Organized Home: Mail Sorting Center

One of my biggest organizational issues has always been where in the heck I should put the never ending amount of mail and paper that makes its way into our home. 

In our last house, I had two veeeeeery messy magazine files that were stuffed with every paper under the sun. We never knew where anything was which made doing taxes, making plans, and remembering important bills and dates pretty tricky. 

And then something clicked. (Hallelujah!)

I needed a simple but efficient way to file and categorize every piece of paper that came into the house. Sure, we have "The Big File Cabinet" that holds ALL of our important and long-term files and information, but I needed a temporary place to sort things that was out in the open and easy to get to. And it needed to be pretty :)

And then...I was in Target and noticed the cutest little file holder. It was meant to be. I snatched it up, took it home, and after a few hours of walking around in circles trying to figure out what kind of mail and other papers we receive and think are important enough to keep, I grabbed my label maker and came up with this...

Here are the categories in detail...

-Auto - Car insurance, invoices, repairs, registration notices, etc.

-Cards/Invites - Invitations from past events that I want to scrapbook, sweet cards to save, notes, etc. Invites for upcoming events are displayed somewhere else that I hope to show you soon!

-Financial - Banking and financial information, paid bills, statements, etc.

-Health - Anything related to health/eye/dental insurance, paid medical bills, invoices, etc.

-Home - Mortgage and home insurance information or statements, etc.

-Ideas/Notes - I write a zillion random ideas down, and now they have a place to go!!!

-J Ferg - Any information/forms/receipts from Bryan's roofing job

-LISD - Information/forms from the school district Bryan works for

-Made By Katy- Anything to do with my blog or Etsy Shop!

-Parker - Random notes that I write, newsletters from children's ministry, doctor's notes, etc.

-Taxes - Well...tax stuff :)

-To-Do/Pay - Bills that need to be paid, forms that need to be filled out, etc.

-Utilities - Statements or letters from utility companies

-Weekly Ads - This is where I put my favorite grocery store ads that I get each week. I also put my Red Plum coupons (that I haven't clipped) and any specials from Babies R Us, Target, etc. I have a special place for clipped coupons that I hope to share soon, too. 

Y'ALL. This has changed my life. We've been using this system for about 3 months and we have yet to see any paper piled up on our kitchen counter. It truly is the little things that make the world a happy place! 

I cannot get over how easy my new mail sorting center is to use and maintain. I check the mail, immediately throw away the junk, and then quickly file the keepers into their categories. It takes all of one minute. If we get a newsletter at MOPS or church, it's not a big deal because it has a place to hang out! If Bryan comes home with a stack of player stats...it's not big deal, just file it away!

Coming up with adequate categories took a lot of thought and some tweaking, but was so worth it! Seriously. Everyone needs to do this, in my opinion :). 

Once the files get full enough, I will clean them out and transfer the long-term keepers to "The Big File Cabinet". I say "will" because I haven't had to do that yet--that's how tidy and organized this system keeps everything. 

Of course, I needed it to be functional AND pretty, so I threw a quick little vignette together. I should also mention that I keep my mail sorting center on the kitchen counter (the cabinets above it hold my "Command Center" - you will see that later). The kitchen still needs SO much work (like a total gut job), but I love looking at this particular little corner...it makes me smile.

How do you organize your mail and incoming papers? Does it ever drive your crazy like it did me?

Have a wonderful day!

Organized Home: Gift Wrap / Scrapbooking Supplies

One of the first organizational projects I did in our new house dealt with finding a place for all of my gift wrap and scrapbooking supplies. I have A LOT of each and needed a dedicated system that would be easy to keep organized. 

I also didn't want to spend any money :).

SO, I decided to use some of those cheap-o plastic bins that you can find at Target or Wal-Mart (I already had a couple) and wrangle everything in one place. 

There are two shelves stacked on top of each other. I put these in the empty closet that is in my craft room. They fit perfectly!

The top is for all of my gift wrap. The labels I made (using scrapbooking paper and my label maker) are: 1) Tissue & Ribbon, 2) Gift Bags, and 3) Gift Boxes

I thought about putting tape and scissors in here, but I use those so often that they are on the shelves that I talked about last week. I also have them in my command center that I hope to show you soon!

