The Year of Organized Living- Costume Jewelry

I'm not much of a jewelry person. I rarely wear more than the stud earrings that I leave in all of the time. However, like most women, I have accumulated a collection over the years and figuring out the best way to organize it, has been a challenge.

When I first started at my most recent stint in retail, I had to dress up for work. This was uncharted territory for me. All of my past jobs have been blue jean appropriate. In the four and half months that I spent working for Nordstrom, I not only purchased new clothes, but had to get creative with skirts and tops that had previously been labeled my "church/funeral" attire. In addition, completing the outfit with jewelry was not merely recommended, but mandatory.

This wasn't such a bad thing. Dressing up can be fun and I rediscovered a lot of pieces lurking in both my closet and jewelry box.

I own two very pretty cherry wood jewelry boxes from the Bombay Company.

On a side note, I believe all of the Bombay Company Stores have closed in the US, but was happy to see one alive and well on our trip to Vancouver. That was always one of the best stores for browsing. I've always wanted one of their full length mirrors!

So, I have these two jewelry boxes, one belonged to my mom, but the problem is, they don't hold a lot. They are more beautiful than functional. The only part that is truly functional are the velvet rows to hold rings. My problem was all of my necklaces and bracelets turned into a tangle of knots and were getting ruined. I needed a solution.

Cue Ikea ( You probably thought this was going to be another Bed, Bath and Beyond rave, didn't you?)

Dan and I were walking in the kitchen department when inspiration struck.

The bars and hooks were shown in Ikea to hold kitchen utensils, but Dan had the idea to repurpose them to hold my necklaces and bracelets. It worked perfectly and was less than fifteen dollars for the whole set up. Nothing gets tangled, everything is easy to find and it's mounted to the wall, so it doesn't take up additional space. We picked the red hooks to match the red theme in our bedroom.

This was one of my favorite organization projects. Since I can easily see my jewelry and access it, I wear it much more often, even though am no longer working for Nordstrom.

Unfortunately, I still have messy jewelry boxes, as not everything could fit on the wall. I picked the pieces that I wear most often for the wall. The remainder of the jewelry is another project waiting for an inspiring solution.

The Year of Organized Living- Bags

We had a serious, out of control problem in our household. It was a problem that spanned two floors, infected two closets and created daily chaos. I am talking about bags.

Between the two of us, Dan and I have all sorts of bags. We have gym bags, tote bags, backpacks, shopping bags, rucksacks, purses (just me), et... and these bags refused to stay organized, even when I neatly placed them on the shelves.

Every time we opened up the closets, the bags would come tumbling down. I needed to figure out a way to keep them in line, while maintaining accessibility.

I found the solution at my favorite store, Bed, Bath and Beyond.

I bought two packages of the tall size of the Lynk Shelf Dividers.

I originally thought to use them in the hall closet for the towels, as show in the picture on the packaging, but I have a different idea for the closet. Stay tuned. I thought for ten bucks, it was worth giving the Lynk Dividers a shot at taming the bag situation.

Here are pictures of the problem. We had bags on both the top shelf of the coat and guest bedroom closets.

Coat Closet- sorry so dark, it's the best that I could get.

Guest Bedroom closet.

I cleared all of the bags from both closets and placed them in piles based on function. We found a bunch that we no longer needed or wanted, so that culled the pile considerably. It was stuff didn't even realize that we had, because it had been at the bottom of the pile in the closet. The primary reason for this cleaning binge is to really use the stuff that we own and to eliminate the superfluous.

I wanted to make everything fit in the guest bedroom closet and it did. Not only is it neat, but we freed up a ton of prime storage space in the coat closet.

I had four of the dividers to work with, so it created five separate sections. Two for Dan's things, one for our mutual bags (like the beach bag and insulated picnic bag), one for my stuff and one for our hats. Admittedly, I cheated some, as I have one box of purses (clutches/evening bags) in the master closet, but most of our stuff is in the guest bedroom. It does seem like a ridiculous amount for two people, but we really do use them all.

