Category Archives: Get Organized

Quick Weekend Project – Organize your Refrigerator

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You’ll be seeing lots more organizing projects here in the future when GiGi starts blogging with me over the next few weeks. Why, you might ask? Well, lets just say GiGi is compulsively obsessed addicted … well, let’s just say she loves to organize things. Well not really things, really everything. She loves to organize closets, refrigerators, garages, cars; basically nothing is off-limits.. And it’s not just her things. Chances are if you invite her over for a visit, she will be organizing and re-arranging your home within the hour. She just can’t help herself.

Just ask her friend Jean. She’ll tell you when she comes to visit, Gigi literally doesn’t stop till the sun comes up. Jean wakes up to find closets, drawers and more re-arranged with a place for everything and everything in its place. She’ll think she has discovered everything Margie organized until she opens up her purse and finds everything color coded and organized down to the pennies. True story.

GiGi invaded our friend Dr. Nune’s home a few months ago and organized it from top to bottom. There wasn’t an area left undone.  Dr. Nune will tell you her newly organized home has changed her life, she is so happy with all of it!  GiGi and I stopped by tonight for some Dosa’s (a traditional Indian lentil/vegetable protein crepe), scrambled eggs, salsa and homemade yogurt. For a special treat after dinner, we had Indian coffee. I’m going to show you how to make it soon, promise! It is so darn good…it’s a bit of work, but sooooo worth it! The drill sergeant GiGi of course had check out if Dr. Nune was maintaining the “systems” she had installed…

Yep, that’s GiGi’s finger…just a few things were out of place :)

I clicked a few photos so you could see her refrigerator. It’s a pretty quick project to do this weekend and it makes such a difference! Here’s some tips to get your refrigerator organized!

At the top of refrigerators, milk and juice boxes tend to block each other along with other items on the shelf. A small turntable and glass jars ensure that everything is accessible. You can find the glass Frigoverre jars at HomeGoods or The Container Store – the key is to transfer your liquids as soon as you get home from the market. Always store the containers on the turnaround whether they are full or empty. It is their “home”, so they always stay there. Gigi used a rubber band and round key tags to label the contents. Not only does it work well – it looks great too! The turntable has a 11″ diameter.

The turntable is also perfect for condiments. Here’s a larger one that GiGi uses in her fridge for condiments…

GiGi also likes to use glass containers to store food such as vegetables, soup, leftovers and more because they are the safest choice to store food. A second choice would be to use airtight plastic containers, but make sure they are a no.5 – you can check it on the bottom of the container. The best kind of containers have straight sides (as opposed to cantilevered) and are either square or rectangle in shape. Why? Because they fit well together and waste the least amount of space. The rule is to fill your fridge with the containers and LEAVE them there, whether full or empty. It’s really a great system, as you don’t have to waste space storing them in your cabinets.

Check out this drawer….

I love using the $1.00 office organizer to hold the cheese and dressing packet. Think outside the box and find things that will keep items together and in an easy accessible place. Look for items you can use that you already own or check out the dollar store. It doesn’t have to be expensive to live an organized life. Ziplock baggies work okay in a drawer, but if you need to store them on a shelf, a clear container works better.

If you have items such as bread, bagels, over-flow fresh vegetables or fruits, etc. put them in a bin rather than leaving to sit loose on a shelf. A bin is easy to pull out and access. Using a clear container is a bonus as it makes it easy to see to see the contents.  Hidden items tend to go to waste. Out of sight, out of mind as they say…

What do you think? I’d love to hear any other refrigerator ideas you have! I organized mine a while ago, but I think I’m going to switch to the glass milk jars, too. I’ll show you pictures when I’m done! xo Amy

Get Organized: Guest Bathroom Closet

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Close up of Label

Marth Stewart I am not. I’m a clutterbug with messy closets. That’s good news for you if you happen to be a clutter bug like me. You can follow right along as I’m inspired by Oprah and Peter Walsh to organize my life.

I’m starting with a bathroom closet and yes, I’m a bit embarassed to show you the ugly truth of it. I hope you’ll not judge but, simply be inspired to clean out a closet as well! I will admit to not being satisfied with simply organizing…my designer brain wants it to look beautiful as well. I’m working on a budget, so going out and buying all new things to organize my stuff is not an option, but if I can buy a few things here and there and use exisiting items somewhere else, I can rationalize a purchase or two :)

The closet is in my guest bathroom on our main level which I’m pretty sure gets opened occaisionally by a curious visitor. For some odd reason it’s the bathroom of choice for my daughter and I to dry and style our hair. I even keep my tooth brush in there to use before I run out the door. Additionally, here that I store items for visiting guests, first aid components and other miscelaneous things. It’s near our kitchen and is the central storage area for shared items in our home.

This was my criteria for the project:

  • I wanted it to be finished in about three hours. If it wasn’t done, I knew it would linger on and that drives me crazy.
  • There had to be a specific place for certain items such as hair items, first aid, etc.
  • It had to look nice. I think clutter free zones should be pretty – pretty makes me happy.
  • It needed to be inexpensive

So let’s get to it - here’s what I did….

  1. I forced myself to throw away anything I haven’t used in 6 months to a year. It was hard to do that , so I went back through my save pile several times to make myself get rid of more.
  2. I couldn’t stand to look at the wood shelves, so I covered them all for less than $5.oo with good old cream and gold contact paper. Ideally, I would have painted the closet, supports and shelving, but it meant that the project would have taken a few days and I wanted it DONE!
  3. The existing acrylic stair step shelf organizer was used to hold items that get used often such as hair spray, soap, tooth paste, etc.
  4. Items that could be grouped into categories went inside fabric bins that I got on sale at Meijers for $5.99 ea. I chose a dusty plum, but they are also available in lime green, red, hot pink and navy.
  5. Loose items such as combs, hair clips, etc.went into the small plastic 3 drawer unit that I already owned.   
  6. Once it was complete, I added the labels which I think are totally adorable :) I’ll give instructions for those in my next post.

Here’s the photo’s!

Before top of closet   After Top of Closet

Photos above are of the top three shelves. I left the very top one empty, because I can’t reach it and didn’t want to put junk up there.

Before Bottom of Closet    After Bottom of Closet

All the crap on the floor was what actually prompted this project. Things kept falling off the shelves and it was driving me NUTS!!! Looks much better now doesn’t it? :)

After Full View

Bottom to top view of newly organized closet!

Hair Stuff

Above is one of the bins…I used it to store hair stuff such as the blow dryer, curling irons, hair straighter, and a brush.

Really Close up of Label

So what do you think? Up next I’ll have directions for the labels and a template so you can create your own! Also, just made the valance for the Kuster’s kitchen…I’ll have pictures for that soon!