In the gift box drawer I have a little bin (Dollar Spot at Target) that holds gift tags and labels. 

All of my rolls of wrapping paper are in a basket right outside the closet.

The lower shelf is all about scrapbooking! 

I cleaned out my scrapbooking supplies (I had waaaaaaay too much of it), and made these labels for the drawers: 1) Adhesives, Measure & Cut,  2) Embellishments, 3) Scrapbook Supplies, 4) Albums & Keepsakes

(I am just now noticing that I moved the adhesives bin to another drawer --oops!)

In my 'Embellishment' drawer, I have two bins (also from the Dollar Spot) with all of my stamps, ribbon, cardboard letters, fake flowers, and buttons. The plastic bags that everything is in are from my Paper Studio scrapbooking cart (I love that thing, but it is so hard to keep clean!)

The next drawer is general supplies...paper, punches, adhesives (there they are!), and stickers. The stickers and loose paper are in clear plastic holders from Hobby Lobby.

The bottom drawer consists of all of my unfinished albums and keepsakes that I want to put in the albums. The picture is kind of boring so I left it off :).

It's not much, but I cannot tell you how amazing it is to have a designated space for this stuff! My stress level is non-existent when I craft now. It is wonderful!

I also wanted to note that a few weeks after I had finished this project, I noticed one very similar to it on Pinterest...I thought it was so weird but I guess it's not that complicated of an idea (dang it!)...anyways, just wanted to let you know that I didn't intentionally copy :). 

--------------------------------------

Do you have a system to organize your gift wrap and/or scrapbooking supplies? I would love to hear about it!

Family Organization Binder

So, lately, I have been on somewhat of an organization frenzy. One of my obsessions has revolved around the new fangled thing called a Family Organization Binder. I've been seeing it all over Pinterest and have slowly but surely been working on my own version for our family.

The basis of this idea is to have a place to put all of your important files, documents, budgets, menus, to-do lists, cleaning schedules, etc. for your family. Genius, right? I jumped on it because I think it would be pretty awesome to avoid going through a million files, folders, drawers, bins, and notebooks to find everything my family and home need to run successfully. I'm not the most organized housewife/mom on the planet (at all), so fingers crossed that this will help. ;)

A few of my favorite sites/blogs I have found to assist me in the never-ending process of putting this binder together can be found here, here, here, and here. I also used this master spring cleaning schedule as inspiration for part of the cleaning section of our binder.

I will also go ahead and say that all of these sheets and lists will be in page protectors so that I can write on them with wet-erase markers. Here are the sections of my binder (as of right now).

1. Schedules/Calendars: I put daily, monthly, and yearly goal/to-do sheets in this section along with separate monthly calendars. I also made a sheet for workout ideas since I always see them online and forget what they are 3 seconds later (that may be on purpose ;)).

2. Meals/Groceries: I have grocery lists for Sam's and United, as well as weekly menus in here. I also have some page protectors for recipes that I find and a few more to hold carry-out menus. Baseball card holders are in there as well for coupons. (Although I'm terrible at remembering to coupon.)

3. Family Information: Important documents (SS cards, birth certificates, etc.), important information, important dates and birthdays, instructions for babysitters/house sitters, vacation planners, things to do/see as a family, and files for each family member will go in this section.

3. Medical: In this section I plan on having a log to record illnesses, medications, and doctor visits, as well as a sheet with questions I want to remember to ask at the doctor's office. A small but important section ;).

4. Financial: A monthly budget will go in here, as well as a record of past monthly budgets. I want to put savings goals for various things in here as well (vacations, home renovations, etc.). I'll also stick a few page protectors in here to hold important bills that we need easy access to. Oh, and important files/account information for our bank accounts.

5. Home/Auto: This is my favorite section! Included in here will be daily, monthly, quarterly, and yearly cleaning schedules (it will be a miracle if I can keep up with it though HA), a home maintenance log/checklist, auto maintenance log/checklist, a sheet to write all of our house projects/ ideas on, and a few (hundred) page protectors to store my many magazine tear-outs. Oh, and I want to put important documents that pertain to our house and cars in here too.

