Four days, four drawers: Day one

Hi, all. I debuted my own blog series this week, but now I'm participating in a new organizing challenge with Jen Jones at I Heart Organizing! Have you ever been to her blog? If you haven't, you should.

The challenge is simple- everyday for four days, you re-organize one drawer and you take a before and after picture. Post your pics on Instagram with the hashtag #4days4drawers.

So far, I am two days into the challenge. I've reorganized the top drawer of our changing table, and my hubby's sock drawer. There are two more drawers I'll be organizing this week as well.

Here is a before shot of the baby's changing table drawer. It wasn't too bad, but there was far too much in this drawer.

When I started the drawer contained these items: a basket of diapers, two boxes of wipes, pack of Hand and Face wipes, pack of Boogie wipes, paci, nail clippers, thermometer, powder, three different tubes of diaper creams, three nasal aspirators, and four tubes of Diaper Genie refills.

I took everything out of it, lined it with some pretty gift wrap I got at Homegoods, and put back into the drawer only what I needed.


I pared down the drawer so that the items I had doubles of were now down to singles. I left the giant tub of diapers, one box of wipes, 1 pack each of the Hand and Face wipes and Boogie wipes, two Diaper Genie refills, and a small basket filled with clippers, comb and brush, thermometer, powder, one nasal aspirator, and one tube of diaper cream. I also added some cleaning items- Lysol wipes, Febreeze Air Effects spray, and dirty diaper sacks.

Behold! The big picture!

This is soooo much better! Way less cluttery and way easier to find everything! Tune in tomorrow for my day two post. And if you participate in this challenge, don't forget your hashtag!

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Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

Organizing: My home office

Remember yesterday when I showed you this mess in my office?

We had several systems in our office that worked quite nicely for managing our finances and schedule, but lately, we have gotten lazy. What you see here is a pile of things that includes mail, owners manuals, and balloons from my daughter's birthday party. 

Today, while my kiddo slept, I made sure to tackle this mess. I started out by separating out the pile. What needed to be shredded? What needed to put away in its rightful place? What needed to be thrown away? 

I shredded some things, thrown some things away, and put away the balloons. I then put the owner's manuals back into our handy dandy file box where we store them all. 

By the way, this is just a plastic file box with some scrapbook paper modge podged onto it and an ornate book plate. 

This is my sewing machine (which I use for a desk often) with a now much neater top. The polka dot binder is actually our home management binder. 

I took the opportunity to neaten up our command center as well. 

I shredded some things, filed some things, and threw some things away. The letter bins house these items, from left to right: bills that are due, bills we have paid and are waiting to clear, and things that need to be filed. The picture frames serve these functions: weekly cleaning checklist, things to remember (usually which bills need to be paid and when they are due), weekly schedule for the current week, and weekly menu. 

This is how we structure our command center calendar: important events (often birthdays) are written in black. Anything having to do with hubby is red, anything having to do with me is green, and anything having to do with our kids is green. As you can see, our daughter is the busiest member of our house! 

Our desktop still could be a little more clean, but for now, it is much neater than it was yesterday. 

Next year, this room is going to change drastically. There will be hardwood floors and floor to ceiling built in shelves. We are hoping to make it more of a sitting room and less of an office. 

Introducing the monthly organizing challenge!

The four-week "wait no more" challenge has ended, but there are still so many areas of our home that need organizing. During the four week challenge, we organized the playroom, my daughter's closet, the pantry and my daughter's dresser. Those areas are still looking great. In addition to those areas, the dining room, kitchen, and our bathrooms are still fairly organized. However, our nursery, the office, the master bedroom closets, the laundry room, and the garage are huge problem areas.

The nursery is still under construction, so there isn't much I can really do in there until the closet organizer is installed and the painting is finished. I have begun to organize the dresser, and we are planning to finish the room by the end of August, when I go back to work. The nursery closet is absolutely terrible right now. I like to call this organized chaos. The baskets across the top are organized, and the clothing items are hung in order of size. The fabric bins are organized. There just isn't a shelf for them yet, so it looks like this:

The master bedroom closets are in need of one more closet rod added on my side, and then it's just a matter of packing away what isn't needed right now and using the space to store what we do need.

The laundry room is a matter of adding another shelf or cabinets, and clearing out the clutter.

The office is just a matter of putting away things in the proper place.

The garage is a huge mess (sorry, no picture. It's too hot right now). This one started out good, but boy, does it need some help now.

So, what I'm trying to say is, since these are bigger projects, I'm going to do one a month. The bigger projects, like the garage and laundry room, will be down the list. Here is how I intend to do this:

July: Office and closets
August: Nursery
September: Laundry room
October: Garage

I'll call it the "Monthly organizing challenge," and I'll even have a link party to go along with it. Let me know if you're in!

