Its February, and though I don't make New Years resolutions anymore, there's an innate need to start cleansing SOMETHING once the holidays end. So I took the week off from drinking (and by the week I mean Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, let's not get insane) and I've been tearing apart cabinets, drawers, bookshelves and closets with an intention to clear out old shit and welcome in what I really want for 2018. What is that? I want something for myself, outside of kids. I want something that lights me up and fills me up and doesn't involve multiple trips to Target, the grocery store and UPS. I feel like if I do some cleaning up of crap I don't want to look at anymore, I can relax and focus on me. Not just because of the laws of Feng Shui but because it really feels cathartic!
I've even been diving into these books, which are really hard core. They basically say if you throw away all your bank statements from the last 10 years and toss the plant-based protein powder that you know you're never going to use, prepare to open your front door for wealth and abundance! Or a divorce, if that's for your highest good.
I'm not in general an organized gal at all, in fact I'm a maj scatterbrain which is why all my organizing gets pretty out of whack easily. I can't multitask, so I'm usually having conversations with my husband that I completely black out while I'm trying to unpack the whole family from a vacation. And then I end up losing the $800 reMarkable electronic notebook he so thoughtfully gave me for Christmas. Insert bawling pathetic emoticon here.
So, when my friend Alex told me to follow The Home Edit on Instagram, I was like "why would I follow an organizational blog that is only going to stress me out about organizing?" I don't want to look at tightly rolled bath towels artfully descending in ombre rainbow fashion. I don't want to see color coordinated snack bags quarantined in their perfect compartments in a pantry that seems to have endless space in it. Don't they know a normal human's pantry is filled with half eaten bags of pirates booty and dum dums from ever pinata your kid has taken a whack at in the last 5 years? Also the bursting envelope of "box top" collections that I never remember to turn in and have no where else to put.
It turns out yes, I do.
It actually turned me ON to look at these things and inspires me to put every god damn thing I own in a bin with a label smacked on it. I even stuck my dog in a clear bin with a P touch label that says "Hannah". Its quite addictive actually, and even though my stuff will never look like full blown Unicorn barf, I think what my loyal, fabulous organizer, Heidi Chianta did, is just stellar.
I love the use of clean white modern bins and black chalkboard labels.
What I like about what she did here (listen up those of you with small spaces!) is she built a closet system from the container store on one side of the closet, and left the other side clear for a few hanging items. I added the shoe basket because it just looks tidier. We don't usually have any long term guests here, so thats enough. Plus I left a bin empty for guest's belongings. The other large basket holds bedding for the pull out couch.
How rad are the ipad and hat hooks? Brilliant.
Its all about bins and labels, people, bins and labels.
The pictures below are my own work, thank you very much. I was sick of the piles of shoes in the laundry/mud room and nagging the kids to take all their shoes back to their rooms. So I put large bins in the closet for their most-worn shoes and created a bottom basket for adult flip flops and sneakers which I'm using the most. I use the inside of the door for extraneous kids art (where the hell do you put it all? great ideas here) and I hung the star charts next to the door we depart out of every day so they can have a positive outlook on life when they start their day.
Although I can't take full credit for this organization design job, purging is definitely the most time consuming part of the process. I do know a thing or two about labels and bins, and I'm still going to feel really good opening the cabinets every where I go. Did I say these girls' Insta-stories are hilarious? They are nothing glamorous (although Clea's skin always looks flawless), just literally organization and day-to-day, minute-to-minute fodder about hiding from their family in their car and the next glass of champagne and I could watch them all day.
So I guess what I'm saying is 2018, The Home Edit, Spark - you inspire me. I'm going to continue to clean everything up, get real and prepare to open the floodgates for miracles.
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