Get ready...set...organize!

As many of you may know, I tend to be a little OCD, or as some of us say CDO (it's the letters in alpha order).  And with a baby on the way (it's really hard not to use her name) I know that things will be crazy and hectic and dirty and well, there just won't be time to do any of this awesome organization that I need to do.  So, what better time than, well, now?  Hopefully I can remember to do before and after pictures and remember to blog about it, but the real goal is to make things easier for when baby comes, get rid of stuff we are no longer using, wearing, or need, and to get clean. 

Places/things to organize (some big, some small, some will take a greater power (aka $$) and may not happen:

1.  Pantry.  This is the first on my list.  I had previously organized everything by shelf but since there was no real system or baskets/boxes to keep things in their place, it got messed up.  Now, I'm not blaming hubs, but someone in the household can't put things back where they got them.  And well the cats don't have thumbs.  So I am hoping to add some labels, baskets, boxes, and lazy susans (poor Susan, she got a bad rap).

2.  Kitchen cabinets/drawers.  We have a lot of items (pots, pans, forks, etc.) and we probably use the majority of it, but some we don't.  And those will be donated.  For the ones we do use, we need to keep them better organized so that we don't end up breaking, losing, or yelling at each other when one of us can't find the damn pot lid.

3.  Drawers at kitchen desk (do you sense a theme...?).  We have four drawers at our kitchen desk that contain various desk-type items:  address book, envelopes to be put into address book, batteries, notepads, pens, cords.  You name it, we probably have it.  So we just need to figure out what goes in what drawer and get a little more organized.

4.  Linen closet.  We have a TINY weird shaped linen closet.  No seriously.  It's tiny.  So I would like to adopt Martha's way of folding sheets and placing them INSIDE the pillow case.  But first, I will have to get rid of the old, stained, crap sheets.  At some point, hubbs will be building a slide out shelf for the laundry room and then we'll move extra linens to the top of the laundry room shelves.  Or so the plan is now.  But we shall see.

5.  Master bathroom vanity.  This just needs to get straightened up.  Along with the medicine cabinet (which doesn't have medicine - they say to not keep it in your bathroom due to humidity).

6.  Closet.  We have a ton of clothes.  We currently have three dressers and a walk-in closet.  Plus some of my non-pregnant clothes have moved to other closets.  So we need to figure out what we need, what we can re-purpose, or get rid of.  At some point we want to actually redo the closet with shelves and rods but that requires moolah.  So for now, we will clean up and hopefully reduce.

7.  Baby room.  This one will probably wait until after the baby shower in Oct.  There isn't much to organize yet.

8.  Office.  This one just needs to be cleaned and things need to be filed.  The closet needs to be reorganized.  But that requires putting together some shelving and well it's down here at number 8.

9.  Medicine/recipe cabinet in the kitchen.  Our medicine cabinet is actually in our kitchen.  We like.  But it needs to be revamped.  Old meds tossed and keepers reorganized.  The recipe cabinet hates me.  I am currently in the process of putting all magazine/printed recipes into sheet savers and then into binders.  Once I get the majority of them into binders I will actually organize the binders.  But well the whole second shelf is magazines so this may take awhile.  The good thing is that if we try a recipe and don't like it, we just toss it.  So we don't end up with tons of recipes we don't like.

10.  Basement.  This is more of a hubbs project.

11.  And then just a general cleaning.  We accumulate dust like nobody.  So that will be done.  And I think we will have a final clean in December (most likely by a service) to get a really good deep clean before baby.

So, first thing on the list...pantry...I tackle you this weekend.