Laundry Closet: Chaos to Order

One side effect from my new found obsession with Pinterest is that I am aware how woefully unorganized I am! For those of you that know my husband, he thinks I'm crazy.  It's funny though.  In my family (okay, E's family), I'm known as the super-organized person, the person that gives other people advice on how to organize their space.  Sidenote: I dream of creating my own company where I provide organization services for people.  Too bad I can't charge what my firm bills me out at... Pipe dreams.

Anyway, Pinterest is giving me a complex! There are so many people out there with so many fabulously organized, neat and clean spaces.  They also have professional photography skills because their photos are spot-on.  My photos?  Well, you'll see in a second.  This past week, I just couldn't take it anymore.  My laundry closet, my bathroom, under my kitchen sink, my hall closet... ALL A MESS!  I thought to myself, yes, these spaces do irritate me to no end.  Yes, I need to fix them immediately. (Cue re-organizing my bathroom at 10:30pm on a Monday night after studying for 11 hours (6 of which were spent taking a practice full-day of the bar exam).  Post on that sucker later—one of the shelves in the bathroom is unusable and has to be reinstalled by my apt complex).

So, this post: The Laundry Closet

Before (I cannot believe I'm showing you my secret mess):

Pericles photo-bombed.  The cats aren't allowed in our laundry closet for obvious reasons and so when I opened it, they came running!

Pure chaos.

Something needed to be done.  Especially when beautiful photos like this are out there. Also, I somehow had to fit that large pack of paper towels in there.  The dryer was completely frustrating to run because you had to dodge the pile of crappola in front of the dials.  The hangers were in the way. I'm not sure why we have so many gallon size plastic bags and travel kitty litter (seriously, they cost like $4. Throw. it. out.).  So, yes, this space wasn't working at all.

Enter Target and 15 minutes of time. (No, really, it only took 15 minutes).

After (I wish I had those photography skillz I mentioned earlier):

More photo-bombing from the cats. This time Celeste.

Angels sang and a light came down from the heavens.

Okay, so, because I am terrible as a photographer, this does not look that great, but I'll tell you, the functionality is SO MUCH BETTER.  For one, everything has a place and unsightly jumbled messes are hidden in nice bins. Second, I can use the dryer without ANYthing in the way!

So, what are you looking at here?  The two green plastic bins are from Target (in stores now for $5.99 and in several colors.  I also bought 2 black ones for recycling) and the white weave basket on the bottom right is also from Target but is a steeper $7.99.  The rest, I already had.  Word to the wise: Always keep all your bins, tupperwares, etc. because you never know when you can repurpose them for something else.  I'm pretty sure that all the bins/baskets/drawers have been used in other capacities over the last 4 years.

In summary,
Cost: $20
Time: 15 minutes
Verdict: Awesome

After I finished the project, Erik exclaimed (no, really, he did) his great pleasure at having the laundry area cleaned up (not sure why he was sooo happy since I do all the laundry... but I'll take it).  Apparently, the laundry closet had been grating on him for awhile, he just didn't say anything about it!  I would say our happiness has increased by 7 points (on a 100 point scale).

I did this on a Saturday morning (having gone to Target earlier in the week) and was just in one of those moods.  So, while we facetimed with Erik's mom for a tour of our apartment (she lives in Chicago and hadn't seen it yet), the mood struck me to organize under our kitchen sink.  Yeah, I think I should study for the bar more often too.  I'm sure some therapist would tell me that I have the need to organize and nest because I can have control over that and I have no control over the bar exam.  Maybe we just are happier in a clean, organized environment? Plus, I have to be at home ALL DAY studying, so I might as well love it.

So anyway, back to Saturday morning.  Erik was talking to his mom about work or something so I got to work under the kitchen sink. Sorry, no before pictures, but you can imagine.

After:

We take our trash out every day and produce less than this little trashcan of trash since we recycle so much. (We only take the trash out every day because we clean the litter every day).

Okay, so not all those paper towels fit in the laundry closet...
Obviously, I removed the trashcan and the cat food.

I like this because all the seldom-used items are in the way back barely useful corner of the cabinet. The teal bucket holds our Safeway shopping bags, which double as trashbags for us.  I also like that all the things I use on a regular basis are in one spot, unobstructed.

Cost: $0 (because I reused some things that were freed up from the laundry area and the bathroom makeover)
Time: 10 minutes
Verdict: About time

Sometimes, we just have those "ah, ha" moments where we wonder, why in the world were we living with that aggravation?