Organizing Your Craft/Laundry/Utility Space

Project organization continues today, I'm on a war path and I can't tell you how delighted I am to share this before and after with you.  This space has been a long time coming for me. We have this little open space in the very back of our house in the laundry area that was in need of some major help.  Its a great little space for storage but it was having all sorts of issues (obviously from the before pic).  This storage area is a shared space - it houses craft supplies, laundry items and tools/utility things so it needed a good plan.  It took me months and months but I think I finally have something I'm happy with!  I'm sure I will continue to tweak as I go but this space has been functional and has stayed tidy and organized for almost two months now so I'm feeling like we can do this organization thing.  Once you get something that works and that you love it becomes quite easy.  I speak from experience.

This did not happen over night, or over a week, or even over a few months.  It was almost a year of purging, painting, hanging shelving, coming up with laundry solutions, slowly collecting storage containers that I liked, planning and of course organizing.  It has gone through many phases.  Here is a previous stage, just before I finally decided to really tackle it.

Not terrible, but not great.  I needed to utilize this space in a better way - I just felt like I was wasting a lot of precious space in our house by not filling the shelves with items that were shoved in other places. So I decided that this area would house most of my craft supplies along with the obvious laundry items.  Justin also gets some space back here too for tools and things that we would like to have in close reach. We also keep seasonal items up top - I'll share more about this in a bit.

This is mainly all of my craft supplies.  I have bins for felt, yarn and ribbon.  I have scrapbook supplies,  paint brushes, glue guns, craft paint, etc.  I even have an entire bin of glues...don't ask me why I have so many glue varieties...its just the way it is.

The side shelf holds meds, spray paint, ironing supplies, our tool box, painting supplies (like tape and such) and the taller fabric laundry bin is where I sort out the clothing items that are hand wash only.  Lots of things going on in this small space - but it works.

Ok, so I thought I would give you a run down of what exactly I have going on back here, plus a supply list in case you are looking for similar storage containers.  I know how expensive storage containers and organizational items can be - most of these I slowly bought over time when I had a few extra bucks here and there.  The only exception was the top shelf - I haven't really gotten to streamlining those bins yet, they are just what we have had for a while and for now they are doing their job.

1 - This bin holds our winter gear (in NC you really don't need that much).  So it has hats, gloves, scarves, thermals and some ski goggles.  I got this bin from Target way back - source.  

2 - This bin is for our summer items - mostly beach towels, bathing suits, beach totes and flip flops.  This is just and 18 gallon Sterilite bin from Target.

3 - This bin is for work clothes - like painting and roofing.  We go on a lot of construction mission trips so we need to keep these things around for that.  Also from Target - source.

4 - Felt Storage, fabric bin is from Michael's.  I got these when they had a bogo sale so I snatched several up.

5 - This pretty box holds fabric scraps.  Its also from Target, I couldn't find it online but its a new item in their stores now.
6 - This little basket hold our ironing supplies.  I love these basket weave bins from Target and if you look now you might can find some on clearance.  I got all of mine on clearance.  They are rolling out newer colors so the older colors are marked down (even though they are the exact same thing) - source.
7 - Same bins from Michaels, this is yarn and ribbon storage.
8 - These boxes hold craft supplies, office supplies (like pens, hole punch, extra scissors, etc) and Recipes. Multi color plastic bins from Target - source.
9 - These boxes hold the same as above -White photo boxes from Michael's - source.
10 - Laundry bin for sorting out hand wash only clothing.  We got this laundry basket as a wedding gift (almost 12 years ago!) but its this same one from Target (I just took the wheels off) - source.
11 - This is a bin for tool items and large extension cords.
12 - Laundry Bins - I love these.  They are from Crate & Barrel - source.

Oh, the gray storage bins were found in the Target dollar spot but that was over a year ago.  That is a great spot to check though for storage items, you never know what they will have there.

