Studio organization: Works in progress storage

On the hunt for some new furniture, I hit the antique malls for the first time in maybe a year! I was way past due. I've been looking for a buffet-type piece of furniture to use in our living room, but I came across this instead.

Over the past six months or so, I've been slowly building my studio, while also trying to work in said studio. It was a mess, and the whole thing was just leaving me feeling disorganized and crazy.

To get some clarity, I made a list of every function I needed the space to perform. Work space, materials storage, finished goods storage, packing space, etc. And then I realized I had a big hole in my process: I had no storage area for works in progress. Everything was just everywhere. Painted frames drying wherever I could find a flat surface, which, in turn, gave me no place to work. It seems really obvious now, but I just hadn't broken it down like that before.

So anyway, when I ran across these units with perfectly sized shelves, I lunged. At $40 each, they were easy to say 'yes' to. Because if you've ever priced letter sorters or furniture with a bunch of shelves or pigeonholes, you will know that $40 is a bargain. And forget about finding anything made of wood. I bought one, and then went back the next day for the other.

These things are SOLID wood and super heavy. And also handmade and a bit rough, but I sort of like their garagey character for now. The space is still a work in progress, but I feel like all the functional components are finally here. Let's hope I can share some prettier pictures soon!

6 Tips for saving upcycled materials (without turning into a hoarder!)

When I tell people I save lids or jars or whatever... I get strange looks.

 Like, why on EARTH would you save such GARBAGE??

Well, that's one reason.

To prevent more GARBAGE going into the EARTH.

But there's also creative potential in re-using this stuff.

Exhibit A: Dollhouse.
Exhibit B: Lid Tree Ornaments.
Exhibit C: Junk Art.

Maybe I don't need to be explaining this to you. Why else would you be here if you weren't already on board?

Anyway, I have gotten some interest in knowing how I save things, and how I prevent stuff from multiplying and taking over my house. So here they are:

My rules for saving junk

1) Don't save everything. You'll turn into a hoarder.

Watch an episode of a hoarding show once in a while to keep things in check.

2) Only save what you cannot buy (or cannot buy cheaply).

Time and storage space is money too.

3) Only save something when you have a specific purpose in mind. (See #1.)

You can't make every craft or project. If you don't have a plan for something, just recycle it.

4) Save things in a central location

I actually have a two-part system. For example, I'm continuing to save lids to make more tree ornaments. I run them through the dishwasher in one of those baskets along with the rest of our dishes. When they're out and dry, I throw them in a glass jar on the counter. They collect here, contained. Then when that's full, I'll move them to my "junk box" in the basement, which is just a large plastic container with a lid. Give things a home: the prevailing organization principle of all time.

5) But keep 'like' with 'like'

There are a few things not contained in the junk box, like a handful of glass jars and things that belong more appropriately somewhere else (scraps of fabric, paper, wood). My junk box is full of random bits that don't belong anywhere else. Keep ribbon scraps with other ribbon scraps. Fabric with other fabric. Paper with paper. You get the idea.

6) Put a cap on it.

The "junk box" is not allowed to grow. When it's full, it's time to purge something or use it up.

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What are you saving? More importantly, what are you going to make? Let me know in the comments!

Armchair remote control organizer

If you're thinking, "Hey Erin, that project looks super grandma..."

Well, you would be correct. I made this armchair organizer for my (super) grandma.

Normally, this type of thing seems like unnecessary clutter to me, but I'm guessing that doesn't really matter when you're 81 years old and have bad knees. And need a little help keeping track of your remote control or pen and paper for taking notes on Dancing with the Stars. (Yes, she really does that! She's pretty hilarious.)

I generally followed this tutorial, but made a few changes. The pocket is one piece of fabric (folded, so the inside is "lined") and I used store-bought bias tape for the binding. It matched the fabric so well, why bother making my own? I also fudged the dimensions a few inches, because I was working with stash fabric, and I didn't want to buy more. Really trying to use what I have; the fabric collection is still out of control.

I started quilting it every half inch or so and immediately regretted that decision. Too much work! Probably should have spaced the quilted lines at least an inch or more. Would have taken half the time.

I didn't try to line up the pocket and the rest of the fabric; I just positioned the bird on the pocket where I wanted it, but it seems as though the alignment looks pretty harmonious. 

My grandma loved it and gushed over the quilting. I reminded her that it was machine sewn, but she still acted impressed. Gotta love a friendly audience!

See more sewing projects here >>

Organizing the cabinet under the kitchen sink

Organizing the cabinet under the kitchen sink was one of those projects I had been putting off forever. I might have even taken "before" photos a couple of years ago with good intentions of tackling it then. But who really wants to organize the cabinet under the sink? Plus, I couldn't really decide what to do and what sort of organizational storage I needed. Indecision and procrastination are buddies at my house.

