Understairs Cupboard Sort Out

Spurred on by my declutter of the entrance hallway I continued on and sorted out the understairs cupboard too. I am sure it is pretty much the same as most people's - chock full of coats, shoes, hats, gloves, etc.

Now it's still full of that stuff, but I cleared out some excess bits like the spare car seat so that my sewing machine and sewing stuff box can now fit on the shelf. My other half also moved the hanging shoe storage to the other wall so it's not in the way of coats.

Organising Some Kitchen Cupboards & Drawers

Oooh, I got on a bit of a roll today. I just thought I'd quickly sort out the two deep drawers in the photo above. One thing lead to another and the next thing I knew I'd done those two plus "the awkward cupboard", "that thin cupboard" and "the medicine cupboard" Brilliant!

Here are those drawers before.

And after...

I got rid of quite a bit of stuff here. Either moved it to a different cupboard, chucked it out or put it in a pile to give away.

The left drawer (top photo) now houses bibs on the left and scruffy clothes and an apron on the right. The oven glove's in there too. We keep a pile of old stained clothes so that we can change our toddler into them before she eats anything "stainy". Mums and Dads will know what I mean - it's usually orange food that does it! In summer she will just eat in her pants, but in winter we keep scruffs for her to wear instead.

The drawer on the right (bottom photo) has tea towels, facecloths, dishcloths, dusters, and placemats. I know our tea towels are old and stained, but they're not getting replaced any time soon. No money for that! The facecloths are for wiping our aforementioned toddler after eating. I figured we were spending a small fortune on wet wipes, so I'm switching to cloth for after meals at home.

Then since the kids were being good I moved onto the medicine cupboard and the one we call "that awkward cupboard". It's called that because it's in the corner and half of it disappears behind the medicine cupboard and it's awkward to get into. Because of this we only store items here that we rarely need access to.

Medicine cupboard on the left, awkward on the right.

 

The best thing to do was just to switch the contents over. My baking things needed more space and the medicine cupboard was full of stuff we didn't need anymore like my daughters play rice (relocated) and the sharps box etc. from when I had gestational diabetes.

Here's what it looks like now:

 

I pinched my handy "extra shelf" rack from the tins cupboard because I didn't really need it there and this cupboard was so tall space was being wasted. Now I can see all of my baking things at a glance. I also collected some things together into Tupperware boxes to keep them together - cookie cutters, cake candles, piping nozzles, food colourings, and flavourings, etc.

This one is pretty self-explanatory really. I've created a little list of what's tucked away in there that is fixed to the inside of the cupboard door for easy reference because I will forget and it saves me having to pull everything out to see what's there. The glue isn't dry in this photo, but don't hate me. I was excited to show you and couldn't wait for the drying time!

Last, but not least is "that thin cupboard". Here's a before pic.

Sorry for the poor quality, I was using my small camera and it's not so good in low light.


After...

Not much has changed I suppose. It's just been tidied up really. The jelly man is my coppers jar. He rocks.

Thanks so much for reading!

Sarah. x

I've linked this post up to...

Wardrobe Decluttering

This is our mahooooosive wardrobe in our bedroom. It's from IKEA (naturally) and is part of their Pax range, which is brilliant for being able to pick and mix what kinds of storage features you want inside. Sorry, the photo is wonky, I must have been in a rush.

A couple of things I feel I have to mention here are, a) the general massiveness of the wardrobes and, b) the general ikkyness of this room.

a) The wardrobes are so big because I am an idiot. Basically, I have a natural instinct in me which screams "BUY BIG!" whenever we're getting something new. Remember the "Big Unit?" My idea. Anyway, it usually takes every ounce of control to moderate the size of anything I buy, particularly when it comes to storage items. My natural impulse is to get the biggest thing that will fit in the space so that we can hide as much of our stuff in there as possible. I am battling this ridiculous urge since it is far better to streamline the amount of stuff you actually own in order to possess smaller, more compact pieces of furniture that don't completely dominate the space.

When we bought these wardrobes I was very organised and cut out wardrobe (and bed and bedside cabinet) sized footprints from newspaper and spent ages working out where each thing would go. In the end, I decided that the wardrobes could go on this wall, adjacent to the door and that it didn't matter that the door can't fully open because look at all the room we have to hide our crap! Sigh. Fast forward to us having babies and now I curse having to squish myself in sideways while carrying a child in my arms! Silly, silly Sarah.

