New Craft Armoire

When we first moved in to our first home (over 1 year ago), we were so thankful to get several pieces of hand-me-down furniture.  One was this wonderful armoire.

I had seen many ideas on pintrest about how to use it, (doll house, gift wrapping station, hidden desk etc) however I knew that it was going to be my craft storage.  I love crafting but my previous storage system (a huge boxes) made taking things in and out a pain, and ate into my crafting time.  My solution is a crafting armoire!

I am planing on eventually painting this, and doing some more organizing prettifying (yes that is a real word), however, this is perfect for now, until I am able to paint and make it "pretty" I settled for functional, not perfect.  I am so glad I did.

Here is my before picture (remember we don't judge here!)

Here is the after:

Now, on top shelf on the inside holds my cricut cutter, and cartridges, as well as some spray paint.  The second shelf holds my sewing machine and box, as well as a bag for my "current project"  This way whatever I'm working on, I can toss fold neatly and store away if I have to stop for a week hour or two.

 This is my most favorite part, it is where I hang my cricut mats, on a command hook on the inside door of the dresser!  Before, they would always get squished, and now they stay nice and flat.

I cut up old boxes to make sections and organize the draws.

The first one holds general crafting supplies (glue, paint, ribbon etc)

The second one holds my scrap booking supplies

The third my fabric and patterns

Prior to this project, my crafting stuff was all shoved into boxes, and it was such a pain to get it out and put it away, it took the joy and fun out of crafting.  Now with easy access, I am so excited to get moving on my long list of projects!

Eventually I'd like to paint/re-stain the armoire, but for now transforming it into a craft storage that is functional and free is a big enough win for me.

What have you been organizing lately?

The Big Clean Out Project

I don't know if you have ever looked around your home, and all you have seen were messes and undone projects and things that needed doing.  I do this daily and for the last few months have been completely overwhelmed by them.  I have decided to take action, and instead of just being overwhelmed, start changing it, little by little. You will be (in the nearish future) be seeing some truly terrifying bordering/should be on an episode of hoarders "before" pictures from my home for this project.  I simply ask that you don't judge, and realize that if I can do it with my disaster zones, so can you.

When I was younger I used to love this movie (that most of you have probably never heard of) called "The Richest Cat In The World" in short it is about a talking cat, who inherits $5 million dollars and helps this boy learn to read.  The cat gets catnapped by jealous relatives who were expecting to cash in on the inheritance, in hopes of them receiving it instead.  I haven't seen it in years but one quote that stuck with me was this: "Inch by inch life is a cinch!  Yard by yard it's very, very hard!

So in that spirit, one (small inch like) step at a time, I am going to clean out my home and commit to completing, and sharing with you, 4 projects EACH MONTH.  I'm excited because these can be ANY projects you want!  If your space is more organized, than simply rearrange something.  We can each change something, even something small to make our homes better, more organized and more effective.  I'd love for you to join me in, The Big Clean Out Project!

On the last day of each month, we will be having a link up party so we can share and encourage each other!  The Big Clean Out Project 1st link party will be on August 31st, so get moving on your projects!

This month I am planning to:
1. Clean out the lower cabinets under my "bonus" counter
2. Clean out the upper cabinets above my "bonus" counter
3. Boxes from childhood in the garage
4. Kitchen Utensil Drawer (the kids have been messing with it, and it is a disaster!)

Number one and two are both in anticipation of me creating a "command center" on the extra counter I have between my kitchen and dining room.  Number three is because my parents dumped several boxes from my home into our garage a few months back, and I haven't touched them, we need the storage space in the garage so I need to at least go through them and figure out what is in them!

What projects will you do this month?  Big or small, each is a step towards a better home!

The Challenge Reveal

It is the end of the month, and my challenge with Organizing Junkie is at and end, and it is time for the big reveal.  To see where this room started, click here.  I am so excited to share these pictures with you, and thank you for following and encouraging me along this journey.  Without further delay here are the before and after pictures

When you first walk in our room, it used to look like this:

Now it looks like this:

My "corner of shame" before:

and after:

The wall by the door before:

After:

Our closet before:

After:

The laundry hamper before

and after:

We ended up trashing a ton of junk and ended up with a huge purge pile for our church garage sale next weekend:

Overall this was an AMAZING experience for me.  I actually have a room that is ONLY a bedroom and not a storage space as well.  I really feel like this system is going to work for us, and we are going to be able to keep it up.  I am also excited about the few decorative touches I was able to add, and the fact that I only spent $35 to help contain our chaos.  It is an amazing feeling to finally have control over your own room.  As this was part of a challenge, here are some questions we have been asked to answer as part of it.  I hope that it gives you a better picture of how amazing this journey has been and I hope that it inspires you to tackle something of your own.

Challenge Summary Questions

1. What space did you decide to organize and why?
I chose to organize our master bedroom, because it had become a dumping ground for everything.  We still had boxes that needed to be sorted through from our move, way too much random stuff that we didn't know what to do with and more clothes than fit in our dresser/closet space.

