Clean Up

As much as I would love to organize my life and keep it that way, I have a terrible time doing it.
The first problem is procrastination, of course. I put it off and I have to dig in the moment the mood strikes, otherwise I will never do it. The second problem is a lack of places to put things. My life is compartmentalized into a bedroom at my parents’ house with a twin bed I’ve had since I was 13. I have to work with a very small space. Even the things I keep at Brad’s, it’s all one room. And since I’m 26, my collection of things has grown a lot.
I think I’m getting better with having places to put things. Today was the first day I’ve felt healthy since last week.
I brewed up a big cup of coffee and set to trashing, organizing, dusting and clearing out my room for a good 8 hours.

One of the best parts about these big clean ups is remembering the little things I have.
I got to look through old pictures and notebooks.
I got inspired to do things just by seeing what I have to work with.

Of course, I had to take pictures.

 
 
 
 
  
 
 

I am so proud of the progress I’ve made.
And I’m excited that I found those cute note cards…I’ve decided to start sending random mail to friends, happy little things to receive aside from junk and bills. I hope it starts a fun chain of cute mail.
I also found some great pictures of my friends and of Brad and I, from the very beginning of us.
It’s so nice to know that next time I want to go down memory lane, I’ll know where to look.

A Place for Everything

Over the weekend, Brad got into a cleaning/organization frenzy and he created this little drink station.
It’s so cute, and it has so much more potential. Lou was talking about getting hooks for the back part of the shelving, so that they can hang a few mugs. There are so many mugs in the house (we have a bit of an obsession, and I don’t plan on stopping it anytime soon), most of them worthy of display. The collection of K-Cups, beans, grounds, and teabags also continues to grow.

I can’t wait to have something like this in my own little space. Until then, I’ll enjoy this.

I edited this photo using Afterlight (which is the new name for Afterglow) and Overgram, which is a fun app that helps you add words to your photos!

Operation Organization–Part Two

Once again, I embarrass myself on this website. (Whatever, it’s real life, and I’m making improvements!)

Hello, and welcome to one of the messiest, if not the messiest, part of my room! I’ll credit the mess to my excessive shopping and extreme lack of storage. I actually had a bigger closet in my on-campus apartment in college, believe it or not. But let’s not forget the main reason I’ve let everything get so bad in the first place…laziness.

For a while, I’ve wanted a garment rack. Before this little Tupperware pile began, most of the clothes there were on what I called a “makeshift closet.” It was a wire hanger that was stretched to hang over the top of the closet door and had several other hangers hanging from it. Needless to say, it eventually stretched out, everything fell off, and I just couldn’t do it again. Off to Bed, Bath, and Beyond I went.
In addition to the garment rack, I decided to get a nice shoe rack as well. I was still utilizing one of those compartmentalized shoe holders that you hang from the closet with Velcro straps. It was okay, but it left a lot of my shoes without a home.

The end result:

I’m so glad to finally have a garment rack. It’s just a simple one that was easy to put together. But now I can display my favorite items without having them get all squished and wrinkly in the closet. Bonus: There’s more room in the closet! I also took the opportunity to get a bag of clothes and shoes ready to donate. There’s still a lot more to go through, my dresser and armoire, but at least those things are put away.
I needed to clean up the huge mess infiltrating the floor.

Ultimately, there’s a lot more work and organizational skills I could utilize to make the best out of my tiny closet space.
But I’m proud of the work I’ve done now.

I’m not sure when Part Three will commence. The next thing I’m on the hunt for is a bookshelf or some of those organizational cubes.
I need a place to display my collection of books (duh) and DVDs. Don’t worry…you’ll see that mess soon enough.

Operation Organization–Part One

Warning: The following photo is very embarrassing for me and probably disturbing for you.

Since I had Monday off, I decided to start attacking one of my little resolution/life changes – Organizing. I actually did this around the same time last year and, while I made a bit of a dent, everything fell right back into  (the wrong) place. I could blame a lot of things.
Not enough storage space. The closet’s not big enough. I don’t have time. I spend 75% of the week at Brad’s place. But the truth is…well, it’s sheer laziness that holds me back. While I may spend time at Brad’s, my bedroom is still my place. And it’s become more of a burden than a sanctuary. A place I just sleep in. There is nothing inspiring about it, cozy or comforting about it. As you can see above, I let clutter infest my life. And, while it is embarrassing to display this on the interweb for anyone to see, it needs to be seen. Because I’m a normal human. Well, scratch that. An extremely lazy human. Who needs to clean up her act, in so many ways.

After a couple of cups of coffee, I played happy tunes and set a timer for 20 minutes to see how much I could get done with this tiny but significant space of my room. I kept resetting the timer, as I was still very much in the mood to get everything done (and because 20 minutes wasn’t enough and all the stuff you see above was on my bed, a counter-productive tactic that needed to be fixed). And here’s what I did:

There’s still a lot going on here, but everything has it’s place now.
No empty medicine bottles or papers that are months old and are no longer necessary to have.

I had a lot of cute little prints and pictures that were hidden by all the junk.
Usually I would just balance them against things on my dresser, but it was time some of these things were put on display.

Same thing with my instax film. I have SO MANY PICTURES and they are just in a little pile. I need a cute place to store them.
I decided to pick out my favorite ones and display them, to give my room a more personal feel.

And now that my dresser is organized, I can show you the cute lazy susan-style nail polish holder that Brad made for me for Christmas. It is the cutest thing in the world, and the perfect way to display my favorite colors. And now I can actually spin the thing.

I’m also keeping extra nail polish and nail thingees in this cute tin I bought for $2.50 at Target. Also utilizing my Hello Kitty jewelry box (another Christmas present, from my coworker) to stash earrings and necklaces that were in the boxes they came in, all piled up.

And, last but not least, my cameras are finally back on display. They were covered with crap. The camily is back!
For now, I’ll be displaying my soon-to-be-read books at the corner of the dresser until I get a bookshelf. There were so many books, paperbacks and hardcovers, crowding the middle of the dresser. I can’t wait to pick up some things that will truly help organize my room and show off the little collections I have at the same time.

‘Til then, this is all that’s been done. But I’m proud of the little bit of progress I made, and I can’t wait to show you more!