My daughter would not get out of the closet.

My daughter would not get out of the closet.

I think I have said before that I am not an organized person by nature.  It takes a lot for me to get and stay organized.  Although the more organized I become, the easier it gets.  I have been working on getting my closets organized for the last week or so.  I finally have that done!  I organized my children’s closets, my storage/sewing closet, my own closet and our new baby’s (who has yet to arrive) closet.

Just so you know when I was pregnant with my first son, 3 days before he was born I was cleaning all the windows in the house and scrubbing the top of the refrigerator.  Ah, pregnancy, the thing I love about it is that it gives us a definite deadline.  Maybe that is why I get so much done when I am pregnant.  I need deadlines.

I also organized our computer armoire.  Now I am going to do some spring cleaning.   The main things that I need to do are:

Kitchen – refrigerator and oven

Windows!

Dust ceilings

Once these jobs are done I think I will be better able to maintain.  If anyone has suggestions for cleaning windows, I would love to hear them.

I am usually always decluttering in some way or another.  I think I am almost to the point that everything we have we use pretty regularly.  I have paired down all of our wardrobes considerably.  I am trying to simplify that even more.  I am still working on it, but I think I am almost there.  I am trying to avoid garage sales at this point because I know I have plenty of clothes for all of us.

My cleaning schedule is still working out wonderfully.  I really like the structure of it.  I do at least one to two loads of laundry a day so it doesn’t get overwhelming.

Here is what I did to organize our closets:

I took everything out.  I put them in piles:

1.  Keep/Store

2.  Give away

I bought those banker boxes whenever they went on sale.  I did use tubs, but I like this better.  I still use some of the plastic tubs for in the garage or shed.

My closet - before you couldn't even see the floor.

My closet - before you couldn't even see the floor.

With each box, I numbered them, drew a colored circle on them and labeled them.  I then made a corresponding 3 x 5 card and put the same color on it.  I wrote the number, the name of the room where it is stored and the contents of the box.  This system came from reading the Duggar book.

My son and daughter's closet

My son and daughter's closet

Now if I am looking for something and know that it is in a certain room, I can look up the card and see which box it is in.  I have stored all of the kids clothes by size to be used by future children (child).

I also put a box in the kids’ closet that I labeled “Outgrown” and I throw shoes or clothes into there to be sorted and boxed up later.  Before this I just kind of threw them in a pile.

So sorry I did not take any before pictures – just imagine the disorganization and mess.

Well, at the very least, it will make moving easier – right?

I did not get to take any pictures of the baby’s room, but I do have his closet organized as well.  I also have his clothes washed and hung up by size.

Here you can see how I numbered and color coded the boxes.

Here you can see how I numbered and color coded the boxes.

Oh, one other thing that I need to do badly is go through our mini DVD home movies and record them onto regular DVDs and label them, but we will save that for another week!

I am linking this post at Tackle It Tuesday’s at 5 Minutes for Mom and Blissfully Domestic.