Day 14 Under the Sink

This space is not very attractive. I tackled under my sink when my good friend, Ashley, told me about this challenge a few months ago. I added a basket for the hairdryer and flat iron and it fits over the cabinet door (BB&B around $13).

I thought I would tackle under the other sink in our bathroom. We keep the towels under there and a few other items.

After I took everything out and cleaned the cabinet I put a shelf in to utilize a little more vertical space. I didn't change much but it's nice to clean things and organize.

I have completed 14 of the 21 tasks! I am trying not to beat myself up over taking so long. I will keep focusing on the bigger picture, a less stressful, organized house! Woohoo!!

Day 13 Medicine Cabinet

Today's the day to clean out the medicine cabinet but since the medicine cabinet looks like this

I decided to clean out my messy bathroom drawers.

I think at some point I completely gave up on these and just started chunking stuff in them or maybe someone else around here decided to this for me. Ha! Does it really matter how they got this way at this point, NO! I got to work and pulled the drawers out and emptied them. I wiped all of them out and went through every item to ensure only things I really needed to keep went back into my drawers. One drawer was full of random jewelry some of which is leaving my possession and heading for either the garbage can or Isabelle's jewelry box. I even have some room in the bottom drawer!

It may have taken me longer to complete the 21 day challenge than I would have like BUT I am doing it and that is all that matters to me!

Day 17 The Mail

Are we the only ones to receive other people's mail regularly? We have been getting mail for Mabel Foster in the last three house we've lived in, SERIOUSLY! Needless to say with six members in our family we get a good bit of mail. I try to stay on top of it but I fail consistently. I liked the "Mail Center" I saw on BFOL blog so I pretty much duplicated it.

I have high hopes with school starting of utilizing this to keep up with our abundance of daily mail. I found this really cute container with pretty pansies to motivate me.

Another challenge down and 9 more to go!!

Day 16 The Fridge

All I can say is G-R-O-S-S!! I was completed disgusted by our fridge! I guess I was so disgusted I forgot to take before pictures. Just take my word for it when I say it was absolutely nasty! I had to work with my kids under my feet all day today so I did not take everything out but moved things around and worked on a little at a time. I pulled EVERY piece out of the fridge and scrubbed it. I ended up throwing out a few items and making homes for some items. Overall, it took me a few hours with my on and off helpers but I think it looks great!

It is very nice to have a clean and organized fridge! At this point I have completed 12 of the challenges!

Day 11 The Freezer

Our freezer was DIRTY and very disorganized.

I put everything in a cooler and pulled out the tub and pizza shelf to scrub them in the sink. I found a small basket to put the frozen veggies in and put the boxed items and ice cream in the drawer with the ice maker.

It now feels fabulous to open the freezer! I still need to complete a few more days but I'm very proud of what I've accomplished! (Yes, those are frozen bananas. I need to make some banana bread very soon!)

Day 10 Laundry Room

Today I tackled this challenge between getting Ethan to a play date at his school and dealing with Dillan having a stomach virus. I had allowed the dryer to become a catch-all and the cabinets were FULL. Our laundry room is a semi-hallway and I really want to renovate it. Our budget is not allowing me to take the space available to make a "dream" laundry room for now but maybe one day...

I pulled everything out and cleaned the shelves. There were some things I was able to throw away. Overall it took a little time and effort but I am very happy with the outcome since our laundry "room" is off the kitchen and our access to the garage.

For now I will enjoy my organized laundry "room" and keep dreaming of a larger space with front loaders.

Day 7 The Pantry

Sometimes life takes over and you just have to roll with it until you decide to do something different. Today we did something fabulously different! I have been taking a photography class on Monday nights and Tim has graciously made his schedule so he could be available to take care of the kids each week. Tonight upon my return I find him working hard on rearranging hanging items (broom, vacuum hoses, et cetera) in our pantry to make room for the plastic drawers I repurposed. I was extremely grateful for the help because this is what our pantry was looking like at this point.

Obviously gremlins took over our pantry and made a huge mess! Since we were cleaning everything we decided to try some items in different locations. It's always nice to change things around and forget where you put them LOL! It took a few hours but it is beyond worth it! Amazingly we have plenty of paper towels and very little food other than canned goods. However, it was easier to make the changes while food supplies were LOW.

We have all the items labeled even if they're empty right now. Each person has a cereal keeper and hopefully we'll keep our cereal tasty and not stale! Some areas may be rearranged further once I get some groceries but we tried to think of everything and make a place for it.

I saw someone else's fabulously organized pantry and loved the glass jars they used. I made the labels for them with my cricut and some vinyl. I really like them and think they turned out nice. I think we did a great job especially in just a few hours! My husband is awesome for jumping in and helping me accomplish Day 7 The PANTRY! Plus he fixed all of Dillan's broken dresser drawers and the wooden dividers I bought for our drawers! I am a very blessed wife! I hope to accomplish several days tomorrow since summer is disappearing before my eyes (super sad about that fact)

Day 12 Spice Cabinet

I couldn't sleep. I think I had too much Coke zero... I figured if I was up I might as well get another challenge knocked out but I better not go overboard in case I got too tired to finish. I looked at the options that would least disturb my sleeping family. Our spice cabinet needed some sprucing up for sure!

I pulled everything out and checked the expiration dates. Out of date spices went in the trash along with ones without an expiration if I couldn't recall purchasing it. I have the spices on a lazy susan since our cabinet has a deep reach-in. After cleaning it I placed as many spices on it as I could and the rest were placed in a labeled basket. I also made a basket to keep our coffee supplies together.

I have an addiction to Southern Living Christmas books (I quit accepting them a long time ago but can't part with these, yet). I left my collection in the top of the cabinet.

Another one bites the dust! I'm excited to have this done!

Day 8 Coat Closet

I decided to jump ahead to Day 8 because I had a little time and this area was not as overwhelming as Day 6 A Million Dresser Drawers or Day 7 The PANTRY! Even though this closet is small it had accumulated many extra items! I emptied it of "everything" and made quick work of checking which coats still fit or could be handed down.

I already had some rubbermaid storage for pictures in the top of this closet and Tim has a box or two up there, too! We have a few musical instruments stored in here from Tim's youth that he's saving in case one of the kids wants to play sax. I have a few coats needing to find new homes and I removed a few items that truly need to be stored somewhere else.

I put all of our gloves, scarves, and hats in the basket to keep them wrangled. I am very happy to have tackled another challenge! Six challenges completed and fifteen more to go!

Day 6 Dresser Drawers Part 2

I'm still working on all the dresser drawers...Today I have Ethan's to show-off. I would show Dillan's, too, but he seems to have broken his dresser drawers(life in a house with a destructive boy?). Anyway, must move on... Here is Ethan's drawers before I got to them.

I cleaned out the boys' drawers a while back but it needed to be updated with things needing to be removed he had outgrown. It honestly only took about 30 minutes to get to this:

I will have to get Tim to fix Dillan's dresser drawer so I can get them done. It's getting there, slowly but surely!