Extra Shelves For A Closet

I tweaked another closet for better organization!

I had three shallow plastic shelves from my last closet makeover. It was either make use of them or donate. I found a use for two on our master closet shelf.

Here's what the shelf of our master closet looked like before. Mostly our jeans and shorts in stacks.  An advantage of minimal wardrobe is that it's not hard to find the few things you have in a small stack or two. 

I added one shelf to each side. Three would not fit. 

On this side I put my shorts and capris on the top and jeans and a hat on the bottom. 

My husband gets the rest of the shelf. From left to right on the bottom: sweater, jeans, pajama shorts and some miscellaneous items.  Shorts and ball caps on top of the white shelf.

Not super fancy at all, but it looks neater.! We'll see how we it works. 

What do you store on the top shelf of your closet? 

Making Room For Books

We've lived in our new place for six months and these are the last two boxes that needed to be unpacked. In the last house they had a bookshelf that they resided on, but that bookshelf was on its last legs and was tossed before we moved. Thus when we arrived they had no home. It was time to make a home! 

You might ask why not buy a new bookshelf. That is a potential option, but a bookshelf will take up more floor space that we want it to in this particular room. 

This is my oldest daughter's room and a guest room since she is away at college most of the time. She still has a lot of sentimental keepsakes that we are storing for her right now. The first two photos are how I set it up after we moved in. It was similar to how she stored things in prior closets. 

I found several hangers, a pair of shoes, her graduation gown, some white plastic shelves and a fluffy stuffed ball to donate. I think there is far more that can go, but she needs to do that work next time she is here. I did have her permission to donate the items. 

This is where the plastic shelf from our front entry closet was moved to. The right side of the closet to store the books, which I stacked on two shelves. I put the items that had been on a lower set of shelves on the bottom. 

I made some adjustments of things on the left side, too. I moved the green and blue bins from the floor to the shelf. This made room for some of the art pads and picture frames to be leaned against the far left wall on the floor. And there is still some great space for hanging a few clothing items when guests arrive. I'm thinking the white shoe holder can probably go...it's empty! 

It feels so good to finally have emptied the last two boxes from our move! 

Do you store books in your closet? 

Reorganizing the Front Closet

About a week ago, I decided to reorganize our front entry closet. I'm sure this is at least the third time since we moved in. It takes time to get it just right after moving!

The first photo is a mid process photo. I got started before I remembered to take pictures. The plastic shelf was holding our cat carrier on top and board games on the middle two shelves and some miscellaneous boxes on the bottom shelf. There are four dining room chairs, two table leaves, and a folding chair to the left in the closet.

The first step was to remove the plastic shelf and relocate the games. I put the games in another hallway closet where there was plenty of room! I found two items to let go of in the process of moving them. I may be able to stack up higher all on one shelf at some point. I'm happy with it for now!

I'll show you where the plastic shelf went in a future post. I did find a use for it! 

Here are the three after photos.

It's hard to tell from the before photos, but I ended up making more use of the built in shelves. Good idea right? Pictures had been flat, and carrier was on the plastic shelf unit. I'll be honest there are few things on that shelf that I kind of think we no longer need...but this reorganization is progress!

The table leaves are leaning against the back wall behind the coats. And I did leave some boxes on the floor for convenience. 

My before photo didn't show that all four of the dining chairs were stuffed to the left of the closet. We have two that are upside down and resting on ones that are upright. Now, I have two on each side of the hanging items which are centered for easy accessibility. I've made use of the space on the chairs to store bags and some mailing and packing materials. 

This picture below shows a speaker system we are attempting to sell, but that is the area where the other set of chairs had been stored before. It's a deep closet, but I like that almost everything is along the back wall now.

 In one home, I stored them under the stairs to the basement. I loved that place for storing them! Our last house had a large dining rooms so we just moved them to the corners for storage. We are back to needing them out of our dining space unless we expand the table. Do you have extra chairs and table leaves that you have to store? Where do you store yours? 

15 Minute Challenge: Progress on A Project

I have a project I want to complete with a deadline of the middle of June. Specifically, I want to put together a photo book for my husband for Father's Day. The book will include pictures of him with our two daughters. It's a big project, that will likely take hours.

I'm going to break some of the steps down into 15 minute blocks of time.

Today I spent 15 minutes pulling out photos.

