A few weeks ago I got myself in gear and did some major spring summer cleaning. I collected a bunch of stuff to add to the DI pile and finally cleared off my dresser. I cleared the piles of random papers from the kitchen counter and took the things that needed to be filed up to the filing cabinet. They didn’t actually get filed but still, that’s progress!
In looking around after all my hard work I was disappointed to realize things still looked sort of. . . meh. All my stuff that needed to stay around still looked like clutter and I’m sick of clutter.
Then I got an idea. I needed trays and baskets. So the next day I went to the store and found some. It may seem a bit silly and ridiculous but to me it makes such a difference. I no longer have cluttery crap residing all over the place looking a little lost and randomly placed. Instead things have a home and look like they belong. I’ve considered things like this before but always thought it would be a waste of money and wouldn’t make much of a difference but I’m proud to say, I’ve now had my clutter organized like this for almost a month and my stuff is still neat and tidy. I don’t think the top of my dresser has ever been organized for that long! I’m still so pleasantly surprised by how it all came together that I have to share some before and after shots.
This is a bit of counter space by our garage door. ODD always dumps all his junk, charges his electronics up, and leaves a mess of papers, tools, and random bits right here. It makes me crazy to look at it. This is actually pretty tame compared to what it usually looks like because he wasn’t home when I took the pic and takes a bunch of junk with him (ID badges, phone, etc.) so that stuff is missing.
To help contain the chaos I bought a basket from IKEA he can collect all his crap in. It opens up some counter space where I can rest a spoon while cooking if I need without worrying about it messing up all of ODD’s papers. I like the weathered look of the basket.
Dish soap and hand soap. Normal sink stuff that still looks a little junky to me if the rest of my kitchen is clean but it needs to be out and available.
I bought an oil bottle for the dish soap from the kitchen area of Target and found a little rectangular plate at IKEA to rest it and the hand soap on. I’m now on the lookout for a clear glass hand soap dispenser but haven’t found one I like yet.
My nightstand. My chapstick and pens always roll off and Wingnut and Peanut like to help themselves to things I keep there. My phone usually lives there, too, and is a major kid attractor.
A little plate from IKEA keeps it all together and now when my chapstick gets knocked over it doesn’t roll onto the floor and under the table or bed where I can’t reach it. BTW, since it’s in the picture I’ve got to tell about it, that smallish clear tube with white stuff in it is the bomb. It’s a Basa Body stick and I got it in my swag bag from Casual Blogger Conference. It’s coconut oil with a tiny bit of beeswax and has done wonders for my ultra-dry, constantly chapped, cracked, and bleeding hands. I must get more.
My newly cleared dresser. I didn’t get a true before shot complete with heaps of clothes, piles of papers, random toys that have been brought in, glasses that haven’t been returned to the kitchen, and so on. It wasn’t pretty. So this is the clean version but it still looks a little cluttered and disorganized to me. Ignore the junk on the bed.
I used another plate from IKEA - the same kind I used on the nightstand but bigger - and a cute square ceramic plate I found on sale at Target for a dollar.
I love these little bowls I use for my jewelry. I use another one as a salt cellar in my kitchen. I bought them four or five years ago in CA at Anthropologie but it seems like they still had them in stock last time I was in, which admittedly was a couple of years ago. I should really go again just to look around. I don’t really use two different deodorants. The pink topped one belongs to Peanut. I gave it to her so she’d stop messing up mine.
I also pulled up a mug I’d packed away in the basement so my pens would have a place to live instead of rolling around my dresser. Also, just so you know, that Gold Bond Aloe lotion is the best lotion around. Just sayin’.
Peanut’s bathroom. The counter is usually a mess with the blow dryer (for her hair) and the flat iron (for mine) left out on the counter, not to mention the toothpaste usually smeared everywhere.
This is her favorite face to pull for pictures lately. Again with the IKEA plate this time in orange. It keeps Peanut’s sprays together and looking in-place but still accessible. The soap and toothbrush holder sit on a tile my mom made me. Yes, the mirror is filthy.
Master bathroom shelf. I didn’t get a before pic of this but about half that stuff in the basket was living on the counter by the sink. It was always left in puddles and I hated the way it all looked spread around. It made me feel claustrophobic while I brushed my teeth. The q-tips and cotton balls were both in their original packages shoved wherever they fit at the moment on the shelves and Wingnut liked to pull them out and scatter them around the bathroom floor. The rest of the bottles in the box that weren’t on the counter got moved around the shelf all the time by my darling children and were often carried away into another part of the house so I couldn’t find them when I needed them. Now the cotton balls are in that wooden box (I think it was a cigar box in its first life but I received it containing soap in it’s second life and think it’s a pretty awesome box) and the q-tips, obviously, are in a glass jar I picked up a million years ago for maybe 20 cents at an equipment sale at Utah State University (I think it had been used in science labs). The basket is from IKEA and came in a few colors but I like the white.
Since taking these pics I have also found a basket to go on one of the shelves in my nightstand. It took a while to find one that fit but when I bought some new sheets the other day from Ross I found a basket that was the perfect size and snatched it up. No pic, sorry, but it keeps everything on the shelf contained and miraculously renders it uninteresting to my children now.
