Organizing

I have really gotten into organizing and trying to keep the house "clean" or at least straight.

Awhile back we replaced our horrible sliding closet doors in our bedroom with nice folding ones. It made such a difference. For once I could see all of my clothes at once instead of sliding doors back and forth trying to get my clothes. Well it inspired me to get my closet organized after that. I have never really thought about using boxes to store things but I didn't really see the purpose but I decided to try them out and I'm hooked. I bought some to keep our sheets and pillow cases in. We have always stored our bed linens in our closets instead of a linen closet in the hall. Makes more sense to have your sheets right where your bed is. Anyway, I bought those and it makes it look so much cleaner and its just not a pile of sheets anymore. I also bought a shoe holder that just lays on my closet floor. Its clear and holds about 20 pairs of shoes. This way the pairs are kept together and not just thrown in a pile like they were.


Here is a picture of my closet before:

And now after: 

I have started working in my laundry room now. I have bought a big plastic tub and put all of our towels that we use for cleaning and our beach towels in. I bought another container and put some cleaning supplies that I might use once or twice a year all in there. It just looks neater instead of having bottles everywhere. I'm also adding a little decor and a shelf as well. Hopefully I will have a before and after picture to show of that as well. 

Some tips to keeping your house "straight" that I use on a daily basis:

Never leave the room empty handed. Something is always not in the right room or spot. 

When I leave the room I see if anything needs to go somewhere else and I take it with me. I didn't start doing this until we moved into the house we are now and boy does it really make a difference and my house is normally always ready for a visitor to pop in. If you know my floor plan there are two sides to my house and when I"m in the kitchen area of my house stuff that doesn't belong over there gets put on my kitchen counter closest to the exit to the other side of the house. Whenever I leave that side I gather all the stuff and take it with me. And same thing when I'm on the other side of the house. But in any way your house is set up just try to always leave with something in your hand that needs to go elsewhere. 

Clean everyday.

I know that sounds crazy. But I do some sort of cleaning everyday. I don't have a chart that I go by like Mondays clean bathroom etc. But I do something everyday. It helps out in that you don't have to do tons of cleaning on just one day. Just keeping it up everyday helps. So one day I might do the floors, like vacuum and mop. The next day I clean bathrooms. The next I dust. I just like doing that because I used to just let everything pile up and I would take a Sat. and would be cleaning for hours and I would hate it!! This way I feel more free to get out and do things and not be cleaning for hours. 

Write on the calendar your meals.

I am not talking planning your meals for the week. I'm talking after you eat your meal for that night write it on the calendar. I just recently started doing it this way because I don't like planning for a weeks worth of meals in one day. I'm just not that organized to sit down and figure it out and what I need to get at the grocery. It works better for me if I just plan on that day what we are having but then by writing it on the calendar allows me to see when I served it and to not repeat it again for a couple of weeks. It also helps me with leftovers. "Oh, we had that last Monday and it's Sunday we need to throw that out."

That's all I can think of for now!!