Home Organization: Tackling the Attic

Ever have a project that demands a rainy day? Peter and I emptied our attic two weekends ago with the plan to sort and edit the items then reorganize the space.  Well, we managed to sort and edit the items but everything that needed to be put back in the attic remained in our dining room. Every time I was inspired to continue working on the project, it took only a minute in the attic to change my mind. It's been hot enough during the day that spending any time in the attic is unbearable. Since the contents of our attic were out of the way, the eyesore could have remained for month.

Fortunately, on Saturday it rained, breaking the heat of the last week and preventing us from any number of distractions a beautiful day can present.

Friday's day trip to Nashville wiped Cole out so while she recovered, we had a few hours dedicated solely to the task. The contents of our attic are now organized, labeled, and sorted into logical areas. We've also created lots more space, though we're hoping not to find ourselves in the same people-may-think-we-are-hoarders-if-they-see-our-attic situation again.

Home Organization: Cole's Closet

I was not prepared for the onslaught of clothes that we received after Cole was born. Prior to her birth we had a few gender neutral outfits and a whole bunch of gift cards. Peter and I figured we'd just pick up clothes as we needed them. Little did we know how excited our friends would be about our baby girl. While still in the hospital, we started receiving outfits for Cole. Once we got home, the clothes from friends and family just kept coming, in lots of different sizes! Before long, we had a pretty serious stock piled up in the closet.  I decided we needed a strategy to organize all of the clothes.

The organization process began with sorting the clothing by size. Once sorted, I put the clothes in bins labeled for each size.  While the sizing of baby clothes is directly correlated with age,  I'm well aware that children do not necessarily wear their age. To solve this issue, on the label I included the recommended length and weight limits for each size.

I knew I wanted to sort Cole's hanging clothes as well so I started pricing closet dividers. It didn't take long to decide I could probably make my own for less. A quick search for DIY Closet Dividers led me to a wonderful and straightforward tutorial. I followed the tutorial very closely and wound up with six very cute dividers. Each divider represents a number of months so the clothes between the 0 and the 3 are 0-3 month clothes.

 

In all honesty, my closet does not look like this. At all. For whatever reason, while I like everything else in our house to be organized and sorted, I stuff my clothes into drawers (not folded) and most of the clothes in my closet, particularly those I wear often, are on the ground. Maybe one day I'll change. Or maybe not. But my sweet daughter has a closet worth documenting. Perhaps it's the fact that baby clothes are very cute or the fact that Cole is out growing clothes faster than I care to say, but for whatever reason, I aim to keep her closet tidy until it becomes her responsibility. 

Home Organization: House Binder

I believe it's very common when you buy a house for the previous owners to leave behind a folder, notebook, or binder with paperwork relevant to the property. In our case, we received a binder with loads of installation guides as well as a notebook with proposed plans from a landscape architect. A few years ago, we removed nearly all of the plants in our backyard so we tossed the notebook. The binder, on the other hand, we kept.

 

Motivated by a friend who recently moved and created the best home binder I've ever seen, I decided to sort through the contents of the binder and figure out what to do with them. It became clear rather quickly that the majority of the paperwork was junk. It also became clear that I needed to get a new binder. With the current binder, there were over-sized baggies and paperwork sticking out.

 Thankfully, having just been a full-time student, I had a number of school supplies on hand that proved useful for this project. I opted to give each room and outdoor area a section in the binder.

I put paint cards and fabric samples for each room into page protectors.

If relevant, I included a folder for installation and hardware manuals. 

Now the new house binder is sleek, useful, and organized– quite a change from where I started and well worth the time it took to complete. 

Home Organization: Files

Peter and I have been talking about sorting our files for a number of years now. Seriously, years. We'd say things like:
           We really need to do something about those files
           Let's sort the file on the next rainy weekend
           The files are getting out of control
           Well, maybe it's not so bad

It is such an easy task to put off! We'd add to the files often or at least stack the papers that we needed to file on top of of the cabinet- which is nearly the same as filing, right? Unfortunately, we failed to ever actually assess the contents of our file cabinet.

I decided I would start working on our file cabinet earlier last week. Peter will openly tell you his strategy for the files has been to keep everything so I figured it would be a drawn out project that I could tackle over a few days. It wasn't. After I developed some rules as to what to keep and for how long, the project turned into a major purge followed by some label making, sorting, and shredding. While sorting, I found a receipt from 2003 citing Peter's application for a new social security card. It has since been shredded.

                           Before :: His Style                                                    After :: Her Style      

           

I loaded up an entire box of papers which didn't need to be shredded for the recycling center. Once I started shredding outdated files, the sheer quantity was staggering.

 

I labeled the newly sorted files by category and individually. (Please don't be deceived into thinking the files are also color coded, I just used the folders we already had which happen to be yellow, red, and green).

We will be taking great efforts to maintain the organization of files. For one, I disposed of the "catch all" box that used to hold papers that needed filing. Additionally with our newly established rules for what to keep and what to toss, we will not be keeping every paper that comes in the house.