Over the last month, our boot camp has been focused on organizing kitchens, tax records, handbags, and kids’ activity or play spaces.  You had the opportunity to devote serious time to these areas.  This week, I am encouraging you to catch up on the projects you have not yet tackled or finished and/or those requiring a tune-up or regular maintenance.

Some maintenance ideas to consider:

• Peek into your pantry and tidy things up.
• Identify ingredients for at least 2 meals this week using items only from your pantry and/or fridge/freezer. The goal is to use what you already have at your disposal.
• Do you have paper clutter building up on a kitchen counter?  Deal with it this week or it will only get worse!

• How do you store handbags you do not currently use?  I clean mine, stuff them with tissue paper to retain a nice shape, and line them up on the top shelf in my closet so that I can see them clearly.
• This week, switch out your purses just for fun.  Transfer the contents to a different purse just to force yourself to keep things simple and organized.

• Have you made an appointment with your accountant?  Bought software to do your own tax return?  Schedule yourself to take care of these items.
• Are there end-of-year tax forms you have not yet received?  Think of investments, child care receipts, charitable donations, free lancing income, etc.
• What is going on with your prior years’ tax return records?  Are you saving more than 7 years worth of returns?  Either scan them and save as electronic files or shred tax file documents which are more than 7 years old.

• Everything related to what and where kids do things requires consistent maintenance.
• Practice tidy routines daily with the kids BEFORE dinner rather than after.  It is a simple MUST do that I learned from Leslie of Organizing McKee Organizing Services.
• Take a pic of the organized space in its ideal condition and show the kids what you expect it to look like at the end of each day.
• Make sure there is a trash can and/or a paper recycling unit in the kids’ activity space to make clean up even faster.

Maintenance is key to any program.  Make the time and identify reasons to keep up the organization you create.

What daily/weekly organizing maintenance routines do you practice?

images: kitchen/tax records/kids’ spaces

Previously on Order Matters’ Organizing Boot Camp:

Kitchen Organizing

Fridges & Pantries

Tax Records

Handbags

Kids’ Clutter & Activity Spaces

I love hearing from my blog followers about their organizing dilemmas and, of course, their organizing achievements too.  Knowing the benefits of organization first hand, I get truly excited for others as they embark on projects which have the potential to make their day-to-day lives more efficient and less stressful, and their spaces more functional.

When Amy shared on Facebook that she was going to tackle her step daughter’s closet, I was eager to see the progress and the finished results.  This is what Amy wrote about her project:  “My step daughter’s closet was always messy, always cluttered and never nice to look at.

One of the biggest issues was that  she could not reach the top half of her clothes storage area. When she was asked to put stuff away, she would throw it on the floor because she couldn’t reach. So first things first, we got a new full length shelf to replace the smaller shelf that was already in the closet.   It lowered the hanging rod to a height that she could now reach.  It also provided more shelf storage for the games she has. I was able to fit all of her games on the new shelf, freeing up the remaining two short shelves for other items, such as small toys and some containers with winter gloves and hats.

Amy, you have done a great job!  Thank you for sharing the before and after.

Often, it is simple changes that make a big difference.  Amy effectively sorted through the contents of the closet, purged, and assigned new homes to some of the items.  Replacing a short shelf with a longer one helped resolve a technical issue and allowed her daughter to go from not being able to do something on her own to developing the independence to hang her own clothes.

Are you making progress on a project?  Would love to hear from you about your organizing successes and challenges.

One of my blog followers wanted to know how I store my kids’ lunch boxes.  After years of consistent drilling and nagging, my kids have become pretty good at putting their school gear away.  They come home, unpack their lunch boxes, and put them away in a small hallway closet near the kitchen.  Only one thing started bothering me about the routine…although they put them away, they didn’t end up in a neat condition.   No likey!

I decided to install Command hooks on the inside of the closet door for the lunch boxes.  I assigned one hook to each kid and attached a little label to identify the owner.

Now, the kids will be hanging their lunch boxes, not tossing them into the closet.

THIS I like!  Oh, the little things that make me happy.

Hooks are a great way to add storage capacity in places where there are otherwise limited options.  Who else shares my fondness of hooks?

If you have followed my progress in redoing my daughters’ closet, then you probably recall that the original poor design did not at all work for their needs.

I am happy to share that the closet’s makeover is now complete!

This was the goal:

And here is a brief tour of the new and much more functional design:

Each girl has a dedicated side with her own rod for hanging clothes, shelves for shoes, and three drawers in the center section.

At the top, we put in some shelves for storage.  I purchased simple brown containers from Ikea.   The smaller containers got dressed up with the help of my friend, who sewed beautifully fitted liners for them.  Thank you, A!  I love them and you for investing all this effort and time!

Clear crystal knobs from Anthropologie adorn the drawers adding some sparkle to an otherwise simple white closet.

The shelves for shoes were built to accommodate adult size shoes.  This way, that part of the closet will be able to grow with them.

On either side of the closet, we installed hooks for backpacks to be hung and orderly stored away when they come back from school.  For fun, I have spray painted their first initials and attached them near the hooks.

My daughters are really excited about their new closet and I am thrilled that everything now has a proper home.

What projects are you working on these days?  I am tackling my pantry next.  It needs some serious fine-tuning.

This is my daughters’ bedroom:

This is an 8-ft long wall that has absolutely nothing on it:

It really needs some character.

Cherry blossoms have been on my mind.  Perhaps, it is because so many Vancouver streets are lined with the Japanese cherry trees, which bloom so beautifully this time of year.

First, I thought of wallpaper.  However, that is a bit too ambitious for my husband and I.  Then, I started researching wall decals and found this cherry tree branch and blossoms from the Surface Collective:

It can be made relatively large and take up most of the wall.  It is easy to apply to the wall and it is removable.

Then, the other day, when I was at Ikea, I saw this set of three prints of cherry blossoms:

What do you think of the two options I have so far?  Should I choose between these two or consider other ideas?  Thoughts?