6. Contacts: Phone numbers, addresses, and emails for all of our family members and friends, as well as for our doctors, dentists, pharmacy, various repairmen, hair stylists, banks, church, etc. I will also keep our mailing list for Christmas cards in here too. AND baseball card holders for the many business cards I collect.

7. Twenty Three Oh One: This is all things for my Etsy shop and of course, the blog. I want to put a to-list for the shop and one for the blog, blog idea sheet, design idea sheet, timeline, calendars, important contacts, inspiration photos, and account information for my Blogger, Paypal, Etsy, and Goodsie accounts. I will also put a business budget, order and payment tracker, and buyer email list in here.

So yeah, this is me trying to be Super Mom. ;)

 

If I manage to get this done by Christmas, it will be a complete MIRACLE. That being said, once I do get it all together, I really think it will be SO great for our household. I'm about 1/3 of the way finished, as of today (traveling all the time is not really condusive to completing this project haha). Writing this post has re-motivated me to power through! I SO hope that I will be sharing completed photos and details of our binder in the near future.

 

 

 

Do you have anything like this for your family? What are some great tips that you can share on how you keep your household up and running?

 

 

 

My Computer is Broken and Cleaning.

Boo, it's official. My computer is refusing to upload any more than five pictures, and also dies if I do so much as touch the power cord. It's not even my power cord, it's Bryan's, since my power cord got in a fight with my computer a few months ago and lost.
Dell is being contacted today and I've been living on Ebay to scout out a new power cord / memory thingy.

So what do I have to blog about today? Well, some very random stuff. Enjoy.

Cleaning. Those of you that read this and know me (which I'm pretty sure that is the vast minority), know that I am an obsessive compulsive clean freak. Usually. When I let it get bad, it gets BAD, but that's not too often.

Want proof? Here ya go:

Yes, that is the dresser in our bedroom. How did I manage to upload this with my broken computer? Well, it's actually part of a post from a few months ago that I never published. Yes, there are many posts that have never been published...top secret, you know ;).

Anyway, every once in a while I let the house get pretty horrible and then I spend like 1,562 hours cleaning it in one day. Can you say miserable? I'll say it, that's pretty freaking miserable. Even when I keep the house in order, I still spend about 2-3 hours cleaning it every Saturday or Sunday. Also miserable. So, I say all of this to say that I've officially made a cleaning schedule. Because I love making schedules and I'm a nerd like that.

I've read in several articles (courtesy of StumbleUpon) that it's easiest to spread your cleaning out over the week so that the mess doesn't build up and isn't as time consuming. Well, duh. Why didn't I think of that? I think it's because I subconsciously like to make my life more dramatic and complicated.

So, I spent a little time making up a weekly and monthly cleaning schedule. I'm sure there are things that I forgot/left off, and many things that I only do once a year or so, but here is the schedule as of right now:

                                                             Weekly Cleaning Schedule

MONDAY: Clean bathrooms, bathroom floors, and baseboards

TUESDAY: Dust all surfaces and window sills, clean mirrors, water lawn

WEDNESDAY: Vacuum carpeted areas

THURSDAY: Sweep and mop wood floors, water lawn

FRIDAY: Clean kitchen, sink, range, polish appliances, dry dust all surfaces, run errands, grocery shop (if needed)

SATURDAY: De-clutter drawers, bins, surfaces, pay bills, go over bank accounts, vacuum all floors

SUNDAY: Mow front and back yard, pull weeds, sweep front and back patio, fertilize flowers, water lawn

  

Daily Cleaning:

1. Make bed

2. Do dishes after every meal

3. Do one load of laundry (Wash sheets once a week)
4. Wipe down bathroom counter and mirror
5. Take out trash (as needed)
6. Water flowers

Monthly Cleaning:

1. Dust blinds
2. Dust ceiling light and fans
3. Dust tops of all cabinets
4. Give Louie a bath
5. Wash bath mats
6. Clean windows
7. Sweep and organize garage
8. Clean, wash, and vacuum cars
9. Clean stove (as needed)

Now, I highly doubt that I will get all of this done every single week, but I really do feel that it will help me maintain a pretty clean home.