But I could never seem to find what I was looking for down there even though it was often right in front of me. Something had to be done.

I am shocked to admit that all it took to make this space a lot more manageable was a couple of plastic drawer units from Target. (And relocating some of the more rarely used cleaning tools. That window squeegee certainly sounded like a good idea once upon a time.)

That's it. It was a stroke of luck that the drawers fit perfectly in my smallish cabinets (especially since I forgot to measure the cabinet door openings before shopping). Still can't believe it was actually that easy. Small victories.

This drawer corrals all the loose items like cat treats, water filters and magic erasers and the other drawer holds cleaning rags. Everything finally has a home!

How to corral and camouflage wires and other tech

We got our internet service upgraded over the weekend (yay! for being able to watch a video without it stopping after five seconds!), but when the serviceman left, I was left with this:

A giant new modem and even bigger wireless router. In my living room. The old modem and router plus all associated wires used to fit within that smallish basket, but now... not so much.

Baskets are my favorite way to corral wires, power strips and all that other small tech junk we can't live without. They make a tangle of messy wires look just a bit tidier.

So I grabbed a new larger basket on sale at Michael's for about $8. I was just happy to find something in the right dimensions that would fit underneath the table legs without a lot of searching.

Baskets don't conceal everything completely, but this stuff gets hot! Devices need to breathe. Put them inside something with a lid and you're probably asking for trouble.

I did the same sort of thing in our office next to the desk. Not the most beautiful thing ever, but easy access if something needs to be moved or unplugged.

p.s. I realize a closet or a cabinet might be a better hiding place for this stuff, but this is an old house, where outlets and phone jacks are not always in the most concealed of places!

I organized the garage in two hours and lived to tell the tale.

Everyday, I would walk through our garage and think, "hmm, I really should clean this up sometime." And I've been thinking that for, oh, maybe a year.

There's never a good time to clean the garage. Summer's too hot and winter's too cold. Plus, you know, not exactly a fun task. So as soon as the temperature dropped from this summer's crazy heat wave, I put the garage on my short list.

From a distance, it may not look super disorganized. But close up, another story.

Junk and dirt from old projects. Trash. Stuff we don't need anymore. Stuff that I didn't even know was in here. It was so so much dirtier than I thought. Lots of dust and spiderwebs.

I needed motivation, so I challenged myself to get it done while Elise was at preschool one morning. I set the stopwatch and hoped I could get it all done before pick up time.

I started by making piles of stuff that didn't need to be in the garage anymore, whether it needed to be moved or moved to the trash. I went to throw out this can of roofing tar (which hasn't been touched in probably three years) and found that it had rusted through the bottom of the can. Nice!

Also trashed (well, recycled): glass shards dug up from the backyard.

These lovely vintage tile installation guides that I found with some leftover tile for our upstairs bathroom. (Still have to decide if the extra tile is worth keeping.)

Oh and that leaky tar can? It left a small puddle for me to deal with.

I covered it up with an old car floor mat. I was going to throw that out too, but this was the most logical solution for dealing with that sticky tar.

I also removed a few things added by a prior owner of the house like this paper towel holder (never going to use it) and some random screws (subbing for hooks, I presume).

And this homemade pencil cup. I guess it's fine if you're working a lot in the garage with pencils, but in recent years, it was just serving as a haven for spiders. Bye bye!

After about an hour and a half, I was a sweaty mess. It was time to get cleaned up and pick up Elise from preschool. (I swear, preschool time goes about twice as fast as normal time. Is this a documented phenomenon?) I wasn't completely finished, but I was so close! Challenge fail. Sort of.

Later that afternoon, I spent another 20 minutes taking out the trash and sweeping the floor. And finally, my work here was done. Look! Clear surfaces!

Quick and easy DIY: $2 kids artwork portfolio

My daughter has a painting obsession and has brought home so many pieces since she started preschool less than two months ago. It's almost like the art is multiplying when I'm not looking.

With the paintings collecting in a messy pile on the dining room table, I knew I needed to find them a home before they got lost or torn. But many of the pieces are oversize and won't fit into a normal folder.

I flashed back to this storage idea from high school art class: the foam core portfolio. It's cheap. It's easy. It's quick. It hits the trifecta. Let's get to it!

First you need a couple of sheets of foam core. If you are not familiar, foam core or foam board is a thin sheet of styrofoam with a layer of paper on both sides. It's very rigid and does not bend. I bought these 20" x 30" pieces at the dollar store, but larger pieces and different thicknesses are available at craft and art supply stores (likely for more moolah).

