A Tour of The Biggest Organization Transformations in Our Home!
September 23, 2026
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My biggest and best closet and organization transformations over the past nine years!
I shared our
nine year before and after home tour
recently, and I wanted to make a separate post dedicated to only the
organization transformations over the years.
There have been a ton, so I gathered the biggest and best for you
here!
Decluttering and organizing are some of my favorite pastimes, and I really
enjoy making our problem areas work better for our family. Here are some of my
favorite organizing makeovers over the past nine years in our home!
1. Everyday items closet organization
This linen closet is in a little alcove off of our kitchen. It's probably
meant for bedding, but we use it for kitchen and utility items.
This is how it looked after we moved in nine years ago -- when I would
literally chuck random things as we unpacked each room:
As I'm typing, I'm realizing this is the only closet makeover I'll share
here that still has the wire shelving. I do have a plan to
sort of replace those in the future, I'll be sure to share that when
I do.
I found some inexpensive plastic bins that fit the existing shelving
perfectly -- I bought both shallow and deep bins for the various items we
wanted to keep in here.
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We keep a lot of our paper goods in here, as well as kitchen towels, first
aid supplies and medications. It's SO handy to have this near the kitchen
for easy access!
These
clip on label holders
fit perfectly into the the handle area on each bin:
2. "Hers" Pax system closet
We started with the easiest closet makeover, let's move on to the biggest
project!
Let's just say...if you asked my husband and I who was the most organized --
we would both say me. :) Soooo, I like that we have two separate closets now
(we shared one in our first home).
I may be the most organized, but if I don't have somewhere to put the stuff,
I'll still make a mess. This is how the long wall of my closet used to look
on any given day:
Those dang wire shelves!! Oh how I loathe them.
Years ago I tore everything down and then
rebuilt the closet with the Pax closet system
from IKEA.
What a difference!:
Everything has stayed beautifully organized for years now.
Funny how much it helps to have a dedicated spot for each item!
The other side of the room was usually way worse. This corner became my
"toss and forget it" spot:
Since this spot was a good depth, I was able to use the Kallax products from
IKEA to create a much
more organized system for bulkier clothes:
I keep hoodies and sweaters, as well as fall and holiday-themed clothing in
those bins. This system has worked wonderfully!
Lately I've been working on a few tweaks in this closet, and I'll be sharing
those soon.
3. Messy linen closet
We have an upstairs linen closet that stores most of our blankets and
bedding. It was during this makeover that I realized I am truly a blanket
hoarder.
Our family only uses two beds in our home regularly, so what in the
world:
For this closet makeover, I
tore out the existing metal shelving and built some very simple wood
shelves.
I made sure to drill the supports into studs so the new shelving could hold
the weight of the heavy blankets:
This makeover was a ton of work -- not so much the actual shelves, but the
nail filling, caulking and painting in such a tiny space. But it was SO
worth it!
I built the shelves a bit deeper so they could easily hold the bulky bedding without it hanging off.
We don't have lighting in any of our regular closet, so these
rechargeable motion lights
are incredibly helpful:
4. Mud room cleaning closet
One of my best decisions when we built this house was to have a large closet
built in our mud/laundry room.
Initially this was another great spot to throw stuff and shut the doors:
Later, I added a little hack I first did in our last house --
installing shelving in the little alcoves at each end of the closet:
This works best in a long closet with double doors since there's so much
space off to the sides.
Earlier this summer I continued with more shelves on the other side of the
closet as well:
Now this closet is (pretty much) exclusively for cleaning supplies and
vacuums. We still keep one litter box in here (I cut a cat door into one of
the doors so they can come and go) but otherwise it's our go-to spot for
rags, the broom, etc.
5. Teen IKEA closet makeover
Our son's closet has been underutilized for most of the time we've lived
here. It wasn't until a couple of months before he left for college that we
finally addressed it (perfect timing right?).
Thankfully he didn't need a TON of hanging space, but we needed a better
solution for folded clothing:
All of the IKEA pull out doodads are so helpful! Now he has space for
hoodies, sweaters and accessories.
As you can see, I had fun making the whole space look better. I installed
navy grasscloth wallpaper and he hung some of his favorite memorabilia on
the opposite wall:
6. Pantry before and after
I shared this room in our home tour post, but it deserves a spot here too! I
was thrilled with our melamine shelving when we moved in...mostly because it
wasn't wire. :)
But you know me, I had big plans in mind. The pantry isn't huge, but it's
waaaay bigger than the one in our first house. I knew we had plenty of room
to make this space much more functional.
Those tall cabinets hold more than you'd think, thanks to all of the
DIY pull out shelves I installed!:
I much prefer drawers to cabinets, if I could do it all over again I'd only
have drawers in our kitchen.
7. Custom drawer organization
This makeover is my smallest and easiest organization DIY, and definitely
one of my favorites. I've added
these custom drawer organizers
to all of our kitchen drawers and have plans to keep going throughout the
house!
The best part about this project is the only tool you'll need is something
to cut the wood (I use a compound miter saw). The wood is very inexpensive
and cuts easily -- the process is like a puzzle and uses tension to create
each custom cubby:
If you cut the pieces just right, there's no need for glue or anything else
to secure them. They are crazy secure and don't move around at all when the
drawers open and close.
These DIY drawer organizers are a game CHANGER!:
I've tackled most of the closets in our home -- there are only a couple left
but they are the biggest of them all. Stay tuned for more on each of those!
Have you done similar closet or organizing transformations in your home?
Having a PLACE for everything sounds so basic, but it really is the key to
keeping clutter at bay.
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