If you are interested, here are some of the articles I came across on how to keep your home clean and organized:

 How To Clean Your House in 20 minutes a day for 30 Days
60 Small Ways to Improve Your Life in the Next 100 Days
One Money Saving Must
The Ultimate House Cleaning Calendar

That's it for today. Oh, and just in case you wanted to know, we have finally, FINALLY got around to redoing the master bedroom. Pictures to come. When I have a working computer. Which may be never, we will see.

Happy Harry Potter Week!!

Organizing the Closet

Well, redoing the bathroom also spurred on a "need" to redo the closet. The door to our closet is actually inside the bathroom, and is usually open at all times....so having a new, pretty bathroom, and a boring, messy closet = no fun.

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I'm on a new kick to start being more creative with my wardrobe (which at the moment is going very well). While I was gathering inspiration for this, I came across a whole slew of blog posts on how having a more organized (and pretty) closet will help in making the most of the clothes and outfits you already own (my favorite series of posts on this subject can be found here, courtesy of Kendi Everyday).

So, all of this new motivation was put to good use this weekend as we took our closet from boring and less-than-functional, to something that really works.

Here are a few "befores":

Notice that all of my shoes are thrown on the top shelf (that I couldn't even see over...which means that I would just grab whatever my hands touched first). I also hung a jewelry organizer that worked really well until I started packing it too full of stuff :).

We also had an issue with throwing shoes on the floor. Especially when there wasn't enough room on our shoe rack.

All of Bryan's clothes are on the bottom rack, while mine are well, everywhere else. It gets a little crowded.

Another form of DIY jewelry organization. This was cute for about 2 weeks, and then the pins started falling off because my jewelry was too heavy, which resulted in an even bigger mess (and both Bryan and I getting stabbed in the feet).

We also had boring, beige walls, which looked really yellow with the uncovered light bulb.

So, we cleaned everything out...

And started over!



I'm a white hanger addict. They all have to be the same. It's the OCD in me. All of our clothes are still pretty packed in, but we just had a huge garage sale two months ago, so I wanted to give everything we have a second chance before I decided to toss it :). I also found a place for my scarves, and was able to put my beloved Vera Bradley on display as well as other favorite purses.

We went and bought 5 white wire shelves at Wal-Mart for our shoes. Best. Decision. Ever. It is SO much easier to have our shoes organized on these. Love. Bryan was able to fit all of his shoes on the top 2 shelves, and I put my heels and flats on it. I cut the hanging shoe organizer that we already had and put sandals and casual shoes in it.

My boots are the only shoes that remain on the top shelf of the closet, mostly because it's summer and I don't wear them right now. I'll probaly switch them out when the seasons change.

I have too many shoes.

You may have also noticed something a little different (and fun) on the ceiling. Yes, my love of stripes made it's way into the closet too (You can also find them in our laundry room)!

We also found a light to cover the bare bulb...much better.

Last but not least, I tackled my jewelry problem. It still looks like I have a lot (which I do), but I got rid of about half of the jewelry that I already owned. This isn't even all of it. Many of my favorites are on display in our bathroom. (I am ashamed).

I found cup hooks at Wal-Mart and had Bryan install them. Love this. It's so easy to see every piece of jewelry that I have now. In fact, I'm wearing a pair of earrings today that I haven't worn in 3 years just because I didn't realize that I still had them. But now I know :).

And there you have it. That was our weekend project!

Have a great Wednesday :).

More Spring Cleaning!

So last post, I talked with you a little about our garage overhaul this past weekend. As previously stated, the garage was our catch-all for the many home improvement projects we've done this past year. It has definitely seen the worst of everything. Here are the pictures of our clean-up just to prove that it actually happened...

Before:

After:

Messy:

Clean:

I close my eyes when I walk through the garage:

I skip, sing, and cry tears of happiness when I walk through the garage:

We've even accumulated enough home improvement supplies that we have our own mini Home Depot right at our fingertips:

Wow, that was a lot of work....but SO worth it. We also managed to go through all of the junk drawers last night and throw away/ file away/ put away every single item in them. It took almost 2 hours, but I actually know where all the information on our student loans, mortgage, and taxes are now, so I'm breathing a little easier :).

Have a great Wednesday!

The Junk Room is NO MORE!

It's true. I can't believe it, but I decided to tackle the scary room whose door remains closed 99.8% of the time. The room where all things go to die. The room that must not be named...