Here is the finished product.

I am happy with the end result. I did this several weeks ago and it's been very easy to remove a particular bag from the shelf without having the entire collection come tumbling down.

The dividers are very solid and stay put. If anything, I would caution really knowing where you want to place them, before sliding them into place. They are removable, but it takes some muscle. It's good though, because they stay ridged.

I highly recommend the Lynk Shelf Dividers for closet organization.

The Year of Organized Living - Cleaning Products

I love a clean house, but hate the process. Unless you're Bree Van De Kamp or Monica Geller, I suspect you hate it too. I don't even think non-fictional homemaker mavens, such as Martha Stewart, actually enjoy the act of cleaning.

As such, I rarely do it. Sure, I get my place spotless when I know company is headed over, but barring that, things are not as spotless as they should be in our household. I need to clarify something, it's all me.

When I first met Dan, I was thoroughly intimidated by the cleanliness of his apartment. It was immaculate, not just neat, but white-glove clean. Then we move in together and things got a little sloppy. I know that it drives him nuts and this is part of the big push to get things organized in the new year. An organized house, makes for a much easier house to keep clean.

I'm not going to completely throw myself under the bus, I do a lot around the house, but admittedly, I focus on the chores that I don't mind doing or the ones that have to be done in order to keep me feeling sane. I don't like to let the dishes or the laundry pile up, so those are always done. The kitchen tends to be cleaner than the rest of the house, because I am nutty about germs. I loathe vacuuming and mopping, so the floors are always at the bottom of the list.

Part of the problem is space. Don't get me wrong, we have a two bedroom townhouse with plenty of storage and a garage, this is technically plenty of space for two people. The problem is, between us we have way too much stuff. This is part of the push to eliminate in the new year. Stuff is stressful. Culling is a slow process, but every day it's getting a little better. The stuff creates a barrier to organization and cleaning.

Back to cleaning, because we are disorganized, we have a glut of cleaning products. The 2012 mindset was to just buy more cleaning products and jam them into the cupboard. We didn't know if we already owned it, so we would pick up another bottle when shopping, "just in case". This led to a big mess, where all of the cupboards are overflowing with various cleaning products, including stuff that Dan brought over from Sweden.

I think this is to clean the stove top, but I am really not sure...this statement points to both my lack of knowledge when it comes to cleaning products and Swedish.

In efforts to use what we already own, I knew that I needed to organize the products and take inventory. I started by buying a Lazy Susan at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Bed, Bath and Beyond is certainly getting our money in 2013, I can't enter the store without walking away with several bags of organizational goodies. It's an adult toy store.

Here is the before shot of the downstairs bathroom cupboard.

First, I emptied the entire cupboard and put products into piles according to type. Among the stuff, I had six (four full) containers of toilet bowl cleaner and two types of laundry detergent that can't even be used in our high efficiency washer. I took the kitchen specific cleaners to the kitchen and the laundry stain remover out to the garage. I threw out nearly empty containers or things that I knew we would never use.

You might be able to see pick them out in the above picture, there were two buckets jammed full of more products. I took repurposed one bucked to the garage and used the other for duplicate products. It's time to check the bucket, when we run out of a product on the Lazy Susan.

Here is the finished result.

Overall, I am pleased with the result. The Lazy Susan can't make a complete revolution, due to the pipes, but it's still easier to see everything and reach items. I put one of each type of product on the Lazy Susan and a few in front of the bucket. The bucket is much easier to reach now that the clutter is clean. Hopefully being able to see what we own, will lead to using the products more frequently and ultimately a cleaner home.

I will need to tackle the upstairs bathroom cupboard and under the kitchen sink in a similar fashion, although each poses unique challenge due to size, structure and functionality. The bigger picture also has me using the garage storage closet for all of the extra cleaning supplies, freeing up a ton of space in the house and keeping everything orderly.