Who wants more space?!

Who doesn't want more space, right? Whether it's in a garage, a closet or just in the house in general, more space is always welcome.

Space is definitely what we had in our full bathroom cabinet.  But it was empty space. As you can see from this post, I tried to keep it orderly, but to be honest it was an uphill battle. It was just too much stuff crammed into one shelf with a bunch of air about the mess.

Don't get me wrong, I tried to keep it clean, but when you toss extra toilet paper under there, or when we were in a rush, putting things back neatly in it's place wasn't happening.

I didn't really give it much thought and figured I could deal with the disaster until we had the money to gut that full bathroom. But that reno is very, very far off in the future.  So, one night I was scrolling through Pintrest and discovered some cool ideas.

Via here

Via here

I love the shelves in the cabinet!!! I figured I could give this a try.  We have a bunch of spare wood in our garage from the previous owners, so I dragged a piece out, cut it down and added brackets.  And here we have a shelf in our cabinet!

I even added moulding to the back of the shelf to act as a lip so that nothing would fall off behind it.  You can kind of see here here if you look closely.

Now I have room to see all of my girly stuff instead of digging around knocking stuff over.  It's nice to just grab what I need instead of taking stuff out and searching for my nail file. And I am totally putting everything back in it's rightful spot now.  We don't have an excuse to get messy now that the shelf adds space to organize.

And now Mr. Pal can see all of his....ummm brush and hairspray.  I guess he doesn't need two shelves of crap like I do to get ready in the morning. Lucky him! haha 

Now we've done a renovation and I've done an instillation! It was such a great feeling to show off the new shelf to Mr. Pal when he got home.  I do have a funny story to share about this shelf.  The photo below is the cell phone pic that I sent to Mr. Pal with the caption, "Notice anything new?"

His first response was that I removed the doors.  Ummm, why would I remove doors from the bathroom cabinet? Even though it's organized, I don't want everyone seeing my stuff all the time.

His second guess was that I had organized it. I'm afraid he may need glasses soon.  I had to tell him that I added a shelf. That I went and used a saw and measured and cut the wood down and drilled it into the shelf. I then felt like I was fishing for a compliment. (which maybe I was?)  After he took a second look and noticed the shelf he liked it. He said I did a nice job.  :)

My "Monica Closet"

 The other day I asked my sister if she had a "Monica Closet."  You know what that is right? It's a closet/drawer/room that is a disaster, meanwhile the rest of the house is spotless.  I asked my sister that because her house is always spotless.  I mean seriously, you could lick her kitchen floors. I don't know why you would want to lick the kitchen floors, but it would be safe to do so.

Anyway, I was a bit disappointed when she said no, she didn't.  The only thing is that she said her closet floors aren't super organized since it's just shoes.  Please, I wish the floor of my closet was my problem.

But no, my "Monica Closet" or should I say closets, since there's more than one, are my bedroom drawers.  They are a disaster! The rest of our bedroom is neat, sometimes there's a t-shirt on the floor that didn't make it in the hamper or a lost sock, but other than that, all clean!

We've lived in our town home for almost 3 years and I've seriously lost count as to how many times I've organized my drawers.  I think the problem is (and it pains me to admit this) I have too many clothes.  Although I'll never tell Mr. Pal that since I have him convinced I have nothing to wear ever, but I just can't cram any more clothes into my drawers.

I think the problem is that I'm going about my drawer organization all wrong.  My usual way is to fold a pile of shirts like this and stick them in the drawer.

Looks good, until I'm trying to find that perfect shirt on any given day and that perfect shirt doesn't fit right and I need to reconfigure my entire outfit and need to start with the shirt so I keep trying on shirts till I find the right one and then this happens:

Sorry the picture is sideways. For some reason I couldn't get it to flip around. ugh!

::SIGH::

Time to get a new plan.  So, here's what I did.  I emptied each drawer at a time so I could sort my tops according to keep, donate, or toss.  Then it was time to fill up the drawers again.

Notice something different?  Yup, I changed how I organized and folded my tops.  I did the usual fold as before then folded that in half and stood my tops up.  This way I can see every single shirt I own and don't have to rummage through and make a mess!