I laid them side by side, long sides together.

Then I joined the two with a strip of duct tape. I used a couple of tabs just to hold it together while I laid the long strip, but you can skip that part if you want. Feel free to use packing tape instead or jazz it up with pretty colored tape. I went for the basic gray because it's what I had, and I am cheap.

Fold the portfolio in half (like a book)...

And run another strip of tape along the spine. You're done! I told you it was quick.

Now you can keep all of those masterpieces contained in one spot. I tucked my portfolio behind a piece of furniture to keep it out of sight and away from little hands. I can't wait to see what the collection looks like at the end of the school year!

p.s. It should be noted that this is not an acid-free storage solution. If that's important to you, seek out acid-free foam core or just get yourself a real portfolio.

Simplify: Living with too much stuff

Something came over me about a month or two ago. I'm not exactly sure where it started. Maybe with cleaning out Elise's closets before I painted them. Slowly, I started tackling one small space at a time. A drawer here, a box there. Removing anything expired, unnecessary, redundant. If something didn't belong, I moved it to a better home.

And then, I intensified. I wasn't just doing mini organizing projects. I was on a mission to rid the entire house of unnecessary things.

Like many people, I struggle to find balance between having stuff and having too much stuff. Keeping what we need to be prepared versus being paranoid.

It's easy enough to remember to purge your clothes closet or the kids' toy box or the pantry, but what about that kitchen gadget drawer? Or maybe the toolbox? (Mine seems to be the place where IKEA allen wrenches go to die.)

Do I need two pasta forks? Three bottle openers? Eleven sports water bottles?

What about three hammers? (I'm not even sure where the third one came from.)

Do I need three staplers when I probably staple something once every six months?

Or could someone else be using this stuff?

I've slowly been going through the house on small area at a time. It's going to take a while to complete, but I think it's worth it.

I'm not ready to go full tilt minimalism; I love stuff way too much. It makes a home feel cozy. But I am ready to simplify. I don't want to hold onto things only for "just in case" moments anymore. I don't need to hold hostage perfectly useful items just because I'm too lazy (or paranoid) to get rid of them.

I don't want this house to turn into one of those old houses with the basement packed to the gills where everything comes in and nothing goes out. I want it to be lean and well organized. Efficient. I want to know what's in every box, drawer and closet. And I want the things we are keeping to be things we actually need or want. No hidden crap.

So where did the stuff go?

We spent a few Saturdays on the donation circuit. I don't have photos of all the things that have left this house. This process has been so gradual that it didn't occur to me to document it bit by bit.

• We took old light fixtures and some drywall scraps to the Habitat Re-store. Plus some weird plumbing parts that were in the garage when we moved in.
• Books, CDs and DVDs not worth selling on Amazon went to a charity book fair donation box.
• An old computer, a printer, old cell phones, one very old and very dead iPod, and two huge bags of wires went to an electronic recycling event.
• A giant stack of junk CDs (outdated software, CD-Rs) and jewel cases got dropped off for recycling at Best Buy.
• We donated a barely used cat bed and other pet items to the humane society. And some old sheets and towels. (Never throw that stuff away!)
• A scratched non-stick skillet that I no longer used (but somehow couldn't bring myself to get rid of) finally went into the recycle bin.
• I let a couple of magazine subscriptions lapse and blew through the nearly two-foot tall stack of back issues. So long, Elle Decor. I won't miss your elitist tone. And Martha Stewart Living? I have a feeling we will meet again someday. I'm actually thinking of letting more of my subscriptions expire as I'm forever behind on reading.
• And there were more than a few trips to Goodwill.

And we were able to sell some things too!

• My husband took one of his old, unused tennis rackets and got cash for it at a sports resale store.
• I sold a few pieces of gold and silver jewelry I didn't want anymore. (Nothing fancy, just some necklace charms.)
• And we sold a handful of random items on eBay. (Did you know you can list items for free now? Still have to pay fees at the end, but not if the item doesn't sell.)

We also made an effort to use up gift cards and gift certificates. At this point, I think we only have a couple left, and while I guess logically that should make me sad, I think it's a good thing. Because we used them and kept the cash in our wallets.

And we're still purging.

I still have to go through much of the basement and the office. (Ugh, holiday storage. For someone who barely decorates for Christmas, I sure do have a lot of Christmas decorations.)

I'm going to purge many of the recycleables I've been saving (hoarding?) for future projects. I have to remind myself: there will always be more glass jars, there will always be more cardboard boxes.

I'm even going to venture out and put some things on craigslist. (And I'm a craigslist hater. Mainly from being repeatedly stood up by flakey buyers years ago.)