Soooo, part of my organising mission with these bad boys is for me to be able to condense all of the items into the two double wardrobes so that I can get rid of the single one on the end.

b) Our bedroom badly needs decorating, but is sadly right far down on the list of "things to spend our money on." Above that being a car, the garden, and the living room. This is why the walls are all marked and you can see a trendy red border around the top of the walls. We stripped the fabulous orange pine cladding from the ceiling and now enjoy staring at the bumpy contours of nail hole pocked woodchip. Jealous much?

Anyhoo, this photo shows the inside of the wardrobes before I tackled them. Not toooo bad you might think, but on closer examination, you can see why it doesn't work. There are loads of inefficient systems going on here - too many drawers versus hanging space, drawers containing things that need throwing out, wellies in drawers (!) and just a general need for some decluttering.

This is "after." The changes are subtle, but here's what I did...
- Removed two of the wire drawers from the middle section and utilised a second hanging rail that was already there, just unused.
- I went through and took out two bags of clothes to either sell on eBay or send it to charity.
- I removed some personal care items and put them in my bedside cabinet instead.
- Took out the wellies and rehoused elsewhere.
- Used the newly freed-up drawers in 'his' side to store the kid's clothes I am going to be listing on eBay.
- Organised my clothes into sections - jackets, cardis, dresses, tunics, shirts, jumpers, tops, jeans, trousers, leggings.

I do feel better for doing all that! :o)

Oh, and those two wire drawers i removed make brilliant underbed storage! Now i keep my handbags in one and a few random items including those wellies in the other.

I'm linking this post up to I'm An Organising Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organising:

Bedside Table / Nightstand Sort Out

This was the view when I opened my bedside cabinet door before I sorted it out last week. The bedside cabinet is part of a massive organising project that I am still on with, but since it's been a while since my last post I thought I'd best give you something. :o)

Okay, the top shelf had all kinds of crap up there - q-tips, contact lenses, face wipes, sleep mask, clips, blah blah blah. The middle shelf had an IKEA Skubb box full of waxing strips, spare deodorant, and other personal care items. The blue container to the left of that is the tub of receipts I mentioned earlier and some receipts aren't even in it, they're just stuffed in front. The bottom shelf has a box with our wedding stuff in - certificate, ring boxes, etc. Yes, we got married 4 years ago... There's also a Topshop shoebox with sentimental stuff in and some tarot cards. The black cosmetic case on the left was empty.

Are you ready for the transformation?

Ta daaa!

This cabinet is now my dedicated "personal care station". I used to have all of my hair, makeup, lady products spread out all over the bedroom in different places, but now it's all in one place for the most part.

Top shelf - Make up used less often. My daily make up is kept in my daily box (explained below).
Middle shelf - I used two IKEA Skubb drawer dividers. On the left is my waxing strips, spare deodorant, perfume, oil, etc. Things I don't use too often. On the right is what I internally refer to as my daily box. In a morning I just grab it and it contains everything I need to get ready on an average day. I'll post more detail about this later because it's really helped shave time off my getting ready routine!
Bottom shelf - Just other lesser-used items like leg tanning cream, spare face wipes, body lotion, glasses case, costume jewellry, etc.

Admittedly, if I had enough hours in the day a lot of these "lesser-used items" should be in my daily box, but I'm a mum of a 4-month-old and a 2-year-old. I barely have time to even dry my hair with a hairdryer these days, nevermind primp. :o)

Nursery Storage Makeover

Huzzah!! The nursery cupboard/closet/wardrobe storage has finally been made over. Behind those doors lies a far more organised and space-efficient, erm, space. The only thing left to do is touch up the bits where the hinges for the old doors were.

Remember what it looked like before?

The louvre doors had been taken off by this point, but they were an awful shade of orange-brown the same as the trim seen here. Couldn't wait to get my tin 'o' white out!

So what was wrong with this space? Where do I start?!
1. It was dirty looking.
2. Not enough shelving.
3. Existing shelves stuck out too far and interfered with anything hanging on the rail.
4. The rail was dirty.
5. Wood parts were cakky orange-brown stained.
6. Doors were the same cakky orange.

So, the first thing we did was take out all of the shelving and reposition making better use of the space. We also added an extra shelf. All the shelves were cut down to a shallower depth, using the containers I am using as drawers as a guide. This left much more space in front for hanging clothes, which now hang on a shiny new chrome rail.

