31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day Six : Kitchen Drawers

Welcome to day six in the series! If you haven't been following along, you can see the days you missed by clicking here.

Today I'm sharing how I organized the drawers in our recently renovated kitchen. We took down two walls in the renovation and lost a lot of space where upper cabinets used to be so now we mostly use large drawers. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day Five : Real Life

Sometimes you have great plans for a project and things just unravel. I had every hope of revealing the linen closet makeover today but it's not happening. I'm sick. The kids are sick. The little one didn't nap today and that's that. I feel bad that I don't have the finished product to share today, but sometimes life happens :) I hope to finish the closet over the weekend.

In the meantime, come back tomorrow when I share how I organized our newly renovated kitchen!

You can check out the previous days from the series here.

31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day Four : The Linen Closet, Part One

Welcome back to another day of organization here at Sweeter Still! If you missed the first few days, start here and you'll find links to the following days.

Today I'm moving from one closet to another - the hall linen closet! When our house was built back in the early 80s, they had some really interesting design ideas. And by interesting I mean I don't think they really thought things through. Instead of one giant linen closet, they created a set of cabinets and a small closet right next to one another in the hall. In my eyes, it's an incredible waste of usable space and someday we have big plans to renovate this area.

So we've got the upper and lower cabinets and the little closet, plus that very handy display area (or you can use it to store the drawers from the bathroom that need to be childproofed so the kids don't get stuck in the bathroom.) I just see this as one big closet that opens up to have full use of the space. Wouldn't that be amazing?!

The biggest problem we have right now is not utilizing this space to its full potential. The cabinets get messy easily and the closet storage is not being maximized. Check it out.

The ironing board is taking up more than its fair share of space here. And yes that's my wedding gown in the monstrous white garment bag. Step one to clearing out this space is taking my gown to be professionally stored because we will not be "putting it in a rubbermaid bin and throwing it up in the attic" as someone in our home once suggested. (eyes rolling)

The top cabinet holds mostly towels, as well as cleaning rags and the iron. The bottom cabinet is mostly sheets and random linens. I did a pretty recent linen purge, but I'm guessing there are a few items that escaped so I'll definitely go through it again.

Here's some of my linen closet inspiration. I could just swoon over some of these.

BH&G

BH&G

This one gives me some ideas for the open space between the upper & lower cabinets.

Real Simple

Tune in tomorrow to see the updated linen closet/cabinet!

Thankfulness Thursdays/ Week Ten

Welcome to another week in the Thankfulness Thursdays series! If this is your first time visiting, this series was inspired by Ashley at Domestic Fashionista as a way to remind ourselves to count our blessings during the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Be sure to check out her post and link up if you feel like joining in!

This week I am thankful for waking up without pain! If you read my week six post, you know that I threw out my back and was in a world of hurt. We had to call in a lot of help while I was down for the count and every day was spent managing my pain in some form or another. I was fortunate to find a good sitter to help watch the kids and a great chiropractor to help me work through the injury.

Finally after about three weeks of gradually decreasing pain, I am waking up without that familiar ache in my back! It is such a great reminder of how lucky we are to have access to medical care, insurance and doctors. I am so happy to get out of bed without feeling stiff all over for the first half hour of the morning (not so wonderful when two young kiddos wake up full of energy and ready for the day.) So this week, I am simply thankful for healing!

31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day Three : Master Bedroom Closet, Part Two

I've been hard at work making some small, but effective changes in the design of my closet. Of course there are bigger things I'd love to do, like swap out our sliding doors for big hinged doors that would let us use the space even better, but that is for another day.

Today I'm sharing how you can create a much more organized closet space just by removing clutter and using what you have.

                   

You can see that I removed a lot of junk. Lots of hangers waiting to be filled with clothes I actually want to wear (hello hidden perks of reorganizing)!

31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day Two : Master Bedroom Closet, Part One

In case you missed yesterday's introductory post, let me remind you of the intention I set for this series.

In my humble and non-expert opinion based on the opinions of many experts, one of the major steps toward a more organized and orderly life is clearing out the clutter. You know... the unnecessary crap that most of us continuously accumulate and then form an even-more-unnecessary connection to, making it that much harder to get rid of it. That is my personal definition of Class A clutter.

Obviously there is also Class B clutter, which I would define as the sometimes necessary stuff that we bring into our lives/homes/cars/purses that without proper management ends up being very difficult to distinguish from Class A clutter. This would be things like bills, school papers, basically anything important and made of paper, clothes, home decor items, toys, etc. You get the idea. If we let it pile up and take over, it will... take over. I may not be on the waiting list for an episode of "Hoarders" but I certainly have my problem zones. This leads me to today's subject: the master bedroom closet.

31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day One

At the beginning of each yoga class at the studio I attend, the instructor prompts everyone to set an intention for the class. It could be a single word, a phrase, even a goal. The point is to use that word or phrase to maintain your focus throughout the class. If you get distracted or tired, you can quiet your mind by recalling the intention that you set. Today I'd like to set my intention for this series.

My goal is not perfection. I don't have any illusion that at the end of October, I will have magically transformed into a younger, more brunette Martha. My attempt is reflected in the phrase above. I want to be thoughtful and purposeful about how I organize so that our family can live more peacefully.