Until now, we didn't mention the junk room unless it was absolutely necessary, but now I can talk about it without feeling the big ball of stress that usually comes along with it.

New to the blog? Don't know what I'm talking about? Well, let me fill you in with this very pretty image:

As I've mentioned before, I'm usually an over-the-top, obsessive compulsive, clean FREAK...with one exception. Until today, the junk room was my exception, but with a little help from The Black Keys (looooove their newest album) and some determination,  I took it from the disaster above to the image below in about 2 hours:

A little bare and boring...but I'll take it. Oh, and in case you didn't know, this room will eventually be my craft room! I'm tired of making messes for everything crafty that I like to do, so I figured I might as well try this whole craft room thing out now since we have an extra bedroom to spare. :)

Anyway....

Where did all of the ahem, crap that was originally in there go? Well, it was either thrown away or boxed and bagged up for our garage sale that we'll be having in 2 weeks (I think)!

Speaking of the garage, that has been an..."issue" as well. When you're the kind of couple who has a different DIY construction project going on every week, the garage tends to see the worst of the mess. So, in the middle of my crazy-girl-cleaning-frenzy, I also decided that we needed to organize and clean the garage if we wanted to have a garage sale. So, we did--but that's for another post!

Happy Monday! Go clean something, it will make you feel better!!

Confessions

So....

Firstly, I would like to apologize for my lack of personal posts. I know that I originally started this blog to document our house projects AND our personal life, but honestly we have been complete losers lately and have just been hanging around the house when we aren't at work. Well, I actually take that back....we DO have friends and we DO hang out with them fairly often, but I'm horrible at taking pictures at any sort of "outing" with people, mainly because I don't want to be "that girl with the blog and the camera". So for the extreme lack of pictures with people in them....I am sorry. :)

Now that I've gotten my apology out, I would like to continue disappointing those of you who read this for personal posts with a HUGE secret that I've been hiding in my house.

For anyone who reads this blog and knows me personally, you know that I am a self-admitted neat freak. Like bad. Like, to the point that it has annoyed every roommate I've ever had and is often more of a character flaw than anything else. SO, you will be shocked when you find out my secret.

You may either gasp or laugh when you see this picture...choose one or the other:

I KNOW. It's terrible. Bryan keeps calling me Monica because of that one episode of Friends when Chandler finds her secret junk closet and discovers that she really wasn't the clean freak that he thought she was (that's one of my favorites by the way). Well people, I don't have a junk closet, I have a junk ROOM.

It didn't originally start out this way, but it has been like this since....Christmas.

You are probably thinking, "Why on earth is she showing me this?" Well, after spending the last year looking through blogs and magazines that feature pictures of "perfect" homes, I found myself wanting that form of perfection and wanting it NOW. In the last few months however, I have realized that it's okay to have crap in the corners....it's okay for things to not be done, and for things to get messy. It also really annoys me when people act like their whole life is perfect....no one's is, so I wanted to do my part and show you that I am definitely a part of the "imperfect club".

Now, don't think that I have changed my "neat freak" ways. Just like Monica, I keep the rest of the house pretty clean (90% of the time), and I actually do have future plans to turn the junk room into a craft/office/scrapbook/gift wrap room. BIG plans. Be excited.

Here are some of my inspiration photos (I pulled these LONG ago...and don't remember where they are from):

For now however, the junk room will continue to be the catch-all of the house unless I randomly have the time and energy to tackle it once and for all. Until then, I have slowly been making my way through all of the drawers, bins, and closets in the house to declutter and re-organize (I try to do this every few months....I'm not a fan of junk drawers and messy closets). In fact, I got a whopping 3 trash bags full of clothes to donate just from MY dresser and half of the closet.

This doesn't include the 2 bags that are already out in the garage from the last time I cleaned out the closets almost 2 months ago!

I would also like to wish a pretty belated birthday to my Nanny! She celebrated her birthday last Thursday and of course I forgot to post it! (If you think I'm bad with this, you should see me try to send cards...) I don't know how much she gets to read this at the moment, but if you see this, I love you Nanny and miss you so much and can't wait to see you this summer!!

Ok, random post: complete.