Organized in 2013: Workspace

So my only New Year's resolution for 2013 was to get my home organized. With four kids and busy schedules for all of us, things often get piled up and messy and I'm the kind of person that goes a little bit crazy every day looking at it. I can't sleep well at night if I have piles of clutter throughout my house. So, I've been pouring over Pinterest, blogs, BHG, magazines, Google, etc., trying to get ideas and inspiration. One of my favorite blogs to visit is iheartorganizing. 

Seeing Jen's befores and incredible afters, and knowing that they did all of the work to a builder's spec home with typical builder-grade finishes and floorplan is just amazing. We built our home here in the suburbs in 2005, and our befores look a lot like Jen's befores, so when it came to designing and organizing, I felt so inspired to really make big changes and bring our home to a place that is more "us" than it ever has been before.

So far I've tackled my kitchen, garage, laundry room, bedrooms, bathrooms, linen closets...and then, after putting it off long enough, I had to do my workspace. And when I say workspace, I mean my desk. Which is in the family "study" where the family desk and computer also reside. Which is a small square room that has half-walls open to the living room and rest of the house, so it's not quiet by any stretch of the imagination. Which means I need it to at least be pretty and functional in order to get any work done! And for the past several months, it hasn't been pretty OR functional! Mail, tools, cords, CDs, pens, notes...everything...all got tossed on my desk. 

Please observe exhibit A:

Awful! Look closely, you can see the piles on the desktop surface. And I chose to use a wide photo so you can see how the family desk and computer are right next to mine...which means usually when I am editing photos or blogging or emailing, I am also having little voices next to me asking me to watch them do some particularly fancy move on whatever video game they're playing. 

Yeah, it's hard to get anything done! But I've learned lately to put earbuds in and play some Explosions in the Sky to try to get into a Zone for writing. It's working wonders so far. And since I don't have anywhere else that I could possibly relocate my desk to for more peace and quiet, I have to make the best of what I've got!

Here's another shot of my desk at its worst!:

And an after:

Here's a side by side comparison:

The difference probably doesn't seem major, but to me it's a vast improvement! I removed that extra monitor, as well as the laptop that it was connected to--it had been stepped on by my son, and had a shattered screen, so I was using that extra monitor with it. But I hardly ever used it anymore and it was taking up unnecessary space. So off it went! I also installed a shelf above my desk and moved all of my less frequently used things up there and that cleared up a lot of space on my desktop. All of those boxes and baskets hold things like rulers, extra staples, thumbtacks, crayons, important mail, notes from our projects like paint colors, manuals to appliances, etc. I used some aqua chevron adhesive drawer liner to recover a few of the pieces and they became pretty and functional! Score! 

My trusty Brother P-touch labeler, can of pens and calendar.

My basket of essentials like lotion, chapstick and address stamper, post-its, a cute little potted plant for some "pretty", and hiding behind my monitor is a box of tissues. Underneath is my Silhouette SD.

Important mail, school records, grades, household papers, etc., reside in these boxes.

Extra staples, thumbtacks, ink pads, pens, pencils, crayons, etc., are in these.

Angled view of my shelf...you can see where there's a seam on the handled tin that I recovered with the chevron. I found a cute teal candle that fit perfectly in that spot and covers the seam, not to mention matches and looks pretty! And bonus, I can light it for some smell-goods while blogging!

And one more after:

What a difference a little bit of organization makes! It doesn't need to cost a thing, I used some boxes/bins and a shelf that I already had in my house and it looks so much better. I'm already breathing easier while typing this and since this space is viewable from my front door, I'll be extra motivated to keep it looking like this. Love it! What spaces are you needing to tackle that you keep putting off? 

Happy Wednesday!

Kitchen Remodel

We recently remodeled our kitchen. We painted the cabinets & hardware, replace the counters, and did some shifting in layouts.
*Note: Click images for full-size view and you can use your arrow keys to scroll through all full-size photos!*

Before:

 

Awful, right? Eep! Just look at those organgey-cabinets...they blend in with the floor and create a whole lotta dark, orange icky feelings. So much clutter too! Yeesh...I can't believe we lived with it like this for nearly 8 years! 

And now for an after: 

MUUCH better!

And here's a new one from today since I've changed a couple minor pieces of artwork:

Here's a breakdown of what we did:

• Shifted our refrigerator down and moved the odd little square of cabinet and counter down also, as well as the "bridge" cabinetry above the fridge. This got rid of a weird, neglected waste of space that just collected clutter and dust, and allowed us to have a bigger stretch of countertop space. Since we bought a French door fridge that had an in-door ice maker, being able to open that one door completely open wasn't as big of a deal, and there's still plenty of room for the door to open wide enough even being against the wall like that.

• We also got rid of the weird lifted bar area that we hated, and created a wide, flat, open piece of countertop for the bar area. (We still need to paint our barstools and return those to their spot.) 

• We purchased butcher block countertops from IKEA. We went with oak because they were out of birch, and turns out, we like oak the best after all. 

• Stained butcher block with super strong coffee and treated it with tung oil. 

• We painted our cabinets White Dove by Benjamin Moore and the hardware a hammered bronze by Rustoleum. 

I love my new kitchen, it is SO much brighter and even feels much bigger than it did before. I made my hubby's day by telling him it's my dream kitchen. :)