Well, let's give this old blogging thing a try. Apparently I'm a little late to the game, as people have been blogging for forever in internet years (is an internet year even a real thing? Can we compare it to a dog year?). Whatever your calculative terms are, I'm sure blogging will be completely old news by the time I even get around to publishing this first post. Oh well. At least my mom will enjoy it.
So. Where to begin? I've been taking pictures and keeping a running tab in my head for the past few years of a lot of the DIY projects I've completed around the house. Besides random Facebook posts with snarky comments, I've yet to document these projects in any meaningful way. Something, (ahem, work) has always gotten in the way.
Let's start off today with a recent project, shall we? This quick project involves coupons and magazines. UGH. Anybody else have such a problem getting rid of these two things? I hope I'm not the only one who has a tiny little piece of my brain that never turns off, telling me, "Hey, you really might need that tip in that article, and you DEFINITELY will need that JoAnn's coupon." Keeping these things creates a major problem that really makes me unhappy when I walk through the front door, though: countertop clutter. And really, who wants to be unhappy in their own house?
I began browsing around Pinterest (seriously, how did the crafters of the world LIVE before this site??) and found a few solutions that seemed both doable and inexpensive. I already had this letter bin from Pottery Barn in my kitchen, but couldn't justify spending several hundred dollars to buy coordinating pieces to finish the look. I wasn't interested in a whiteboard calendar, either- who has time to erase and write in a new month every thirty days??
I made a mental note to myself to begin looking for wall bins while out at the usual places: Target, Meijer, Homegoods, Lowes. If you're looking for organization solutions like this, remember to really think about what you need to organize first. Nothing is worse than buying a bunch of things you think you'll use to make your life easier, and then leaving them empty because they don't really target the problem you're looking to solve. After some halfhearted looking on random shopping trips, I ended up finding these great little wire baskets from Meijer for $7 each! What a steal! My next stop was Lowes to find something to hang them with. Mirror hangers seemed to be my best bet- $2 and the perfect size.
Several months before starting this project, my sister-friend Jen gave me a frame that was just begging for a happy home. As I began to lay out my pattern for the wall (don't EVER hang multiple things on a wall without laying them out in a pattern first. It'll save you a whole heck of a lot of nail holes later on!), I knew the frame had finally found its spot. Disclaimer: There's a hole in the wall behind the calendar left over from an old phone jack. Everyone has their skeletons in the closet (or behind the calendar). Don't judge.
After hanging the baskets, I knew that they still needed a little pizzaz. My husband is a visual person (heck, who isn't?), and needed a daily reminder as to what should and should not be thrown in the bins. A place for everything, and everything in its place, am I right? I printed out "magazines", "coupons", and an outline of sunglasses on regular old white paper, and then took apart a lovely baby shower invite that had a chevron pattern on it, and glued them together. BAM. A quick hole punch and rings made out of leftover wire, and those baskets were labeled.
My kitchen wall of organization took less than an hour to put together, and for everything on the wall, cost less than $100. Success!
One last picture that's not so close up so you can get an idea of how little space you actually need to organize piles of stuff. (I might add some chalkboard paint at some point, but that's another day, another post!)
Let's start off today with a recent project, shall we? This quick project involves coupons and magazines. UGH. Anybody else have such a problem getting rid of these two things? I hope I'm not the only one who has a tiny little piece of my brain that never turns off, telling me, "Hey, you really might need that tip in that article, and you DEFINITELY will need that JoAnn's coupon." Keeping these things creates a major problem that really makes me unhappy when I walk through the front door, though: countertop clutter. And really, who wants to be unhappy in their own house?
I began browsing around Pinterest (seriously, how did the crafters of the world LIVE before this site??) and found a few solutions that seemed both doable and inexpensive. I already had this letter bin from Pottery Barn in my kitchen, but couldn't justify spending several hundred dollars to buy coordinating pieces to finish the look. I wasn't interested in a whiteboard calendar, either- who has time to erase and write in a new month every thirty days??
I made a mental note to myself to begin looking for wall bins while out at the usual places: Target, Meijer, Homegoods, Lowes. If you're looking for organization solutions like this, remember to really think about what you need to organize first. Nothing is worse than buying a bunch of things you think you'll use to make your life easier, and then leaving them empty because they don't really target the problem you're looking to solve. After some halfhearted looking on random shopping trips, I ended up finding these great little wire baskets from Meijer for $7 each! What a steal! My next stop was Lowes to find something to hang them with. Mirror hangers seemed to be my best bet- $2 and the perfect size.
Several months before starting this project, my sister-friend Jen gave me a frame that was just begging for a happy home. As I began to lay out my pattern for the wall (don't EVER hang multiple things on a wall without laying them out in a pattern first. It'll save you a whole heck of a lot of nail holes later on!), I knew the frame had finally found its spot. Disclaimer: There's a hole in the wall behind the calendar left over from an old phone jack. Everyone has their skeletons in the closet (or behind the calendar). Don't judge.
After hanging the baskets, I knew that they still needed a little pizzaz. My husband is a visual person (heck, who isn't?), and needed a daily reminder as to what should and should not be thrown in the bins. A place for everything, and everything in its place, am I right? I printed out "magazines", "coupons", and an outline of sunglasses on regular old white paper, and then took apart a lovely baby shower invite that had a chevron pattern on it, and glued them together. BAM. A quick hole punch and rings made out of leftover wire, and those baskets were labeled.
My kitchen wall of organization took less than an hour to put together, and for everything on the wall, cost less than $100. Success!
One last picture that's not so close up so you can get an idea of how little space you actually need to organize piles of stuff. (I might add some chalkboard paint at some point, but that's another day, another post!)
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