21-day organizing challenge: Week Three Recap

This marks the final post of the 21-day organizing challenge. I hope you have enjoyed the challenge, as have I. Thank you for being patient with me during the 21-day challenge. During this 21-day period, I have been swamped at work, my dad has dealt with a lot of health issues, and we’ve experienced the hospitalization and eventual death of another relative. To say our plates have been full is an understatement.  Rather than my family taking a back seat, I’d much rather my blog take a back seat. Now that things have calmed down, you can be sure we will be back on a regular schedule now.

21-day organizing challenge: Week one recap

Things have truly gotten busy at the Boone house in the past two weeks. In fact, I've barely had the time to DO the 21-day challenge, much less blog about it. I have done the challenge, though, and I've decided instead of making a DAILY post about the challenge, I'll do a weekly post. 

Originally, I had written days one and two as two separate posts, but for the sake of reading, I decided to make it easier. I also back-dated a few posts into weekly posts so I wouldn’t have to write one big, long, exhausting post. In the first week of the 21-day organizing challenge, we organized all of the following spaces in our house: kitchen cabinets, pantry and coat closet, entry way, desk and home office, bathroom cabinets, and linen closet. 

Tis the Season to Re-organize

Christmas: 'Tis the Season to Celebrate our Savior. New Year's Day: 'Tis the season to make changes for the better.  Here at the Boone house, New Years 'Tis the Season to clean, put away Christmas decor, and re-organize.

Common Sense Cleaning: Cleaning with Kids

Welcome to my final installment of Common Sense Cleaning. Thank your bearing with me- I've enjoyed sharing my cleaning tips. You've patiently read along as I discussed cleaning all the living spaces in my home, both inside and out. I thank you for that. At times, I felt like I was repeating myself and I hope I didn't bore you too badly. 

Common Sense Cleaning: Outdoor Spaces

Cleaning doesn't just refer to the inside of your home. A house that looks clean from the outside looks inviting and cozy. 

Common Sense Cleaning: Living Areas and Bedrooms

We are nearing the end of our "Common Sense Cleaning" series. I wanted to make sure I covered all areas of our house, so I am going to talk today about cleaning our living areas. As always, they are cleaned a little at a time by utilizing a daily chore checklist and monthly deep cleaning chores. 

Common Sense Cleaning: Kitchen and Dining Rooms

As with any project or task, it's best to do a little at a time instead of waiting to do it all at once. If I don't clean my kitchen a little every day, I can easily spend two hours at a time just cleaning my kitchen. The entire point of this series is to share tips for having a clean house without losing all your spare time to cleaning. 

Common Sense Cleaning: Cleaning Supplies and How to Organize Them

Cleaning supplies that are organized are easier to find, thus making the task a little easier. I find when my cleaning supplies are easy to find, I clean more frequently.

First, let me explain that there will be some changes to my cleaning supplies in the near future: changes in how they are organized, and changes in what I use. We are in the process of becoming a chemical free house, and I haven't decided yet if I want to make my own cleaners or buy organic cleaners. I decided to start small and make one homemade cleaner in the meantime.

Common Sense Cleaning: Deep cleaning days

You've all seen my weekly cleaning schedule. However, there are a few chores that I do monthly, but don't include on that schedule. Due to my husband's job, he is on call every other week. This means he cannot leave the county. Emorie and I could and he would be ok with this, but we generally use those Saturdays as a good opportunity to get things done around the house. Yesterday, I did just that. Emorie was at a play date with her cousin, so I got to work.

Deep cleaning days are just like a mini-21 day challenge. I love it because it gives me extra time to get to those chores that don't quite need to be done weekly, but need to be done more than every other month.

Common Sense Cleaning: Cleaning Schedule

Most of us employ some sort of cleaning strategy. I used to do all my cleaning on Saturday mornings, but I'm a meticulous cleaner, so this proved to be a problem.

[Source: Some E Cards]

New beginnings, new endeavors

Hi, all. I'm Angela. Ever since childhood, I've been just a tiny bit obsessed with cleaning and organizing. It followed me into adulthood. I know my penchant for having "a place for everything and everything in its place" makes me hard to live with, but the time not spent looking for something makes it totally worth it. As crazy as it sounds, cleaning and organizing are my hobbies (don't worry, I have others, too). Let's get one thing clear before I post any more entries, though. I'm a working mother and wife who, like everyone else, is struggling to find the balance.  I'm not domestic goddess, I'm not an expert, I'm not June Cleaver, and I'm not Suzy Homemaker. All I'm doing is sharing what is working at my house and hoping to pick up a few more tips along the way.