I painted the walls and ceiling with white emulsion and the wood parts with white eggshell. My husband made an excellent job of the doors I think and they look much cleaner and modern than the old louvre doors did. If I can find a photo of the old doors I'll post one later.

Once I'd battled through this pile of all his clothing and other wardrobe fillers...

I was ready to put things back in a more orderly fashion.

 

Ahhhh... Much better!

I also have a little (lot) more storage in the form of my trusty IKEA Expedit 2x2 unit. 

The boxes inside are "Skubb" and hold so much stuff it's unreal. We use them in the kid's toy storage Expedits downstairs too. 

Top left we have sleepsuits, rompers, and vests. 

Top right is his socks, shoes, dribble bibs, hats and swim things.

Now, because the Skubb boxes are so deep I've used the Skubb drawer dividers inside here to help layer up. Here's what I mean. Take one out and you can see his sleeping bags stored underneath.

The bottom right is trousers.

And the bottom left is another Skubb drawer divider holding his tops with knitwear and fitted sheets underneath.

Let's take another look at my his fab new cupboard...

Before & After

 I'm so proud! :o) Now I just need to put the rest of his hanging items up and we're done. Here's what's in there,

Top left - plastic box containing cloth nappy equipment not currently in use (spare inserts, too girly/big, etc.)
Top right - a plastic container with clothes that are too big right now.
Middle shelves - Green containers on sale for £1.49 each at Dunelm Mill. Clockwise from top left they house: nothing / empty (yey!), spare hangers, stock of baby wipes, spare nursery wallpaper borders.
Bottom shelf - 2 massive Skubb (recurring theme here?) containers with all the clothes that he no longer fits into, which I intend to go through and put on eBay. Sob!
Front - two out of three baskets I've had for ages. Nappies on the left, baby towels on the right.

If you liked this post you might be interested in these ones too:

Our Little Boy's Nursery
Wasted Space to Memo Place
Toy Organisation and Playroom Love
Hidden Mini Office in An IKEA Besta Unit
Master Bedroom Makeover

I have been busy. Honest!

It's been a fair while since I posted anything, but that's because I was thinking that I should wait until something gets finished before telling you about it. Then it occurred to me today that if I always do that then this blog will just be a series of massive gaps with the occasional "here's what I've got done" posts. Rubbish!

So, here's what I have been up to this past few days...

I decided to tackle the airing cupboard at the top of the stairs and see if I could find a cheaper alternative to the expensive three-section laundry basket I was coveting from Next. 

As you can see from the next photo, the inside isn't very tidy and could do with some thorough organisation and the relocation of several redundant or weirdly placed items. The plastic box on the middle shelf is actually my sewing stuff. I have no idea why this is kept with the towels, so don't ask. There must have been a logical reason at the time of putting it there!

Well, no thrifty alternative was forthcoming, so I splashed the cash and paid the £30 for the laundry basket. So far I am very impressed!! In fact, it could be the best £30 I've spent and that makes me depressed. Seriously though, it's amazing. Once the hubby was trained with regards to which colour clothing goes in which section (no I'm not joking) the system works really well!

No more having to sort the washing to find out that you don't have enough for the load you wanted to do. Just peek inside the cupboard and if the washing reaches the top of it's hamper section then it's ready to go! But there's no need to transfer the washing into a separate laundry carrying basket - oh no! Simply pick up the relevant section using the handles and carry it to the washer that way. Brilliant!

I am in love with this laundry basket.

Yes, you may mock me. I am aware of how sad that is.

Looking at that last photo it would seem that my airing cupboard would benefit from a little freshening up. I feel a lick of paint coming up, and maybe some flooring...

Speaking of painting cupboards. I've been doing the inside of my baby boy's cupboard/wardrobe/closet to make it all nice and clean looking. The husband has kindly adapted and added shelving to make it more practical and he's also knocking up some new doors from sheets of MDF.

Here's what it looks like right now:

It just needs a coat or two more of paint on the inside, the shelves need painting and the doors need painting and putting on.

This is our first priority right now cause our little boy is rapidly getting too big for his moses basket and needs to be put into his cot in his room very soon.

Here's what his room looks like right now. A mess! :o)

Well, I've run out of steam for this evening, but I have more photos to show you of half-finished projects we're on with at the moment. There's also the inside of my daughter's newly rearranged clothes drawers and a forthcoming large decorating project to tell you about.

Til next time! It won't be as long this time. I'm still learning! :o)

Mwah! x