I'm Cleaning Out My Closet

That's right. I'm channeling Eminem to find my inner gangsta. Wait...what?

I haven't had much time for anything other than work lately. The first quarter of every year is kind of like my busy season, so home projects just have to be put on the back burner. Luckily, things are starting to return to normal, so I've had some time to tackle a project that's been nagging at me for a while now.
Our closet has always been a little neglected, probably because it was out of sight from any visitors we might have. Messy closet? Just shut the door and pretend like it isn't there. Well after two years of that method, we soon found that we had clothes, shoes, and other random items spilling out into the connecting bathroom. Ew.

After two years of ignoring the ever-growing mountain of clothes, I finally reached my breaking point and started clearing out some clothes.

Here's what our closet looked like before.

Shoes, shoes, and more shoes

Whoa. Towels up top, dresses, piles of clothes to be donated. Please don't judge me.

Oh Geez.

My hubby's side doesn't look all that bad.



I'll admit that this project was a little overwhelming at first. I didn't really know where to start, so I decided it would be easier to get things accomplished if there was less stuff to wade through.

The first thing I did was go through each and every item of clothing to determine what could be donated. Anything I hadn't worn in over a year went to Goodwill. I mean anything. I've been through this process before, and there's usually that one dress that I convince myself I'll wear again. Or how about that blouse that doesn't really fit right anymore...but it used to. Hanging on to crap like that is how our closet ended up functioning as more of a black hole than an orderly place to store our clothes.

I bagged up over 15 pairs of shoes and three garbage bags full of clothes that day. And you know what the funny thing is? I can't even remember all of the things I took to Goodwill. I don't even miss it. 

Once we had a little more free space to work with, I organized the remaining items by group (i.e., dresses, skirts, pants, long sleeved shirts, short sleeved shirts). Then I addressed hubby's t-shirt pile. You see, we ran out of room in our dresser for all of his shirts, so we started folding them in neat piles in the closet. The pile just kept growing and growing until it started taking over a good portion of the closet floor. Most days I would find one of the cats sleeping on the pile of shirts. Cute? Yes. Appropriate place for feline napping? No.

I briefly considered finding a small dresser to refinish and put in the closet, but I honestly didn't have the time for a project like that. I didn't want to have an unfinished project taking up more space in my garage. Luckily, I found these cubbies at Target a few weeks ago. They were the perfect size AND on sale, so I snatched them up and brought them home to be assembled. (Side note: Is it odd that I enjoy putting furniture together? I mean seriously. No one should enjoy that).

After I spent waaaaaaay too much time refolding the mountain of shirts, I was able to neatly store them away.

Next, I needed to address hubby's tangle of ties. His previous method of storage for was an old hanger with a bunch of tie draped through the middle. The hanger had to be perfectly balanced or ties would start sliding off where they would ultimately end up on the floor below.

I found this UFO-like tie and belt organizer at Bed Bath and Beyond, which has worked pretty well for us so far. The ties are organized by color, they're easy to find, and best of all, they aren't on the floor (small victories).

Once I put everything back in the closet, it ended up being a really functional space. Of course, it isn't a fancy Container Store closet, and it doesn't have any pretty chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, but it does its job. It stores our clothes neatly, and we can find them when we need to. I'd say that's a major improvement over what we had before. Let's take a look, shall we?

Here are my shoes. I used to have them stored here, on the floor, and on other shelves around the closet This is all I have now!

And here's hubby's side of the closet. This is all he gets.

The pile of t-shirts is gone! I can hear the angels singing :-)

Dresses and skirts hanging neatly. The towels above are there because we don't have a linen closet in our bathroom. That's one thing about this house that drives me a little crazy. I don't like having my towels and clothes stored in the same place.

Would you believe that we've been able to maintain our newly organized closet? It's been so easy! I think it's because we purged so much of what we started with. It's sooooo nice getting rid of the clutter.

Have you started any organization projects lately?

Cleaning Out the Junk Drawer

Do you have a junk drawer? Do you (unintentionally) have more than one? Up until a few days ago we had four. That's right, FOUR junk drawers.

I don't even know how it happened. We started out with one drawer in the kitchen that held some of our office supplies (pens/pencils/scissors) and various other items we wanted to have easily accessible. Then that drawer started to get a little messy, and it overflowed into another, and another, and yet another.

Then one day I went to open a drawer and stuff literally started popping out of it. I couldn't find anything, and looking at the same mess day after day was making me feel anxious. Here's what I was dealing with.

Drawer #1

Drawer #2



Drawer #3



Drawer #4

Yikes. It's even more embarrassing when I realize that other people are going to see this. With the help of my hubby, we dumped the entire contents of all four drawers on top of the island and started separating the items into various groups (e.g., office supplies, pet supplies, tools, etc.). Some things were thrown away, some went back to their more appropriate places (the garage), and the rest got to stay in our original miscellaneous drawer (Drawer #1).

After an hour of sorting and reorganizing, here's what our junk drawer looks like now.

It's beautiful! I can't believe we had so much JUNK just hanging out in our kitchen. Every thing has a place, and now I have three extra drawers for kitchen items and utensils. Hurray!

Have you done any organizing lately?

Our Inspired Christmas Mantel

Hello, Everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. I thoroughly enjoyed my week off of work - it gave me so much time to get things done around the house.

This past weekend I started boxing up our fall decorations and bringing out our Christmas decor. However, once I started digging around for the Christmas stuff, I realized that I actually didn't have much to work with. You see, we've been on a pretty small budget for a while, so things like holiday decorations got put on the back burner. Other than the tree and some ornaments, I really didn't have many things to put out to spruce up our home for the holidays. *Insert sad face here.

Now, obviously we can't afford to pillage Hobby Lobby and decorate every inch of the house with holiday happiness all in one year. But I decided to prioritize and started looking for ways to create a festive, yet inexpensive, Christmas mantel.

I found the image below from Southern Living (love their stuff) and was instantly drawn to this natural and surprisingly simple idea. I mean, when you break it all down, it's really just some garland, candles, and berries. No ornaments, no lights - just a simple, pretty design.

Then there's these image belows, all from BHG.com.

This mantel couldn't be more simple. Just a classic wreath with some sparkle from the gorgeous candle display. Lovely. PS - Love those blue drapes.

This mantel is very traditional with its red and green color scheme. The simple garland with silver and red accents is wonderfully elegant.

Finally, this candle display is incredibly simple, but the contrast of height and texture also provides visual interest. I just love how cozy this looks.

Taking some of these ideas as inspiration, I ran off to Hobby Lobby and scored two pieces of garland at 50% off. The garland already had various sizes of pine cones strung throughout, so I also added a few berries for a splash of color.

I also grabbed some candles from around the house and placed them on either side of the mantel top. I love the contrasting heights of the candles. Funny story though: I used three candles on the left side and four on the right. This is slightly out of character for me since I am normally a slave to symmetry (I find it comforting). When I asked my husband if he liked what I had done he said, "It isn't symmetrical...are you OK with that?" Love you, hubs. You know me all too well. :-)



Here's what it looks like all lit up. Please forgive the quality of the photos. I'm obviously not a photography wiz and I don't have a fancy shmancy camera. It's really quite lovely in person.

It actually looks kind of similar to this photo.

I know it still needs something else, but I'm not sure what to do with it yet. For now I'm just happy that we have some pretty Christmas decorations (since we had nothing last year).

Oh, and here's one more shot of the mantel with our dog, Panda. He's so stinkin' cute, and we love him to death.

I'm linking this up to the parties over at The Lettered Cottage and My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia. Head on over to check out the other fabulous ideas!