5 days left!!

Ok people..I'm getting nervous. I have 5 days to finish my challenge of getting an entire room organized..and I'm not sure I'm going to make it! We're in the middle of a kitchen make-over and it has been consuming my time. The painters were supposed to be done last Tuesday which would have given me all last week to get my kitchen back together. Well, they weren't done until Friday. (I'm not completely surprised). So I tried to bust it this weekend and get most of the kitchen finished so that I could work this week on the room. But I didn't get as much done as I needed. It will probably take me the rest of the day to finish the kitchen..which leaves only 4 days for the other room. I'm not sure if I'll make it. But I'm sure going to try! (I hope!)

Have any of you decided to take on this challenge? Or even just a re-organizing project in general? We'd love to see before and after pics once its done!

-Larra

28 Day Organizing Challenge

I am a huge fan of Laura at OrgJunkie. She has great ideas about organizing. If you thought we were obsessed with it, you should see this lady! SHE is OBSESSED!! But, she's great at it and doesn't spend a lot of money doing it. Every year she holds a 28 Day Organizing Challenge and I've decided to participate this year. I wanted to invite you all to participate and post your results at the end of the month. If you are interested, go here to read all the details. At the end of the month, if you have a blog, you post your before and after pics and link to them on her blog. There are prizes and everything! It can't hurt to participate..you can tackle a small area or an entire room in your house.

I've decided to tackle the one room in the house that gives me the most grief. Our youngest son's room was our garage that we converted to a bedroom. So the laundry area is in there, plus a door to the backyard and driveway. So his room is very multi-purpose and really needs to be organized. I want him to have his own space in there while still being functional for laundry. I have a few ideas and can't wait to get started. I have an entire month to work on it so I'm hoping to make myself take it slow so that I'll get better results.

So what do you say? Are you in? If so, let us know! At the end of the challenge, I'll have my results posted on here for you (and the judges) to see.

-Larra

An Organized 2010

Welcome to 2010 Everyone! How do we say it..is it twenty ten? Just ten? I'm still not sure.

Everyone likes to make New Year's Resolutions and start fresh each year. While I didn't really make new years resolutions, I did want to start fresh in my home. Last week I started reorganizing most of the rooms in our home. I didn't realize how bad we needed it! I thought I'd share with you what I did to give you a little motivation to organize your home if you need it. I am still not done..I need to finish my pantry, bathrooms, and youngest son's room. Oh, and our kitchen. But that's a major work in progress. We are in the process of giving it a facelift with new paint, tile, backsplash, etc so it will be a while before I can put it back together. But when I do, it will be really organized!

So here's what I've done so far. First task was my files. I'm definitely a file person. I like everything to have a place to go instead of just landing on my desk. In the past, I've always had handwritten file folders. I don't have the prettiest handwriting so I have always wanted a labeler. Well, knowing my personality and my love for organizing, my mom gave me one at Christmas! I was so excited. You can see my labeler in its place on my desk below. You can pick these up at Target/Walmart for less than $20.

Next was my desk space in general. After our second baby was born this summer, we had to move our "office" into the dining area. So I like to try to keep it fairly tidy because anyone that walks in our home will see it. Plus, I just need it clean for my sanity. It easily gets things piled up but with my new system, it has seemed to stay pretty clean over the last week. Hopefully we can keep it up. There's no magic system I used here. Just straightened and put a tiered file organizer next to the printer. That definitely made a huge difference. I wish I had some before photos to show the difference. What isn't shown in the photo is I added a mail sorter (that I found in a closet and completely forgot I had). I labeled each section with deposits, bills to be paid/filed, and outgoing mail.

The next room may seem like nothing to most of you. However, if you've ever been in my bedroom, you know that this is a great improvement. Before last week, we had this beautiful green armoire/entertainment piece in our room. It was at the end of our bed and took the place of a dresser or chest of drawers. We love the piece of furniture and it has served many purposes over the years. (Leigh Ann and I used it as a dresser in college, then Matt and I used it in our apartment and rental house for an entertainment center, then it went back to being a dresser in this house.) It was beautiful but LARGE. And our bedroom isn't. It took up a lot of room and was not what I wanted long term as our bedroom furniture. So for Christmas we asked for

IKEA gift cards in order to purchase a dresser we had picked out. However, we didn't want to part ways forever with our beloved armoire, so Leigh Ann offered to bring it to her house to make a craft cabinet or for other storage. (I'm really hoping it turns into a craft cabinet!) That

way, when we move we could get it back if we had the space for it. Soo...long story to show you our newly organized bedroom. Having to move clothes to the dresser allowed me to purge my entire closet. And now the closet is nice and organized as well.

And last but DEFINITELY not least, my oldest son's room. It has been a thorn in my side for months. I tried a couple of methods of organizing his toys but was never happy with any of it. I attempted a toy box and now know that I am not a fan of those. If you like to just have one place to throw everything and hide it, then this is the method for you. And that's ok. But I'm not one of those people. And my son didn't like it either. When he was looking for a toy and couldn't find it, he didn't like that. He's only 2, but he's definitely got some of my tendencies haha. Over the last few months, I started visualizing what I wanted to be able to accomplish in his room. I needed bins and a bookshelf. I wanted a place for puzzles, craft supplies, crayons, cars, blocks, etc. I started picking up bins on sale and even asked for some for Christmas. Some of you are thinking "Seriously? Storage bins?" And I'm sure you can guess who came through with those..Leigh Ann, of course! So here it is. In all its glory.

