Everything needs its place... or I'm gonna go crazy

I've been mentioning in previous posts about how I really needed for things in our house to have a place and started reorganizing closets, storage spaces, cabinets, etc.  I think when we got back from the states, nothing in my life seemed normal.  The kids sleeping patterns were off.  Brooks had to start working 6 days a week.  There wasn't that much going on.  I went back to not having things to do 

outside the house.  So, I just tackled what was in front of me.  

For starters, we got this toy organizer for Gavin's toys a few years ago after he received a lot of Christmas presents and we had no where to put them.  This piece has been GREAT for Gavin and he's really learned how to keep things put away for the most part.  Although, I found myself getting frustrated often when we were cleaning up and telling him what basket to put certain toys in.  Each basket has organized toys such as- trains, kitchen utensils, tools, balls, books, anything with wheels, figurines of any kind, etc.  We did that since he's only allowed to use two baskets/bins at a time.  Anyways, I had reached my limit on having to reorganize inside the bins and was wasting a lot of time having to explain to Gavin where to put his toys, without having to go put them away myself.  So, I chose 9 pictures of objects that I knew he would recognize, I printed them off of a coloring sheet website, colored the pictures, put them on cardstock, laminated them, then used velcro strips to attach them to the baskets.  It took 3 minutes for me to explain the new system to Gavin and now when he cleans up and asks me where to put something I can just say it goes in your baseball basket.  I've already memorized what toys are in what baskets, so that when I find some of his toys around the house, I don't have to go look and figure out where it goes, I can just tell him and he does it.  He loves the pictures and actually has gotten excited about having to clean up his toys.  This was a life saver!  I also figured since we have 2 boys, that the pictures I chose would work for Miles too someday.  

One of the other areas I tackled was in my kitchen.  I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and the kitchen was the one area of the house that I brought EVERYTHING in it from our old house.  Everything except serving pieces.. which I'm kicking myself for.  Anyways, there was a TON of wasted space in the kitchen, but not a lot I could have done about it,
until I found the right storage/organizing pieces that would fit or work in cabinets.  I wanted to fix our pantry since we had four deep, tall shelves,  but didn't use but half the area because there's only so much you can stack on top of one another before it either falls down, or you can't see half of what you have and it expires before you ever use it.

At Ikea, I found these foldable, stand up shelves and they fit perfectly.  Now, my entire pantry is organized by items, and I can actually see what we already have and don't feel the need to buy 3 or 4 of something when I see it at the stores.  I also move items forward so that I use stuff based on when I purchased it.  I also found a few baskets to hold big stuff like chips & crackers.  There are also containers with snacks, granola bars, popcorn bags, etc.  This all makes me happy!

Just to give you an idea of how deep the shelves really are.  

  

I also started finding out that I was getting extremely overwhelmed with all the stuff that was going on around here and never seemed to be able to get it under control.  I found this dry erase calendar in the states and brought it over with me and I'm so glad that I did.  As you can see.... there is always something going on around here.  If you look closely, in the 2nd to top square... the day after I put this calendar up, Brooks wrote on it "I LOVE this Calendar".  It really helps him get an idea of what we will be doing and I think he understands my feelings of being overwhelmed sometimes.

Last but not least, in the kitchen.  We have two large, no HUGE, corner cabinets that are angled that had so much more space and room for us to use, but only the bottoms of the cabinet were being utilized.  So, I found some shoe racks that fit each corner cabinet and one has our pots and pans, which I use to have to take everything out just to get to a pot, since they were all too heavy to lift at once.  This has pretty much made my life so much easier.

And my favorite part of the reorganizing was what I like to call my cake closet.  I have so much cake supplies for decorating and baking cakes that not all of it fits under this cabinet, but a majority of what I need and use fits perfectly.  I've had 9 months to figure out exactly how I wanted this storage area to function and what I needed to have immediate access to and what could be pushed to the back, etc.  The best part about it is, none of our pantry spaced is used to store powdered sugar, fondant, or cake mixes!  Woo hoo!  And, I can keep a lot of my supplies under the cabinet when I am decorating and just take out what I need, when I need it.  This clears up my counter space, which is even better!

It's simply amazing to me how easier your life can seem just by making a few small changes here and there.  I've also reorganized our bathroom cabinets and other storage areas by adding the foldout stackable shelves.  Now, everything really does have its place!