iOrganize

Color-coded bookshelf

Don't know how to organize a bookshelf?  Color code it.

Before and After photos for the pantry:

Before:

After:

The following are some easy-to-follow steps to organizing your pantry:

1. Empty your pantry and put everything on your kitchen countertop while discarding anything that is spoiled, expired, or anything that you simply don't need.
2. Before you put anything back in the pantry, make sure you clean the shelves. 
3. Put like things together and store cereal, flour, coffee, pasta etc... in storage containers and bread in a basket. OXO makes great containers or you can get one like mine from Walmart for $3.50 for a set of 3 canisters and make sure you label them.
4. Label the shelves or map it out on paper. Sort by baking items (Flour, baking powder etc..), dried goods (pasta, rice) canned goods, oil, coffee and tea, breakfast items, snacks etc...... 
5. Put everything back and admire your work :)

Cleaning Schedule:

After many months of trying to figure out how to keep my house clean and organized with a four year old and a baby that hardly takes any naps, I came up with a plan. This plan had allowed me to have a clean home without losing my mind: I created a cleaning schedule.
Before I had a cleaning schedule, cleaning the house became a monstrous and overwhelming task to do but now I am more capable of keeping the house tidy and clean without getting too stressed or losing sleep over it.
The following is the cleaning schedule that I developed and I am sharing it here hoping that it will benefit many of you. You can take this cleaning schedule and tweak it to fit your needs.
Bear in mind that I do miss some days sometimes because of a fussy baby, a sick child, an unplanned event etc.. and I usually try to either add it to my list for the next day or skip it all together until the following week.

Everyday cleaning:

Bedroom: Make bed, straighten closet
Kitchen: Wash dishes or load/unload dishwasher, wipe counter tops and island, clean off the kitchen table, and sweep the kitchen floor
Laundry: Wash, dry, fold and put away laundry
Family room: Straighten the family room and put away the toys

Weekly cleaning


Monday:

•  Empty wastebaskets (garbage truck comes on Tuesday)
• Mop kitchen floor and foyer

Tuesday:

• Dust the whole house and clean off computer/TV screens
• Vacuum downstairs

Wednesday: (big cleaning day for me as my four year old is at school all day)

• Wash/change sheets and towels
• Clean bathrooms
• Vacuum upstairs

Thursday:

• Wipe down inside and outside of appliances including washer and dryer
• Once a month cleaning (see below)
• Menu planning (we get the store ads on Wednesday)

Friday:

• Vacuum downstairs
• Wipe glass doors
• Restock diapers, wipes, and toilet paper 

Saturday:  

• Pay bills
• Organize/toss papers/mail

Sunday: 

• Clip and organize coupons
• Prepare weekly school time projects/worksheets/crafts for my four year old
• Update my TO DO list for the week

Monthly cleaning:

• Clean fridge, freezer, and oven
• Wipe inside and outside of windows and kitchen cabinets
• Disinfect doorknobs 
• Spot treat carpet and upholstery
• Wash and disinfect wastebaskets

In future posts, I will list some more tips and tricks I use for keeping the house clean and organized STRESS FREE.

Mission Organization: Children's Clothes Drawer

Sometimes it feels like no matter how many times you fold and organize the children's clothes drawer, it just gets disorganized again the next day or maybe if you are lucky the week after. I always found that especially with shirts, it is hard to keep my daughter's drawer organized. Every time I look through it to find her a shirt, I am having to mess it up trying to look for a nice shirt for her to wear or I realize that I had forgotten about one that was buried underneath them all.

Recently, I decided to tackle that problem so I don't have to redo her clothes drawer each time I am looking for a shirt for her.

Below is an outline of how I organized her drawer:

TOP DRAWER:

The top drawer was mainly for underwear, undershirts, socks, hats, etc..

SHIRT DRAWER:

I separated them into T-shirts, long sleeve shirts, short sleeve shirts, and pyjamas then folded them and put them back standing up; as you will see in the pictures below, then coordinated them by color.

PANTS DRAWER:

The pants drawer was easy. I separated them into pants, shorts, and skirts, then I placed them on top of each other by folding them shorter each time so it is easier to find what I needed.

I hope that you find this helpful and encouraging to solve the kids drawer dilemma:)

Here is a great video on how to fold the clothes and organize the drawer.

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