Well that was a lot of detail and it was a lot of work but so, so, so worth it.  Ya'll I'm loving this organizing thing, I just want to look at this before and after all day - but I think there are some bed-side drawers in desperate need of some attention.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Have a great Wednesday!

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Making Chalkboard Labels

I have a little mini project going on, I feel like it's been going on for quite some time.  It's one of those things that keeps evolving over time.  It involves our laundry room, specifically our storage area (one of the only storage spots in our little house).  Here is where we began, this was right after we moved in and this spot had just become the go-to dump site while we were figuring things out.

It was a hot mess, let's be honest.  So it finally came time for this room to get some attention and it received a bright paint color, white trim and shelving (a little upgrade from what we had).

And then, it was kind of looking like this.  We sort of halfway organized it, still better than the before but still struggling to figure out the right plan for everything.

Oh, and then we got some new laundry bins from crate & barrel - I love these.  That definitely helped the crazy laundry sorting/organization (or lack there of) going on.

So, now we are stuck here - and quite frankly it just isn't working for me.  Part of it is the fact that it still isn't organized correctly and part of it is the aesthetics.  The different colors, the crazy overflowing boxes...  I just don't like it, and so I don't try and keep it neat.  I think that's a thing with me.  If I like the way it looks and functions then I will try harder on keeping it that way.  If I don't, then it turns into a mess and I feel like I'm always battling it. I'm tired of being in constant battle mode with these shelves so a mini project was necessary. My first little project for this space was to get uniformed labels that weren't ugly.  I'm starting small people, you have to start somewhere right?  Here's my current label situation -

I also think I forgot to mention that I'm trying not to spend a fortune on this, and I especially didn't want to spend a lot on labels.  So here was my quick and cheap fix - chalkboard paint.

I grabbed a bunch of labels (I have a ton of these for some reason that I can't remember what for) and a can of chalkboard paint and went to town spraying.  Take it easy, light even coats. 

I ended up doing three light coats until I was pleased with the coverage.

After a day of drying, I was ready to re-label.  I really like the idea of being able to change my mind on what's inside and being able to just erase and re-write plus the whole chalkboard thing is kind of in right now - and I kind of like it.  

If you are wondering about the usability since it is a paper label - it's still totally wipeable.  I actually made extras to test different methods and it even held up well when using a very lightly dampened cloth - so I was sold. 

I'm still busy working on some more easy solutions for my shelves so I will share more later!

Thanks for stopping by today and have a great day!

Organizing All of That Laundry

So we are back in the laundry room today and talking about organization.  After installing our new shelving we had a ton of space for storage and we are still trying to work it all out.  Before now our laundry was all over the place, in different rooms, piled in closets - we were having issues.  So when installing our shelves we knew we wanted to create a designated laundry sorting station that would be organized, easy to get to and out of the way.  So we decided to use the space underneath our shelving for our laundry sorting.  Only thing is, we had some beat up laundry baskets - that were overflowing (especially since we now have four people living here).   This wasn't working for me..

So we went on a search for new laundry bins and this is what we ended up deciding on: Crate & Barrel's Folding Bins - and we love them.  For one, it looks so much better and two, they are large enough to handle all of the laundry coming through this space now.  Now, these things were not cheap.  We searched so many different stores - even the discount ones and we couldn't find something that we liked at a lower price, this style bin was even more expensive at one discount store.  We decided that our current laundry system was driving us absolutely nuts and investing in something we liked was worth it - and it definitely has been.  This space is also an open space in our house and the main way to exit to the backyard so having our laundry hanging out all over the place was a little awkward.  At least with these bins everything is tucked away and hidden much better.

Laundry is no longer piled up, scattered and taking up valuable space in our little home.

So now I'm on to deciding on something for the actual shelves.  Everything is organized and labeled but the mismatched bins are driving me crazy.  For now it's all good but I'm definitely on the look out for something a little more streamlined and pleasing to the eye for this open storage.  So stay tuned, I'll be sharing what we do soon!

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!  Don't forget to go and enter the giveaway at Sew Gloried!