Taking our problem area from chaos to organized

Well hello! I'm back with a quick little organization project today. As I get older two things happen when it comes to stuff around our house -- 1. I have less and less tolerance for clutter and 2. when our spaces are disorganized it makes me itch more than ever. Do I have/need a perfect house? Absolutely not. But tons of crap makes me uncomfortable and annoyed. 

We've been here for about ten months and there are only a few unorganized spots left that bug me every time I open them/walk in. I've given myself a pass because after moving I've realized it takes a good year to get settled. At least it has for us. 😂

Unpacking the boxes is half the battle. I unpacked so many and dumped them right into drawers...just to get the box out of my house. Totally worth it. :) But our junk drawer in the kitchen is an example of that. And it bothered us EVERY single day. 

This one elevated my blood pressure daily so it was time to get it DONE! This junk drawer is twice the size of our old one so it feels silly that it was this bad for so long...but the bigger the drawer the more random stuff we could stuff in there, duh!: 

You won't even believe how much crap was in there. It was so bad it was rarely shut all the way. The cords (curses!!!) were the worst -- I was always stuffing them back in. 

This was all stuff I just dumped as we got settled. Don't know where to put this doodad in the new house? Junk drawer! Something small and random? Junk drawer! I'm too lazy to put it where it belongs? JUNK DRAWER!

I tackled this one by categories. I started with paper items -- notepads, checkbooks, receipts, etc. Most of that went right to the recycling bin. Then I grabbed similar things and would bring them to the island to spread out. I'm going to say it again (I know I've said it a million times)...when you're not organized you spend more money. You buy things you already have. 

Thankfully since decluttering our house using the Konmari method years ago, this occurs less than ever around here. But as you'll see, even a small unorganized junk drawer wastes money. Look at all the hand sanitizers I found!:

Dumb. It never fails that I see the dollar signs as I do this. Every time! 

I found four lighters...in one drawer. We don't have that many candles. WHY.

I continued sorting by category -- this was all random tools/house stuff that was in there: 

By the way, this (affiliate) handy little battery tester is a favorite gadget of mine: 

It saves a lot of frustration because we know which ones are working. Especially helpful when you find them in random spots and you don't know if they've been used or not. 

Ugh. Cords. They're bad enough, but random cords are the worst of the worst. Am I right? Those all went in one spot and I'll be sorting through ALL of the ones I've found (since moving) at one time: 

Side note -- we got the Amazon Echo years ago and never use it. We just didn't find many reasons to have it plugged in. Are we missing out on something awesome? It was a prime day find so we didn't spend much. I feel like so many of you use them and I need to know why you love them so much! 

This wasn't even half of what was in there! As I took things out, I sorted each category into four sections:

• trash
• donate
• keep but put away somewhere else (this was the biggest pile by far)
• keep in the junk drawer

These little trays are awesome and I used them all over the house. They are perfect for drawers like this where you want to keep like items together: 

When I was deciding what to keep in here I thought hard about what we really needed handy. Extra office supplies went to my office (not too far away if we need them). Tools went back to where the tools go (again, not far). We don't need 50 pens and pencils here. Or four pairs of scissors. 

Check out the after!: 

Not pictured in this after photo is our absolute favorite set of scissors because my husband was using them at the time. I use them almost every day. **And I am currently freaking out because I tried to find a link for you and they aren't available anywhere anymore! 😩 Uh, I found one set on Ebay for more than $300. 😳 If you find one for around $12 send them to me! ALL THE SCISSORS.

Anyway, quite the before and after right? Even tiny transformations are great ones! It's like a breath of fresh air when we open this drawer! Once I get a space organized we are pretty good at keeping it up. Not perfect, but much better than how it started! 

Where are your problem areas? Does your junk drawer look like my before or after? Do you have any tips for keeping these areas organized? 

You can find our kitchen cabinet hardware here and our granite name here. :) 

**Affiliate links including for your convenience! 

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Adding custom detail to a plain kitchen island

This is one of those (fairly) simple projects that makes me silly happy because it's so inexpensive but adds such a lovely, custom detail. If you don't know by now...that's the name of my game. Custom looks that are easy and inexpensive to execute. 

I adore our huge island in this house -- it is the focal point of our kitchen for sure. Instead of stone I had butcher block installed (I shared how to stain and treat wood counters here). That went a long way to making the island a little more custom. 

But I was missing some of the details I had added to our kitchen island in the last house. You can see how I extended that one myself here. I've always had a couple projects in mind for this one, and I finally made one of them happen! 

Here's how the ends of the island looked before: 

The first full room makeover in the new house!

Well HELLO! I know it's been awhile since I've written! I didn't mean to take time away, but we were busy making memories before our kiddo went back to school. (SIXTH grade people!!) I was also working my butt off on the powder room makeover that I started uhhhh...five months ago? I'll tell you why it took me so long to finish this up in a bit. But it's done and I'm so excited to show you!

First, a look back at how this room looked when we moved in. This was the first room I shared with you in our new home. I had it somewhat put together within a week of moving in, but it's the smallest room so don't give me too much credit: 

My first painted door!

Well if you've read this blog for awhile you probably saw this one coming! 😂 I figured it would happen...I just wanted make sure I really wanted it before I pulled the trigger. 

I got a quote to have all of the doors in the house painted black when we were building, but it was towards the end of things and any additional spending was making my eyes cross. And I just hated to add it to the bottom line when I knew I could do it myself. Beyond that, I wanted to make sure I really wanted to have black doors in this house. 

I really enjoy the simpler look/decor of this home and for about eight months I was totally fine with the white doors. Then...the need for that dark contrast started creeping in. I figured I'd start with an entry door -- that way if I didn't want to do more it wouldn't look off.