Top: Shelf where we keep the puzzle rack, crayons, coloring books, sketch pads, games and much more. Bottom: Bins in his closet. The large one is FULL of cars. These slide in and out when needed. And what's better..he knows to clean up one bin before getting out another bin. So the bin method really works for us! And it literally takes 1 minute to clean his room!

His book nook. I frequently find him sitting in his bean bag reading books. Its where we sit together and read during the day and before bedtime. I don't know what it is about having a designated reading spot but he loves it and it really gets him to want to listen to books.

I am so excited to already have accomplished so much in my home and its only the second week of the year. Like I said, I have a couple more rooms to finish and I should be able to wrap that up in the next week or so. Have any of you started off the year with any organizational projects? Blog about them so we can see!

-Larra

Re-Organization/De-Cluttering Week

For some time now, I have wanted to get my house more organized, less cluttered, and running more efficient. So I decided that this is the week that I am going to tackle this enormous project. It has been put off for too long, but that is why I am going to spread it over this entire week. It is a big project and that is one of the reasons I have procrastinated doing it because it is a bit intimidating to me. My house is not blessed with a lot of storage space so I have to be creative and use the space I have more efficiently. The focus for this project are all the closets, including the pantry, and garage. I realize that the garage is typically the man's space, but my husband and I do most of our home improvement projects together so there are many ways I see to make the space better for both of us. When telling him about what I was planning, his response was, "sounds good," so I think I received the go ahead from him.

The goal for the project is to keep it attainable for me. I am a mom of a 13 month old and we enjoy our play time together so I do not want to squash that, so the plan is to tackle the garage a little each day during nap #1 and then come in to get cleaned up before my baby wakes up. During nap #2, I will clean out a different closet each day. Some days 2 closets may be tackled if on the smaller side.

Here are a few things that I know I want to accomplish:

1. Properly dispose/recycle of all empty or previous owner's paint cans. When we moved in, we painted almost every wall in this house and now, since we have been here 3.5 years, I know that we have painted every wall in this house, including trim and ceilings. We have a TON of paint cans in our garage just taking up valuable space. If you live in my area, then go here to find out more information about where to dispose/recycle your paint cans.

2. Set up and put to use my recycling center. A few months ago, our neighborhood changed trash services and delivered us a recycle bin, so there is finally no excuse not to use it. But right now, all it is doing is gathering junk, so I hope by cleaning up/organizing/de-cluttering the garage the recycle bin will be up to its full use. All I have to do is fill it up and put in on the curb. Simple. I can do this, right?

3. Gather items to sell either at the upcoming neighborhood garage sale, consignment shops, used book stores, etc. I know we have a ton in our closets that I don't even know is there because we haven't looked at it or used it since we moved into this house. What can be used, re-purposed or sold? The rest is going to goodwill or in the trash. Hopefully, little in the trash, think green!

4. Set up binders with all our manuals to everything we own. I keep them all for reference, so it would be great to have them in one place and sorted by category. School just started so there should be some sales on binders and dividers, hopefully.

Today, I worked on the garage gathering all the paint cans and labeling the ones that are still in use. Also I cleaned out the recycling bin so it is ready to be put to use. The hall closet has also been completed and half of its space was made available. It now includes a whole shelf for garage sale items. I do planned to store my binders in there as well, but they are not made yet, but there was a space created for them.

How do you make your homes run efficiently? How often to you feel you need to reorganize or de-clutter? How do you do it? Any tips as I go through my week?

Leigh Ann

AMAZING Giveaway

For all of you organizers out there, I have to tell you about an amazing giveaway. I can already picture a few people in my mind who will be jumping all over this! Vanilla Joy is giving away the Minibox by The Original Scrapbox. I'm not going to post pictures..you're going to have to follow the links yourself and go check out how amazing this thing is! And to enter the contest.

I know why I need this...you know I LOVE organizing. And I have a small home. My home office is as organized as I can get it right now, but this would help out tremendously. My photography business supplies take up all of my file drawers, so my scrapping paper and supplies are shoved in tubs under the guest bed and in the closet. I have to dig to get them out when I want to make birthday cards and such. I would literally be in heaven with the Minibox.

So head on over to Vanilla Joy to enter the contest. This is a great website with lots of family fun activities. You'll probably find more great things on this site than just registering for this giveaway.

Good luck, but I hope I win :)

Coupon Organization

This post is more a cry for help than it is informational. I think I need a new coupon organization system. I have a Day Runner Coupon Organizer, and its worked OK for me. However, it doesn't have all the categories I need and its a little small. I don't want anything too large, but the pockets are too small so they are busting bc I have a lot of coupons. I definitely need a better system. I would like something with tabs so I could flip to the category I want right away. I've registered to win the Couponizer and another one I've seen online. But if I don't win them, I'm going to need something. I think I might try to create my own and I have some ideas, but I'm looking for more.

What is your coupon system like? Do you like it? What would you add to it?