These two boxes represent the printed photos I own from about 1996 to 2005. Previously, I had turned some photos vertically. These are ones I identified a couple months ago that could be the start of this project.

Today, I used scrap pieces of paper to note the description and date of the photos as a place marker in the box. I need to scan the photos, and I want to know where to return them in the box.

I was able to complete this task in 15 minutes. 

As you can see I have my pile set aside for scanning. 

I just realized, as I write this, that I could have scanned the photos straight from the box one at a time! Too late now, as they are pulled out! But next time, that would be my alternative plan.

Next time I work on this project, I will be scanning photos to the online program I plan to use. Probably in increments of 15 minutes at a time. 

Do you have a large project you could work on in 15 minute blocks of time? 

Tell me about what you completed when you set your timer for 15 minutes? 

15 Minute Challenge: A Variety of Tasks

In today's report of my 15 Minute Challenge, I have variety for you!

Some days I know exactly what I will do in 15 Minutes, other days I'm really just winging it. Today, I set the timer and looked around to see what I could get done. 

I pulled the crumb tray from under the toaster and emptied it.

I wiped clean the front of my oven.

I took an item that I found inside out to our detached garage. I brought in a stool from the garage and used it to reach the top of the refrigerator...it needed a good dusting. I took the stool back to the garage and realized I should clean the window on the door to the house. 

I cleaned both sides of the glass. The door itself needs cleaning, but that's another day.

I refilled my Method cleaner. 

And I started a load of laundry. 

At this point I had one minute to spare!

How's that for a little variety? 

Did you complete a 15 minute task today? Or did you do many tasks in your 15 minutes? 

15 Minute Challenge: Dreaded Bathroom Floor

My 15 Minute Challenge today was a real challenge. More mentally, than physically, to be honest. Except for vacuuming I dislike cleaning floors.

 I had to clean the bathroom floor because the toilet had previously had a small leak and was fixed the day prior. The floor needed to be deep cleaned. And since it's a rental it actually has little paint flecks all over it that I have been intending to clean ever since we moved in.

I set my timer for 15 minutes, gathered supplies and started scrubbing. I could have been done with the needed cleaning after 7.5 minutes, but my timer was still going and I wanted to remove those paint drips from the tiles. 

The only thing keeping me going to be very honest was the timer and knowing that I was reporting this task to you. It was not fun and honestly not that satisfying. But I DID IT, even though I didn't really want to. In fact I have about four tiles (behind the door) that still need to be done, but I was just done after 15 minutes. I'll get back to it another time. It's clean and better than when I started. 

Did you use your 15 minutes to get a dreaded task complete? Tell me about what you did today for the 15 Minute Challenge. 

15 Minute Challenge: Decluttering

The 15 Minute Challenge can incorporate all types of things, even decluttering!

I might suggest if you only want to declutter for 15 minutes, do NOT empty an entire dresser or closet. You most likely will not get through that amount in a short time and may end up with all the things left out after 15 minutes. This is likely to overwhelm you. Look for small areas you know that YOU can manage in 15 minutes.

I decided to check look in this piece of furniture first. I sort of use it as a desk right now, or at least a place to store desk like items.

 A preview of what is in there...

This closet is nearby. I wasn't expecting to find much in either area, so for me these two areas were pretty manageable in 15 minutes.

I started at the top and worked my way down in the cabinet. I found something in every spot to remove. I did a little rearranging as I went. It is often better to just pull what you don't use and need. You can reorganize later! 

Here's the cabinet after...

The items on the top of the cabinet were eventually relocated to other areas of our home. I found a pair of broken readers, a couple boxes and an old key to toss from the cabinet.

The picture below represents what I pulled out of the closet to let go of...lots and lots of packaging materials. I really save far too much! Two small decorative jars I no longer want and a computer bag I will attempt to sell (it's in nearly new condition). 

The timer did go off soon after I took the picture above, so I did have to spend a few additional minutes getting these items to the recycling, trash and donate bin. 

Here's what the closet looks like after. I rearranged a little, but it looks very similar. I think there will need to be some reorganizing in this closet at some point. I'm not very happy with the set up currently. I need a do over! Maybe later this month. 

Do you have an area you think you could declutter in 15 minutes? Or maybe you could just set the timer and wander from area to area pulling items to donate for 15 minutes. 

Tell me about what you accomplished in 15 minutes today!