2. What steps did you take to ensure you completed the space within the 29 day timeline?

I set up a plan from the beginning, and moved around the room step by step.  I tackled the hardest area 1st, so that the rest of the room would feel easy after that.  Even though I didn't stay as strictly to my plan as I would have liked (as life does happen), I had goals for each week and worked hard to meet them or catch up when I was behind.  I also had my amazing hubby help keep me accountable to finish on time.

3. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and how did you overcome it?

I ended up needing to do a bunch of side projects, in order to not carry clutter from our room to the rest of the house and that got me off track many times.  For example, in order to get the luggage out of our closet, we had to re-organize our garage storage.  In order to clear off shelving in the closet, it lead me to re-organize our entire paper system.  I had to pick and choose projects to do now and projects to contain and do later.  For example, my craft box was relocated to our linen closet, but I still need to come up with a system for all my crafty things that will work.  I chose to do the side projects that would help our bedroom in the long run during this month, and left others for another day (even though it was hard).

4. What did you do with the “stuff” you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?

As you would have it, our church is having a garage sale in 2 weeks.  Half of it is currently in the trunk of my hubby's car, and the other half will go out on a second trip this coming weekend when they start collecting everything.  I'm excited that it will be going towards a good cause, and that the timing worked out so that we don't have it just hanging around for a month or two.

5. Tell me one of your proudest moments during this challenge?

After I had finished, and I did a few other things around our home, I walked back into our room and couldn't help but smile.  This is the first time in our married life where I have felt like we actually have a master bedroom that isn't a storage room as well!  There is a place for everything and everything is in it's place.  I'm so excited!

6. Explain any organizing “tools” you used to help you create additional space and to establish some limits and boundaries?

The biggest boundary we used was our limited space, while I call our bedroom a "master bedroom" it is only 12' x 14'.  We had no money for a new larger dresser, or for elaborate storage systems, so we purged until it fit, and fit well.  I did make 2 small purchases to help us with better boundaries.  We got a new laundry hamper that is hard and not as flexible as our previous one.  Ensuring that things land in the hamper and not on the floor, so far it is working!  I also spent some money on a hanging closet organizer.  It has 6 cubbies and they all have a specific function.  I am the most excited about this, because it puts things that were at the top of my closet, in easier reach, as well as emptied out the top of the closet so we have more room to grow.

7. What is ONE piece of advice you’d give to someone else to encourage them on their organizational journey?

Find a way for you to be motivated, and go for it!  Honestly, cleaning out our bedroom has been on my "need to do" list for months.  For me, a contest where I posted updates and was doing it along side of others (even though I have never met any of them) was motivating and encouraging.  Figure out what motivates you, and get going. 

Cheers!

Ashley

Update #3 for Challenge

This month has been a great one, as I have been accomplishing one of my BIG goals for the month though a challenge found here.  I am finally tackling our master bedroom.  Our room has become a basic dumping ground over the last year.  It is the place where extra boxes end up, where things that we don't have room for find a space on the floor.  No more!  I am so excited about my progress, I don't want to reveal too much, but I will show you all some of the amazing progress I have been making.  Here is my before post, as well as another update I did.  The big reveal will be coming in just a few short days, and I can't wait!


I focused on the closet this week.  My hubby and I don't have a walk in closet, or even a large closet.  We share a normal, standard size closet.  This is what it looked like before:

Then I emptied my hubby's side and sorted all of the items onto the bed:

 I had him go through it to decide what he wanted to keep, and what he wanted to get rid of.  I did the same thing with my side of the closet.  Though I will admit to purging less, only because I am pregnant and before I got pregnant this time, I still hadn't lost all of the baby weight from the first (they will be 18 months apart).  So I'm keeping the majority of my clothing until I return to normal size.  I did get rid of several pices

I also spent a little money to replace our laundry hamper.  This thing had 2-3 tears in it, and was being held together with zip ties.  I will hand it to my hubby for the creativity of helping the hamper last as long as it did, but i am so happy to replace it with a $10 one from Target that matches our room and style a bit better.  I'm not really counting this as spending money, because lets face it, we were going to have to replace it anyways, well see for your self.

Please tell me you notice that the bottom rim is no longer connected to the rest of the hamper... ya, it was time.  Now it looks much nicer (and less "college-y")

The best part is, the inside liner comes out with handles, which is a fantastic thing when you have to transport your laundry weekly to another location.

Another touch we added this week, I am SOOO excited about, I wasn't going to share it until the end, but honestly I am too excited.  I will just give you a small taste of it, because for me, this is a BIG deal.
Our bed has never had a head board.  We just have rails and a box spring, very boring I know.  Well several months ago (like September) two of my dear friends moved and were selling much of their stuff.  Because I was not in the financial state to purchase anything, and I was going to be seeing them the day they moved out, I offered to take some items off their hands, if they had not been sold.  I ended up with a folding screen.  I LOVE and have always LOVED folding screens.  I think it comes from my love of old movies when they changed behind them.  Well I decided that we could use this as a head board.  It has been sitting in the "corner of shame" for several months waiting for its home... well it has finally happened.  Here is the result...

