An Organised Storage Closet!

Today I have good news because I have

Finished my Storage Closet

Now my husband will be very pleased because (you know me when I start to sort things out in one place it messes up another) the area that was messed up in order to accomplish this task was the floor of the Dressing Room just where we walk through from the bedroom to our ensuite.

Needless to say Fred doesn't like tripping over things in the dark and that's what happened when he was up early and didn't want to put on the light to disturb me.

Any way back to the task.

This Storage Closet was just a rectangular walk-in cupboard off the Dressing Room  with nothing in it but some water pipes.

Such a waste of space

When we bought the house we had already decided that we were shelving that space as soon as possible.

Then I had the idea of using some of it to do what I had longed to do for years 

(more about that later).

So with the shelving etc. all done a few years ago at the same time as our wardrobes were all fitted in the dressing room it should have been used properly, but instead of that we put things in but didn't take enough time to sort everything properly and then ended up with too much stuff in it and the floor got covered and you may remember I showed a few pics of it in an earlier post when I started it but it needed now to be finished off properly.

On the left hand side behind the door I already had
 baskets and boxes

but then I got them sorted out and labelled.

Lowest shelf contains 2 large baskets:   Travel items   &   Ski Suits

Next Shelf up contains 2 large baskets:   Small  bags and containers  &  Bath Mats

Next Shelf up with a set of 3 baskets contains:  White guest towels,  Facecloths  &  Ensuite hand towels.

The shelf above that contains 2 darker baskets:  Pashminas / shawls  &  Winter Scarves

The shelf above that contains a lidded box and a dark basket:  Old Photos  &  Lightweight decorative Scarves

On the right hand side beside the door I already had 
baskets and handbags

but then I got them sorted out and labelled too.

Lowest shelf contains 2 large baskets:   Beach Towels   &   Bath towels

Next Shelf up contains:  Larger handbags

Next Shelf up with a set of 3 baskets contains:  Shoe expander & insoles etc.,  straps off large bags  &  my belts.

The shelf above that contains:   Smaller handbags

The top shelf had been so underused but now it has all my puzzle magazines.
Yes I know I have piles of them- mostly because I don't do them as often now because of the word game, logic puzzle game and number game I have on my iPad and all the time I spend blogging!
But I do love logic puzzles of all kinds and find it so relaxing to sit and solve them.

On the left hand side further into the closet 
there is a second set of shelves specially sized for Fred's shoes

never too bad but still too many shoes.

His shoes are now neatly stored and the right types together.

The few exercise items that had been thrown into the bottom shelf are now in a basket on the floor under the shelving behind the door.

I put up 2 hooks and his baseball caps are now hung up at the left of the top shelf.

On the right hand side further into the closet 
there is a second set of shelves specially sized for my shoes

never too bad but the bottom shelf was full of my Puzzle books.

My shoes are now neatly stored and the right types together.

The Puzzle books removed from that bottom shelf and it is used for shoes now as well so they can be spaced out a bit better and not on top of each other so much.

I put up 2 hooks and my baseball caps are now hung up at the right of the top shelf.

At the back of the cupboard facing the door there is one long shelf at the top (sloping ceiling) and then my great idea had been to put in rails instead of more shelves.
These shelves are not for clothes but for 
tablecloths and throws etc.

The tablecloths etc. are now more neatly stored and a few more put on the rails.

This simply means that they do not get creased by being folded up and put in drawers for periods of time - especially the tablecloths.

The last of the handbags were removed from the top shelf and I actually have a bit of extra space but I'm sure it will get used up when I sort out the Dressing Room.

Under the hanging rails (which are set at 3 different heights for ease of placing and removing items plus see what is there) there is still room on the left for a rucksack and 2 seagrass lidded baskets which hold sheets and pillowcases for our bed and on the right 2 small suitcases and a covered material container for sheets and pillowcases for the EZ bed which we put up in the dressing room when all six of us are here.

Now just to let you see some of my heart labels close up.

Aren't they cute?  I love them.

So I now have An Organised Storage Closet and I NEED to keep it that way.

This was more Housework than Funwork I'm afraid but very satisfying to see the end result.

Please tell me that I am not the only person to have difficulty in keeping this type of cupboard tidy.

Organising The Medicine Cabinet & The Smallest Room in the House

My husband Fred had Food Poisoning which we presume he got in Azerbaijan on a business trip or on the plane on the way home.  So because of this and because of some medical type things I discovered in the garage last month it made more sense to do the back toilet first this month as that is where our Medicine Cabinet is.

Yes it is as simple as that; sometimes I need to be flexible.


So I started by creating my TOILET OVERHAUL list
on the iPad Pocket Lists App which now looks rather different to before in both the icon and the content.

Pocket Lists App

Unfortunately this week I had to take that drastic step of updating to ios7 and if you read a certain post from last year you would know that this then was a very sad week for me, but it had to happen as without it I could not update some of my apps.


Isn't the screenshot so bland compared to previous ones and so pale as well?   Rotten update to this app.

Well as you can see above even for such a small room I had 18 items on my list.

No way this room would be done in a couple of hours!

No way this room would be done in one day  -  all my time in any day is not going to be given over to housework and organising.


So armed with my cleaning kit and trusty steamer I got started.

I got the boring bits out of the way (you know the cleaning of the toilet etc.) and then it was time to reorganise the Medicine Cabinet and I just brightened up because those things are far more interesting to me than washing and cleaning and dusting and hoovering.

This is the Funwork part!



While I was rearranging I was of course checking dates of items and throwing out things and making out a list of things I would need to get to replenish my store.

I was pleased with it when I was finished because I took out some of the more bulky things and some other things that didn't sit so well on the narrow shelves and thought of somewhere else to put these plus the face masks that I had found in the garage (brand new provided by Fred's work but he had kept them in a travel bag in the garage).

So what was my idea for storing these things?

Simply to put them in the underused drawers and cupboards of the vanity unit in the same room.

You see this room is really only used for two things

          1.  Medicine Cabinet
          2.  Recycling

It is not really used as a bathroom because we have two ensuites and a bathroom so why need another one and have to always be cleaning a fourth toilet?


Up until now there was hardly anything in the cupboards and the drawers but that was going to change.

The drawers took some of those not too large items but ones that didn't sit so easily on the shelves of the Medicine cabinet

and the cupboard shelves took the larger health items.

There is also still some room for a few things I need to get like gel cooling pads. 

Then I decided to store the extra towels for this room in the vanity unit (brown top right), the toilet rolls went in there too as they had been in a basket but it has got rather grubby and finding out how to clean it is the first item on my ToDo list for this room now.

Of course I hope you have noticed the packet of wipes (green top left) which are very important in each room as you may remember from a previous post  5 Things to Make the Housework Easy  and the vinegar (bottom left).

Well after most of the overhaul list had been done it was

Then back the next day to finish off.

Things like cleaning the window blind and the light shade and the radiator were still to be done and sometimes these are the types of things that we can overlook so make sure you have them on your list and then you won't forget them.

And before I could do my inventory for this room I wanted to do the ToDo list.

It is not very long but does include a rather annoying thing.

 The people who owned the house before us had put up two hooks above the window probably to put up some kind of drape.   The walls are completely tiled (not absolutely ghastly but not as nice as all the rest of the tiles in the house) so this means they put up two sticky backed hooks.

But

why couldn't they have put up two hooks that were the same 

and

 at the same height?

So my main ToDo is to find out the best way to remove these hooks.


Any bright ideas?


If you have had to do something similar and are now an expert in this please leave me a comment to help me.

I you have noticed anything online that might guide me please leave me a comment.

I need help here!