Incentives (trading the stuff for different stuff)

Eventually, I would love to turn some of our unfinished basement into finished space or at least pleasant-to-be-in space. You see that silver wall at the back of this photo? That's a closed up metal garage door with a hodge podge of insulation on top of it. But really, it's about as insulated as an open door. We're hoping to finally take care of that in the coming months.

I also got the idea that if we could sell any of our excess, we would put the money toward new countertops and appliances for the kitchen. (Our appliances are at least 18 years old and are showing their age.) I don't know when that will happen, but it's an extra incentive. We like to play those little savings games around here. So far, we've accumulated around $250. (I guess the money could also go to repair the basement wall, but it's more fun to thinking I'm working toward new countertops than cinderblocks.)

Anyone else living with too much stuff? How do you keep it all under control?

Organizing and storing baby clothes

My daughter is nearly three and I just got around to organizing her baby clothes. I'm so on top of things!

As I explained in my organization post earlier in the week, the closet where I had been stashing all of these clothes had reached new levels of disorganization.

Many of her clothes were stuffed in trash bags, completely randomly, as a result of me needing to get the outgrown clothes out of her room, but not having enough time for what I thought would be an hours-long organizing binge.

After I pulled everything out of the closet, I ended up with a mountain of clothes. Literally, a mountain. The girl has a lot of clothes. And I was right. It was an hours-long organizing binge that I needed to get all of this stuff in order.

I separated all of the clothes by size (newborn, 0-3, 3-6, 6-9. 6-12, 12-18, 18-24 & 2T) and dedicated a large storage tote to each one. Yes, there's some overlap there in the 6's, but baby clothes (like adult clothes) don't always match up on sizes, so better to call the 12 month clothes "6-12" as some brands do.

I threw away a few onesies and sleepers that were too gross to put on another baby, but until we have another kid, I'm not getting rid of anything else.

I had enough totes to cover my sizes, although they don't all match. Nobody call the organizing pretty police, please. Especially because I didn't fold anything! Instead, I made sure all the clothes were right side out and laid them in flat stacks.

The totes are not stuffed full; I thought it was better to keep the sizes separate than to be stingy about storage space.

I can't imagine this organization method is anything revolutionary; I'm sure many many people use similar systems. It's simple, and it works.

Elise is in-between sizes now, and it's been really nice to notice something doesn't fit anymore, then quickly put it into the 2T tote before it slips back into rotation. I just hope I can keep this up!

A note for new mamas: It would have been really helpful to have empty totes set up before she outgrew any of these clothes. I could have organized things piece by piece along the way and avoided the whole trash bag mess phase.

Spring cleaning: Organizing closets

We have a pair of walk-in closets flanking our upstairs bedroom (a.k.a. the playroom). Even with sloped ceilings, for an old house, they are enormous. Seriously, you could fit a twin size mattress in each of them and call them bedrooms.

These closets are where we store all of our out-of-season/special occasion clothing, coats, outgrown baby clothes, baby gear, blankets, etc. We are lucky to have them.

But lately, the closets had begun to look like this:

and this:

Not so pretty or functional, obviously. The closets are wider than I can fit within the photo frame, but you get the idea. Dumping ground. (Or grounds, I suppose.)

I've been meaning to tackle this for a while, but the smell of spring in the air is motivating me to purge and organize like never before. (This is just one area in the house I've been working on. Stay tuned for later developments.)

Before stuff was strewn about with no real organization, so I decided that one of the closets would be dedicated to baby/kid clothing and gear and the other would be clothing, blankets and extras.

My initial plan was to empty both closets at once, but emptying the first one pretty much filled all the free space I had to work with. It's amazing how much stuff you can cram into a tiny space.

The shelving systems currently in the closets were not installed particularly well. They don't make the best use of space either. Someday, when this is someone's bedroom, I will paint over that ugly beige (looks better in photos than in person) and install better shelving in a smarter configuration. My someday list is certainly growing.

Truthfully, there wasn't a whole lot that didn't belong in these closets; it was just not organized well. But I did find a lot of empty cardboard boxes. Apparently, I had been hoarding every giant stroller and car seat box that ever came into the house. Why? Better things to do than organize, I suppose. Those went easily and cleared up quite a bit of space.

Check out the before and afters! Closet #1, you're up!

I was even able to move some larger baby items and toys up from the basement. My goal was to have everything in one location: a one-stop shop for all your baby-related needs. 

And now closet #2, it's your turn!

These closets don't look like pages from the Container Store catalog, but everything is organized. I know where to find things. And I can actually walk into the closets. (A crazy thought.) Considering I didn't spend anything on organizing them, I'm pretty happy with the results.

Check back later this week for part two the closet organizing saga where I'm tackling the baby clothes.