It's not a perfect match I know, but it makes the room feel SOOOO much better.  I feel like I have a grown up bed finally!!!

This would not be a true update if I were not to share a step backwards that happened this week.  I did have my "corner of shame" looking SOOO much better, it was almost completely cleared out.  Just needed to find a spot for hubby's extra drawers (which will most likely end up in the closet once we finish getting rid of it.

I came home the other day, to find out that that corer had grown, it now looks like this...

I told hubby that all of his clothes needed to fit either in his drawers or the closet.  He agrees and is trying to "figure it out".  I also gently reminded him of my deadline and how I have Tuesday night blocked out to decorate and put the finishing touches on the room.  All I can say is if they aren't neatly in a drawer or hanging up by Tuesday night, hubby may be searching through the bags in the garage that are going to our church garage sale, which is conveniently in 2 weeks.

Well that is my current progress, I still have a few items to find storage solutions for that WORK for us.  But we took 3-5 steps forward and only a baby step back, so overall I feel successful!

Cheers!
Ashley

Org Junkie’s 29 Day Organizing Challenge: Update

So this month I am completing a challenge, you can see more details about the my start here (please don't judge the before pictures to harshly), and my lack of progress here.

This is a REAL progress report.  I am actually really excited to share, because there has been PROGRESS!  I actually recruited my hubby to help clean out his dresser, to make more room for some of the stuff that was just lying around.  The results, while incomplete leave me excited to finish this project.  Here is a quick reminder of one corner of the before.

The process was messy, as I had my hubby literally empty his entire dresser onto our bed as we sorted and purged.

There were some interesting discoveries, such as this Texas shirt:

 When my hubby and I first started dating, I went to visit my high school friend who was attending UT.  This was 6 years ago come April, and being the good girlfriend, I returned to my boyfriend with a gift, the UT shirt.  As you can see, the tags are still attached.  This shirt has been sitting in his dresser, been through 3 moves and NEVER BEEN WORN.  We had a good laugh, and placed it in the purge pile.  We also found some fun memories, that I snapped a picture of, and placed in the purge pile.  The shirt below was one that we had in college, good times, good memories.

The purge plie continued to grow on our couch, which made me one happy lady!

And my "corner of shame" as I have called it, began to shrink...

 and shrink some more...

I am so excited about this progress.  I was feeling so far behind because of my son having pneumonia last week, but I am not feeling like we are right back on track.  We still have a HUGE ways to go, but we have made a big dent, and that brings a smile to my face.  We are reclaiming our bedroom from clutter!!!

For those of you doing the challenge, stick with it!  It is totally worth it!  Also, feel free to follow my blog and let me know that you are.

Cheers!

Ashley

Cleaning a glass top stove

I will admit it.  I am a gas stove top girl.  I was very hesitant when we first moved into this place because it had a glass top stove.  Our property manager gave us some special cleaning solution for it, but to be honest, it never worked really well.  I hated it.  Honestly it was HORRIBLE, it took me over an hour of scrubbing to get the thing clean with the smallest of spills.  I gave up. Let me tell you, giving up on our stove top leads to it looking like this... (please no judgment)

I honestly couldn't take it anymore.  I asked a friend what I could do other than scrubing and killing my arms and using gross smelling chemical products.  Let me tell you, she is AMAZING when it comes to green cleaning.  I am a sceptic, and I admit, I would rather use a strong chemical cleaner and do less scrubbing than use a weak green one and end up scrubbing a ton.  However, she assured me that this strategy would involve less scrubbing time, and I though it was worth a shot.  I took a bowl of hot water and regular dish soap and soaked a towel big enough to cover my stovetop.  (I apologize for the bad pictures, my camera did something funky and I have no clue what happened!)

 Allow the cloth to soak for a few minutes and cover the stove top with baking soda, then wring out the towel so that it is damp, but not soaked, and lay it over the entire stove top.

Then comes the best part, set the timer for 15 minutes, and walk away.  Thats right, put your feet up, (or deal with the pile of dishes you have been ignoring) and let the baking soda do its magic.

 When the timer goes off, use the towel to wipe (maybe a little scrubbing) and shine your stove top.

 I had baking soda in the crevasses when I was done, so I just used a q-tip to clean it up really quick.

 And VOILA!  Your stove top looks shiny, and AMAZING.

 Just look at this! Isn't it so pretty!!!

Here is a picture in picture of the before and after

I promise this took less work than any commercial cleaner I have used, and had much better results!  Hope that this will help you all in your home cleaning!

Cheers!
Ashley


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