One hardworking closet!

Do you have a hardworking closet like this one?  One that needs to be so many things?  This closet needed to be a linen closet, a scrapbook supply closet, an overflow of toiletries closet, a medicine cabinet, kids artwork closet, and art supplies closet.  Even though you are short on space it is possible to make a small closet work!

 The medicines are separated by adult, children, and first aide.  Sheet sets are folded inside it's matching pillow case to save room and keep from falling all over the place.  Shelves within the shelf help make room for easy access and stacking.

I love using these art portfolios for my kids large artwork year after year.  The clear and green bins you see house markers, crayons, pencils/pens, and craft supplies.  One type for each bin.  That way when my boys have homework after school they grab the appropriate bin and take it to the table to work.  Afterwards it gets put back in its spot.

Organized School Lunches and After School Snacks

 7 Tips for making lunches smooth sailing in the mornings:

 1.) Designate a drawer in the freezer for all the ice packs for lunches.

 2.) Create a spot in the fridge for all lunch supplies ( ie: bread, turkey, cheese, yogurt, hummus, etc.).

 3.) Concoct a cold pasta, chicken salad, tuna salad, etc. ahead for the week.

 4.) If you use a lunch divider like my favorite, laptop lunchbox (www.laptoplunches.com) make sure    you buy 2 so one is always clean.

 5.) Have a clear bin in the pantry to house all the lunch snacks and treats for easy access.

6.) Talk to your kids about what is an appropriate snack to eat after school.   Then have them at kid level in the pantry or fridge for easy access.

 7.) MOST IMPORTANT TIP: get up at least 10 minutes earlier to allow time for your cup of coffee before starting the crazy job of making lunches and getting kids out the door!

Budget friendly changes:

 Take a Costco or family size chip/cracker bag and portion out into snack size ziplocs for the month as opposed to pre-packaged chips.

Buy bags of carrots wash/slice yourself and separate into snack size ziplocs instead of pre-packaged carrots.

Instead of packaged drink boxes, use a reusable thermos with water, juice, crystal light, etc.

Happy Lunch Making!

Hall Toy Closet

Hall Toy Closet Make-over! 

This project took no time at all from start to finish.  We took everything out to the kitchen table for a staging area.  Sorted through each toy and decided whether it was still age appropriate for her kids.  Then sorted pieces to each game together (ex: block game, play tools, army guys) and put them in see through containers at the boys eye level.  We still needed the top couple of shelves for mom's linens, photo storage, etc.  This mom was already pretty organized with boxes so it was really a matter of tweaking and putting all like things together.

Junk Drawers!

Let's talk about Junk Drawers!  All this junk came out of these 6 kitchen drawers!  I wanted a good visual for my client and my followers to see it all dumped out in one spot!  Most of my clients worst nightmare is to see me dump stuff into a pile.  But for me it is my favorite thing!  I love to sort through the mess one piece at a time.  Half the stuff in these drawers was trash!  

Pantry/Storage Room

This room is any mom's idea of storage heaven!  This client bumped out a garage to add more storage and a bigger laundry room.  This space is meant to be overflow from the pantry, Costco supplies, and extra appliances that are used once a year.  She had set up a "making school lunch station" for her 10 year old to come pack his lunch from.  I thought that was genius!  This area had good intentions just needed a little tweaking! 

July is Garage Month!

6 Steps to Make Organizing Your Garage Seem Easy

1.) You need to pick a shelving system of some kind.  One that is sturdy and can hold boxes     on the top shelf to maximize vertical space.

2.) Pick matching containers.  I say go simple with these, you want to be able to add more as time goes on.

3.) Take everything out of that area and clean.

4.) Sort, sort, sort!  Take everything out to the driveway, sort "like" things together and put them in the proper size container.

5.) Put everything back on the shelves with a label.

6.) Sit back and take a look at your newly organized garage with style!

Kitchen/Pantry

 This Kitchen was a TOTAL re-organization project!  The flow was not working out for this family.  This house was not built with a walk-in pantry.  It did have 2 big cabinets that would work though.  This family loves to bake so they needed extra room for baking supplies.  The client also asked me to label in English and Spanish for when the kids were helping out and the cleaning ladies where putting stuff away.

This was the original food pantry and now it is the bowls/pitchers cabinet.

This was the pantry space before and as you can see held most of the bowls.

Now all the food is on one place and since I added tiered can storage and shelves everything is visible. 

Cereal is now in containers for the kids to get themselves, snack foods are within the kids reach, and pastas/rices/etc. are all grouped together.

Baking cabinet "before"

baking cabinet "after"

An example of one of the drawers.