Why be organized?

To me, being organized gives purpose and structure to a space! I grew up with extremely hard working parents who each had very different jobs, but both taught me the art of being clean and organized!

My dad sold cars for 25+ years as a part time job in the evenings and on Saturdays. I remember spending Saturdays with my dad washing, cleaning, and detailing cars. He was organized with his keys in that they were in the cupboard in order of how they were parked. Of course there was a tag that had the year, make and model of the car as well, but it definitely made it quicker to find!

My mom was custodian of our church for 8 years and kept a structured schedule of what she cleaned on what days to be sure everything was cleaned on a routine basis. Want to know the most tedious??? Vacuuming between all of the pews AND dusting all of the pews!!

As an adult, why am I organized?? Because otherwise I would go CRAZY! I am a mother of 6 children ages 6 and under. I also work full time and manage the house flipping and blogging businesses on the side. Keeping my house and schedules organized provides structure to my home and provides me sanity.

Working on Organizing my OWN home

Since I am on maternity leave from having our last set of twins 7 weeks ago, I am at home WAY more than I was prior to having them being I was working 40 hours a week and finishing Flip #4. I have been investing more time into my own house because I take pride in providing a nice home for my family.

My main living area got a quick make over just a month ago when we learned FOX 17 news would be coming to interview us after I had our third set of twins. We finished painting, swapped out furniture, hung new pictures, bought a couple décor items, and hung new curtains over a weekend. If you didn’t catch our story, you can view it here.

In my home, I have a ‘cubby’ area between my living room and dining room that houses the kids’ games, coloring books, play doh, crafts, devotional books, you name it…..it is in there. I have cleaned that area more times than I can count and within a couple weeks time, it is an absolute disaster with things falling off the shelves.

DRIVES. ME. NUTS!!

The Problem Area

Before:

Believe it or not, these shelves were straightened out just a couple weeks ago and already stuff is falling off the bottom shelf. UGH! I was ready to tackle these shelves and get them organized for good!!

How did I do it?

The reality of organizing this space with 6 kids playing….impossible. I was going on day 3 of trying to get it done when I decided to call in the reinforcements…..Grandma! When Grandma comes, we get stuff DONE.

We emptied every shelf and I sorted everything into piles. There was a pile for puzzles, crafts, games, coloring, play doh, books and misc. With everything organized into piles in front of me, I could then visualize where I wanted everything to go. First though we wiped down all the shelves.  Then I started placing each group of items into their new area. The items that I do not want them to be able to reach went on the top shelf…..paint being the main one. Then I placed all of the paper, stickers, and games in easy to reach places because that is what my kids do most on those rainy days. I did end up relocating a majority of our puzzles to the hall closet and only kept a few in the cubby area.

Our NEW Space

• Top shelf: All of our painting and coloring supplies as well as the devotional books
• Second shelf down: Lots of games!! One of my 4 year olds LOVES games!
• Third shelf down: A few more games, middle basket of matching games, far right basket is all the play-doh with the bucket of cutters in front of it
• Bottom shelf: scrap paper for crafting, tin of pencils, pens, and markers; far right–a few puzzles 🙂

It has been a week and my shelves still look like this! The kids love that they can find what they are looking for. I am DETERMINED that this will stay looking great. 🙂

What do you think?