In my drawer with my sweaters I had to keep my sweaters folded normally since they were too bulky, but hopefully I won't make that much of a mess.

I only organized three drawers, which are the ones that get the messiest. My t-shirts, long sleeves and tank tops.  After all that organizing, I had a pretty decent donate pile.  :)

I did have to toss a few tank tops, they were just too old and worn.  I know Goodwill won't accept anything that's not in great shape. I love that there's one near my house now in case I have a larger item to donate....or just want to shop!

After I was done with my drawers. I couldn't stop.  I turned around and attacked Mr. Pal's drawers.  Actually it was Mr. Pal that inspired me to organize his stuff.  The other morning I heard him mumbling to himself trying to figure out if he was grabbing brown socks or black socks.  After all everything looks the same color in a darkened room.

To fix that problem I dumped all the socks out and organized them by color.

No much guess if the socks match his suit!

I also organized his undershirt/sock drawer.  This drawer is fairly neat to begin with, but I just wanted it to be a calmer sight when the drawer opened.

So that was how I spent my morning!  Now, the test is really to see how long Mr. Pal & I can keep these drawers clean!

A place for everything, everything in it's place

I'm such a firm believer in the title of this post.  I love knowing exactly where everything is.  I love knowing that there's a designated spot for all of our stuff.

Take our closet for example, shirts are all color-coded.  Including all of Mr. Pal's t-shirts.  I know it's a bit messy, but I need to purchase another one of those hanging organizer things.  Even with the mess, on weekends when we're ready to go out, if Mr. Pal is looking for a specific shirt, he knows what "color cube" to look in.

That being said, our desk and craft supplies were really, really irking me.  I had desk supplies in a three drawer cabinet but there was no rhyme or reason to any of it. Plus, the cabinet was in the closet of the spare bedroom, which is no longer were the computer is.

All my craft stuff was spread out between three different bins.  I tried to keep some sort of peace with my craft supplies by keeping paints together and ribbons together, but it just annoyed me that if I was working on a project I had to stop and get another bin if I needed a ribbon or a ruler.

Plus, I was constantly forgetting where my glue gun was.  This resulted in me being the proud owner of two glue guns. (just in case I get really crazy crafty I can go double-fisted with my glue!)

So, after moving the new improved desk to our bedroom, I figured now was as good a time as any to get all the desk & craft supplies organized.

I started by dumping everything out to see what I have.  Let me tell you, we will never have a shortage of paper clips in the Pal household.  Seriously, why do we have to many. And honestly, there are times like I feel I can never find a paper clip. (i'm beginning to see a trend here: multiple glue guns, multiple paper clips, ugh! before your know we'll have multiple bunnies. kidding.  maybe)

Since I really didn't want to part with anything (hoarder maybe??) I decided I would just keep the like stuff together.  In the top drawer I have all our desk supplies.  This includes the many paper clips, rubber bands, index cards, rulers, razor (in case the scissors don't work?), etc.  I made sure there was a spot for everything so there wouldn't be a mish mosh of supplies every time we open and close the drawer.  I like it.  It's not as convenient to get some of the supplies as I would like, but hey, it never killed anyone to move one item to get to another item.

The second drawer became my craft drawer.  I was able to fit all my paint, my brushes, my ink pads, even my fancy scissors in this drawer! I'm thinking of adding a dab of paint to the top of the paint jars so I know which color is which.  I have tons of time so I'm sure I'll be able to get it done.  Maybe this week. Maybe keep your eyes peeled for an update.  Maybe.  But don't hold your breath, I don't want to feel pressured.

The third drawer is for all my leftover fabrics and ribbons.  It also stores my graphing paper and the two glue guns.

With the drawers all filled up, I just moved the dresser next to the desk and added the drawers.  Now all our supplies are next to our desk.

Oh and see that basket on top?  That's my holding area for projects that I'm working on at the moment.  I love that I have space for that.  Usually my "in-progress projects" were just left out on the dining room table or something.

Now they're tucked away in a basket and I can eat dinner without an unfinished project staring me in the face!  :)