basement - Part 1

Hello friends! I mentioned in our New Home posts that we would be finishing our basement, turning our 3-bedroom home into a 6-bedroom home, within the first year.  Well, that work has begun! We are very excited about this.  We currently have all 5 kids in 2 bedrooms, which is less than ideal.  We are, of course, making it work thanks to my mad organization skills, but it will be so nice to get all of the kids in their own rooms eventually.  The girls especially are anxious to not be crammed 3-to-a-room.

For our budget's sake, we are only finishing the 3 bedrooms, bathroom, and a couple of closets in the family room right now.  Once we get those done and the girls moved in, we will save up some more and finish the family room.

We had hoped to do most of the work ourselves to save some money, but Kevin's work schedule and his side business have been keeping him so busy that if we wanted to get it done, (which we NEEDED to do ASAP!) then we had to hire out a lot of it.

We were able to do some of the framing ourselves, but we ended up hiring out most of it.  We also hired out the HVAC (which we couldn't do ourselves) and the plumbing.

We have been able to do the electrical ourselves, and it is nearly done.  I had never pulled electrical before, but it was very easy.  We have a couple of electricians in the family, so we will have one of them actually hook it all up to the electrical panel.  We also had another Central Vacuum outlet put in downstairs.  It hooks in to our current system (which I love!!!!) and will just have to be hooked into the electrical as well.  Sheetrock will hopefully start next week if we can finish up a few more framing and electrical things.

Each of the girls bedrooms have been wired with can lights and a central main light.  I got some really great deals on Overstock for the main lights for each of the girls rooms.  I can't wait to show you once they get hung!

One of the changes we made from the original builder plans for the basement was the bathroom.  With 3 girls using the bathroom, I know space is going to be a premium, even with it being so large.  I'm not a huge fan of the long skinny bathrooms (like we had in our last house) when all of the girls are trying to get ready in the front of the mirror or I am trying to help them with their hair.  So, in the front part of the bathroom, with the vanity and mirror, I bumped out the wall and extra two-feet to give plenty of room for doing hair and getting around anyone standing in front of the vanity.  This is going to be wonderful!

For our vanity, we priced out many options, and Ikea could not be beat!  We are going to be doing a 24" linen cabinet, with drawers on the bottom, a 24" sink base, and 2 more 18" drawer bases.  So each girl will have a set of drawers for their stuff, plus some added linen closet space to hold extra towels and toiletries.  I'm still working on counter tops.  We also still need to pick the tile for the floor and shower.  We plan to do that during the sheetrocking phase.

Two of the girls rooms are going to have a closet (with a built-in organizer) for their clothes and an additional closet with just shelving (for toys/crafts/etc.) I'm really excited about the extra storage this is going to provide them! Yay for storage!

In this room we are going to be doing a window seat and built-in bookcases on either side of the window for my avid-reading daughter.  We put in additional small can lights above the seat with a switch nearby as well as near the entrance of the room.  With the additional storage she will have with the built-ins, we didn't do a storage closet in her room.

And this is the very DISORGANIZED rest of the space.  Most of the stuff in here will be going into the girls rooms.  There will also be room for a lot of it in the family room closets we are finishing.  Can I tell you how much this STRESSES ME OUT???? The mess is killing me.  But I am so excited for the finished product.  I can't wait! In the mean time, I am plotting all the organizing I am going to be doing when we are finished.  Now that will be FUN!

Products I Love - My Eco Reusable Grocery Shopping Bags

I'm excited to talk to you today about a product that I absolutely love.  I discovered My Eco Reusable Grocery Bags a couple of years ago on another blog and immediately purchased them.  I have been using them ever since, and I absolutely L-O-V-E them!

Why do I love them so much?  Well let me tell you! Not only are they environmentally friendly and very clever, they are also ORGANIZED!  A product after my own heart.  Swoon.....

I've used reusable grocery bags on and off for years, but I would always forget to grab them or hated carrying around 15 bulky bags that took up a lot of space in my grocery cart and car.  When I saw what a compact design (how they all fit inside each other) and how BIG these bags were, I knew that it would be so much easier.  

My Eco bags are reusable grocery bags made from recycled yogurt containers.  There are 4 bags and each has a special purpose and is labeled so you know what goes where!  I love that they have large, wide straps that make carrying the bags easier.  They are very sturdy and can hold a lot of weight, and the straps really help evenly distribute that weight.  Even when they are very heavy, I don't ever feel like they are going to break.  The set EASILY replaces 30 disposable plastic sacks, so they are not only made from recycled materials, but very eco-friendly because you are not using disposable sacks.

The black bag is the smallest bag and is for jars and bottles.  It is the smallest so that it isn't too heavy.  It has mesh pockets on the inside to help keep the bottles in place.  I also use this bag for canned goods.

The blue bag is an insulated bag with zipper closure for all of your chilled and frozen items.  And let me tell you, it works! I've used this bag as a cooler on road trips and it has worked wonderfully!  I love to have all of my chilled and frozen items in here and feel secure that they will still be frozen when I get home, even if I have a few detours on the way!

The green bag is for produce.  It is quite large, which is great for all the fruits and veggies we eat.  If I do have some extra room, I usually throw breads on top.

The brown bag is the largest bag and is for all the rest of your groceries and dry goods.  I can easily get a few cereal boxes, crackers, pasta and other items in here with room to spare!  This bag is also the bag that everything else fits inside of and then zips up to form this compact pouch!  I can keep this pouch in the side pocket in the door of my mini-van so it is always there and convenient for me to grab.  No more forgetting my reusable bags!

What surprised me the first time I used these bags is how much actually fit in them.  I was able to get a week's worth of groceries EASILY and with room to spare for my large family in these 4 bags!

My trunk went from this - 

To this! (excuse the carseat!)

This was one trip to the grocery store for a weeks worth of groceries.  I usually choose to bag my own groceries, but most stores are very accommodating when you tell them what you want to do.  I usually place the bag that I want things to go in before I place all of the items that go in the bag on the conveyor belt.  Then its easy for them to load things into the right bag.

Look how neat and tidy my cart is!  Everything fits! And unloading the car in 1-2 loads is so much easier.  And putting all of my groceries away is a BREEZE because everything is sorted and organized! 

Some cities and states are now requiring grocery stores CHARGE money for every bag they give to customers (see this news article about Dallas, TX) and the bags have to be thicker so that people don't have to double bag.  The fee is meant to reduce litter and pollution and encourage customers to bring their own bags.  Here in Utah there is no fee. But, my local grocery store gives me 5 gas points for every bag (and they usually give me extra because My Eco bags are so big!)

Want to try these awesome bags?  My Eco Bag has graciously provided a coupon code for you to use to purchase the bags at a discount! The coupon is good for $10 off and is valid through April 2015!

I also have 1 set of My Eco bags to giveaway! Yay!  

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