On Sunday we took the boys out to get their school clothes. Let's just say it is way easier to shop for men than it is women. They were in and out of the store in less than an hour and that was with trying everything on! We also walked out nearly $75 under what we had budgeted to spend - and they got alot of stuff! Good job, boys!
Today is the day I start reorganizing my house and getting it back into shape. I am super excited about getting this done. I know it will take me several months to get through the whole house but it is worth it. When I had my house organized a few years ago it made for an easier life and I also gained alot of time that I could do things I enjoyed doing rather than always working around the house.
Since I decided to start with the kitchen I am going to give you a tour of what I am up against. I took these pictures on Friday during the day so some of the clutter that is on the counter tops is no longer there. If you remember I had to work the PTA booth at the school for 3 nights last week so my hubby and child had reign of the kitchen so it wasn't kept up to par as I would have done it. However, most of the clutter is from my own doings so now I must fix what I was being lazy about doing in the first place.
We will start off in the "eat in kitchen" part of the kitchen. We live in a very small house so as you can see I have to cram alot of furniture (etc.) into small spaces. We house the computer in the back right hand corner. This is not the ideal location for the computer but we want to monitor where our kids are when out on the Internet so it is a small sacrifice that we are willing to make. The computer area stays cleans and clutter free which is good. The chair in the middle of the wall is no longer there. It is one of the chairs that we have to use when the boys are over for the weekends so that we can all sit around the table. When I cleaned out the sunroom I was able to make room for that chair to sit in there along with the 6th chair that we use when my oldest stepson is over. The table has a leaf but as long as the computer is in the kitchen we cannot use it or there is no room to walk around at all. The next thing on the wall is the baker's rack which I will get to in a little bit. We recently put up the wainscoting and trim on the wall which still needs to be painted. This will be one of the "projects" I finish before I call the kitchen done.
Now for the baker's rack. I could not live without the baker's rack as it provides me with some added storage place. The baker's rack is not in too bad of shape. I am aware of some items on the top shelf that do not belong there but everything else is good - just needs to be tidied.
Here is the sink area and on either side is the only counter space I have. The side on the left is usually clear as that is where I prepare our meals. I do tend to let the right side get cluttered with papers as you see. I purchased a small filing bin last night and will get that mountain of papers filled once and for all!
Here you can pretty much see all of the cabinetry I have to work with. Not much so I have to be efficient when I store items in the cabinets. There will also be a major project on this side of the room. If you will notice there is wallpaper trim around the top of the wall above the cabinets. About 2 years ago I took down what I could reach and left the rest for my husband who is over a foot taller than me. Well.....it is still sitting idle and it drives me crazy so I WILL find a way to reach it, get the wallpaper taken down and the wall painted so that the project can finally be done!
The last thing I am going to share with you today is a floor plan of my cabinets that I made a couple years ago when I was getting organized. I made this on Word - it is not to scale - but works for what I need it for. I drew out each cabinet and then labeled it as to what was being stored in each space. On another sheet I brainstormed out ideas of how I could better manage the cabinet space and then rearranged my cabinets. The way I have my cabinets set up now works really well but I am going to do the brainstorm activity once again just to make sure I can't make it even better.
I will let you know what I get done this evening!
No comments:
Post a Comment