Project Organization - Part I

I was going through my blog reader the other day when I came across this post by Lauren of Pure Style Home.


She has started a home organization project as part of her New Year's resolution. For her first project she poured her leftover paint into mason jars, labeled them, and attached a paintbrush with a pretty ribbon:

My leftover paint is fairly organized, but I'd love to make it pretty like she has. Unfortunately, I am currently on a spending freeze so no mason jars or pretty ribbon for me.

I did, however, get to participate in project number two on her list: Closet Organization. Lauren organized her coat closet. I love her fantastic idea for organizing winter gear and the pretty color that she used:

But again, no money = no closet organizers or paint. Instead, I decided to tackle two other closet monstrosities in my home. You've heard me mention that the H-Haus is small. We also have very. little. closet space. VERY LITTLE. We have a tiny coat closet, an itsy bitsy linen closet, a cozy under-the-stairs 'pantry' nook, and a teeny tiny broom closet downstairs. As a result, clutter builds up pretty easily. I decided to work on the worst two - the broom and linen closets.

Here is the (embarrassing) broom closet before:

The broom closet has gotten OUT of control for a variety of reasons:

• We accidentally knocked our trash can down the stairs and broke it, so we temporarily put the bag in the closet
• There's a very high somewhat deep shelf that was never really decluttered since we've moved in. It contained cleaning products from the previous owner that I never threw out because I thought I'd use them someday...needless to say I never did.
• We save our paper and plastic bags to reuse for recycling and other things and they were ALL in there.
  

I took everything out of the closet first to find out what was hiding in there:

I found a ridiculous amount of Febreze and Resolve, which we rarely use, Lysol, a teensy bit of generic window cleaner and an almost empty bottle of Red Devil drain cleaner (all from the previous owner) And then a few things that I actually use. The majority of my cleaning supplies (at this point) are currently in the linen closet. Don't ask me why I have two locations, it really makes no sense.

First I gave the entire closet a good cleaning and moved the box full of paper bags to the basement, as they aren't used frequently. Next I put our old bathroom trash can (we're getting a new one to match the new bathroom design) under the sink and relocated the trash. Finally I transferred ALL of my cleaning supplies to the top shelf. Here's what I ended up with:

Much better! Sorry I didn't get to make it pretty like you did, Lauren, but again - no money for prettiness. Nevertheless, I'd say it's definitely an improvement! I also had the hubster put a couple of screws in the closet door for me to house the plastic bag mess and our dust pan:

I actually had the plastic bag organizer, but just wasn't putting it to use. Someday I'll make it pretty and post about it again, but for now I'm happy with how it turned out.

Stay tuned for Project Organization part two tomorrow - the linen closet!