Organize With Me

I want to start out by saying that this is actually pretty embarrassing the state I allowed this room to get. I have to clean off this countertop back here ALOT! Caleb and I had bought a lot more food on a bulk scale recently and it was quickly becoming a problem storing it all in an unorganized “pantry”.  This area at one time was a back porch. The only thing that has been replaced since Caleb has lived at the house as a child is the linoleum and the cabinets had been added. Everything else is the same back from….whenever this lovely wallpaper would’ve been popular?!? haha I mean let’s just take a minute and admire the patriotism this shows! 😉

At this point in time, this room serves as our pantry/cleaning supplies/storage area. I’ll show you the upper cabinets in this post, but the lowers I didn’t tackle yet. It holds a lot of our extra appliances, ie. deep fryer, stock pots, coffee pot, percolator, popcorn air-popper, espresso machine, and some other things that I don’t use on a regular basis. And more food! I’ll have to organize that before I show it!

Sooo….here’s the “before”…Also, I’d like to clarify, my FIL used to live with us, and half of the counter was his stuff along with one of the upper cabinets. So Olivia and I had to move all that stuff out before we started this. The other half was all me….just stacking…and stacking….and avoiding….and stacking. (I know I’m the only one who does that in an area of their house! Don’t judge haha)

This closet was always a hopeless situation to me! lol I knew I didn’t want to hang anything in it, but I just never could store things very well in here!

Now hear me out…I know there are 100 ways to creatively and beautifully organize rooms just like this on Pinterest. Trust me, I know! I have boards specifically for such rooms. But… I didn’t want to spend any money doing this, and my husband and I aren’t ready to remodel this yet. So I didn’t really want to put the time and money into trying to make it something that will be changed someday. Considering it’s a room most people never see when they come into my house anyway.

So all we (Olivia was here to help me for most if this) did was clean it all out and organize and revamp some things. A lot of the things in here really didn’t belong back here, but when we moved in I just stuck them there and never moved it. Like the scrapbooking supplies in my cleaning/storage closet…?? I can now put those somewhere else, I just never did. A few odds and ends needed to go upstairs in the attic too. So I took care of all that.

This was the countertops after we put everything in the cabinets and anything that didn’t need to go in there was taken out.

My potatoes and onions used to just lay on the countertop wherever I could find a free square-inch. I found these cute, gold baskets in the clearance aisle at my Walmart and planned to do this with them…(Just think how stylish they’d look if the room was redone! haha)

Farmers Market Fruit/Vegetable Rack

but I haven’t done that yet and I can easily remove them and do it still! For now, I just screwed some screws in the wall and hung them there instead.

Inside the closet…like I said, it’s pretty much always been a disaster. The ideal situation would be a shelf of some kind in here, but I don’t have one, and I’m not gonna buy one! haha So I just put things neatly above and on the floor. I put some more screws in the wall to hold all my swiffers, mops, and dusters. My vacuum also goes in here but it was out at the time of the picture 😉

If you’re wondering why there’s a laundry basket hanging on the wall….? Well, maybe you ladies could tell me a better solution…but I have a lot of those reusable grocery bags and most of mine don’t fold down all that nice and they were always just floating around back in this room and closet. This small laundry basket has been an extra around the house since I got an actual hamper for my husband and I’s bedroom. So I thought I could screw it into the wall and put all those bags in there along with some thermal lunch bags I have and don’t use that often. Turned out to be a perfect solution for me.

Also, those egg cartons are for my chicken eggs. I might have been a little overzealous on the collecting cartons before I got my chickens! lol

You like my uncovered radiator?? lol I have no idea what happened to it. I’ve never even seen it here! The whiteboard is so low because the kids come over and draw on it back there where the adults can’t hear them 😛

Ladies, you see how this room is actually not that pretty. Definitely not Pinterest worthy yet haha. But that’s really not what matters…what matters is that you take care of what you have and make the best of it!

Look at the difference. It looks ten times nicer when it’s just CLEAN! That’s really usually all that matters to your family and guests. You don’t have to have the nicest, most updated house out of everybody…even though that’s how society makes you feel! If you’re blessed with such a house that’s awesome! Or maybe you’re working on it, like Caleb and I, that’s ok too, just do the best with what you have!

I was able to get my laundry soap and baskets off of my washer and dryer and put back here because I had so much counter space!! I hated it cluttering up that area where everyone could see. Not to mention scratching up the top of the appliances.

My lovely helpers…Thanks, Olivia!!