Day 33 - Organizing for 2013

Since organization saves time and 'time is money' and especially since I've spent two days looking for something that I carefully put away and now cannot find, I thought getting better organized might be an appropriate place to start a new year.  I found these images inspiring and hope they will trigger ideas of your own.

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The following are links to some ideas I thought were clever or useful...like camouflaging a storage box with book spines for your library shelf.

An organized way to store bed linens, especially those for children or guest rooms.

I would never have thought to create shoe storage using PVC pipe and a little Gorilla Glue but, wow, it works.

And, thinking about using tubes for storage, how about this idea of using toilet tissue tubes for cable storage.

This is one of my favorites.  First of all, what a great idea it is to know the height of things to be stored when building shelves for them.  Just the photo alone is informative but the blog post actually walks you through the build-out of a pantry.  The LINK is worth a peek.

None of the above photos or ideas are mine but I do plan to put a couple of them to good use.  If you have organization tips of your own, please share them in a "COMMENT" below.  Thanks.

Day 26 - New Years Day - Do Over

The Vertigo is gone.
So is the sun.
It began raining late last night.
It may be gloomy outside but
as my house returns to post-
Christmas normal,
it's becoming spic and span
bright inside.

You may remember that I talked about downsizing Christmas decor.  I've done a better job than even I had expected.  I have gone from nine 33gal. bins plus 3 large boxes containing trees to just one much smaller bin, and my best organization idea yet. 

For $16, I bought a 'clothes closet' at Walmart.  It is 36" wide x 19 1/2" deep x 63" high.  By a stroke of luck, it is as wide as 1 and 1/2 egg boxes.  Yes, there is such a thing as a half egg box.  ('Egglands Best' come in the smaller boxes.)  So, here's how this works for me:

My steel frame, fabric covered 'closet' easily holds 2 large (30dozen) egg boxes and 1 small (Egglands) box.  In one of the boxes, I have 2 small, fully decorated, trees with misc. decor fitted into the spaces.  The other large box and the small one are packed as usual with the trappings of the season.  

One great thing is that the lighted mantle garland fits neatly at the bottom, just in front of the boxes and provides a base for the 16 large large ball ornaments that annually hang from my Hickory tree.  They seriously filled a single bin on their own.

But the very best, most time saving, thing of all is that I didn't need to compress and package the larger trees; they just stand in place.  I have managed to save time in unpacking, decorating and storing away as well as making my life, and especially the Christmas season, easier and less stressful by reducing excesses and redundancies.  Still, I have retained creative flexibility by keeping just enough to change color palates and themes from year to year when I feel the urge.

The entire 'closet' fits perfectly behind the door of my little studio and only one, small and light weight, bin needs to be taken to the garage.  Eventually, as the studio is finished inside, there will be ample storage space to include it as well.

So here I am, on the second day of a brand new year, feeling pretty good, with plans to clean the heck out of the house and reclaim my workspace from the clutter of package wrapping and the uncontrollable tendency to let things accumulate when you don't feel well.  Then, it will be on to doing taxes, planning to rearrange a few rooms and waiting for spring.  Ooh, spring, my favorite.

Clearing Desk Clutter

Saving time and saving money go hand in hand and the primary key to saving time is organization.

Unfortunately, keeping organized is a constant battle for me. Of course I have a filing cabinet but I have so many things going on and active at one time, (a book, a blog, a business, a couple of art projects, a household) that I am generally buried under a mountain of paperwork and don't dare file away unfinished and 'in progress' things...yet.

This 50 cent yard sale dish drainer seems to have solved my clutter problem. All the papers and projects that littered my workspace are not only organized but are readily accessible. My desk is clutter free and I am now able to get to work on whatever project without having to search for it or clear work space.