That's a Wrap!

For a long time my present wrapping materials were a huge mess. They were spread out everywhere and I never could find what I was looking for. I hate wasted space and so I realized that we could do double duty with a small utility closet that houses our upstairs furnace to create a place for all the wrapping stuff to be in the same place.

I had my husband install a simple wire shelf across the length of the closet and then got to work. I used old wire hangers to hang my gift bags, separating them by boy birthday, girl birthday, Christmas, and general gift bags. This shelf is also where I store the kids' Easter baskets and Halloween bags. 

I bought a cheap dollar store tote and put all the tissue paper I have in it. It works well and can go right next to the gift bags.

For my rolls of wrapping paper I have this handy dandy wrapping paper duffel that I bought from Current Catalog ages ago. They don't sell it anymore but they do have this hanging one that I might like even better!

My gift boxes and bows only get used at Christmas time and so I don't keep them too organized. If I used them all the time I'd probably try harder but they are a low priority for the time being and function fine in their current storage receptacles. ;)

Now my utility closet is functional and keeps the kids and I much more organized when trying to wrap a gift! I guess you could say "that's a wrap!"

What space in your home is being underutilized? 

Walk Through Your Walk-in Again

Little helpers can also contribute to closet chaos too!

Having a walk-in closet can be a blessing. There's all the room you need to store your clothes and anything else. It can also be a curse. Why? Because it's a whole other room that has to be kept organized in order to function at its optimal level in order to keep you functioning at your optimal level!

I have a walk-in closet and it is a blessing to me. I am a girl who loves storage after all! However, there are some things that have always bothered me about my closet. For one thing it is essentially a long hallway type closet. It has some built-in shelves but they aren't very functional and there's no drawers or places to keep shoes. All these things can of course be fixed with some custom closet solutions but like my mom always says, "When you have the time for a home-improvement project, you don't have the money. When you have the money, you don't have the time." And so it goes with my closet. :)

Here are some of the built-ins in my closet where I keep my winter sweaters. FYI you should never hang sweaters because it makes them get misshapen and stretched out. Always fold them instead! Well that's what I was trying to do but as you can see it wasn't working very well. All the piles kept ending up falling over as I searched for a particular sweater. And as the bottom two shelves were just one long shelf it made the piles even harder to keep neat.

Martha Stewart to the rescue! Fortunately for me she has a whole line of organization remedies at Home Depot and they come in awesome colors. Who knew you can have a color scheme in the closet, right? My "piles" of clothes were already separated by color and so I chose to to continue on with that tactic and put each color in its own drawer. Over board? I think not! It looks so neat and clean now. I love it!

I didn't have enough drawer space in my dresser for my intimates so I had been storing them in bins and shoe boxes that were always unorganized and hard to find. Not any more! I used an old book shelf of my kids' that I bought brand new at Wal-Mart (several years ago) for less than $20. And thanks to some cute little baskets from the dollar store, my panty hose, bathing suits, sports bras, slips, and bras are all together again!

In another built-in I piled my jeans as neatly as I could and separated them by category as well; lights, darks, skinnies, etc. Another recycled bookshelf houses my out of season shoes.

Finally, every good walk-in closet has a hamper inside it. Not for your dirty clothes but for the ones you no longer need or want. Once the hamper is full, then you know it's time for a trip to Goodwill.

A bona fide California Closet may still be in my future someday but for now I am happy with how my closet is functioning. It's a breath of fresh air to enter it in the morning and be able to find what I need without a lot of hectic searching. What I love the most is none of these solutions cost me a lot of money.

Who doesn't love that?!?

Color Coordination

I organize my clothing by color in my closet. Why? Because it makes it so much easier to find what I am looking for. When I can find what I am looking for in a timely fashion I can then start my day faster/get out the door faster. See where I'm going with this?

Having your clothes organized this way also makes putting them away much faster too. No more searching for hangers as I'm hanging up my clean shirts. If I'm putting away a pink shirt, I simply look in the pink section of my closet and there's a hanger!

I organize my girls' (ages 5 and 8) drawers this way too. That way if they ask me, "Mom? Where's my purple shirt with the sequins?" All I have to do is tell them it's with the other purple shirts in their drawer. And it will be there too because that's where they put it when they were putting aways their laundry.

People may wonder why I go to such great lengths to keep my house organized. Here is why: The more efficiently my household runs, the easier it is to keep it picked up, get my chores done, and keep my sanity in the process!

Keeping your clothing organized will save you minutes at a time and those extra minutes add up! If I can save, say 5 minutes, in the morning getting dressed because I can easily find my favorite shirt and another 5 minutes when I have to put away my clothes then I just earned ten minutes in my day to sit on the floor and play with my kids or read a book.

See how many minutes you can save. :)

Love Your Linen Closet

Here's what my linen closet looked like before-piles of barely folded sheets, mismatched, and unorganized.

 I am fortunate enough to have oodles of storage in my house. Whoever built it must've had something in common with me because I love to have a place for everything. I have two linen closets (actually three if you count the tiny one tucked in my girls' bathroom) which enables me to have one closet just for towels and one just for bedding.

The bedding closet has proven to be a big pain for me. I've never been able to keep it looking neat and it's been a big trial to keep everything from getting mixed up. This is mainly due to a certain husband (who shall remain nameless) who just grabs random sheets in the middle of the night if one of the kids has an accident. I LOVE that he is willing to help me out in the middle of the night but didn't like that everything was getting mixed up, or that the kids would end up with queen-sized sheets on their bed which I'd have to go back and replace and end up having to wash yet another sheet set. It just wasn't working for me so... I decided to change it!

Ahhh, so much better!

I found these super cute Martha Stewart fabric drawers at Home Depot in the organization section. They cost me $7 each which I didn't think was too bad. I then got to work.

1. First, I went through all the sheet sets I had and got rid of the ones that I didn't need.
2. Then, I separated them by person.
3. I kept only three sets of sheets for my kids (two cotton sets and one flannel). Nathan and I have two cotton and two flannel sets.
4. I placed each person's sheets in their drawer and labeled it with their name.
5. I also reserved one drawer for throws and one for guest sheets.
6. I folded all of the extra kid quilts and put them on a shelf.
7. Finally, I folded all of the guest quilts and put them on the floor of the closet since they are bigger.

The end result is so nice! Not only does it look great but now Nathan, oops, I mean that person who shall remain nameless, and I can find exactly what we need in the middle of the night.

If you don't have as much space to do this as I do, no worries. Clear out some space in each person's closet and put their sheet drawer there instead. The drawers are relatively compact so you don't need much space at all! Have at it!