It's A New Year......

.....Therefore, I am on a mission to get this house clean and organized by the end of January!  Everything will have a place!  I pride myself on being pretty organized as it is.  But, there are a few areas that can stand a good cleanin' out!  I am joining Maryann over at Domestically Speaking and getting these areas straight!

Word!

And as usual, I'm already a little behind the times.  She has already moved on into week 2: kitchen areas.  Last week she focused on storage areas.  I chose to organize the closet under our stairs.  This has become a place where I store extra kitchen gadgets that I don't have room for in my cabinets (i.e., crock pot, waffle maker, electric kettle, etc.).  I have also started using it to store baby items.  This is where we keep Emily's tub and towels, her small toys, extra diapers and wipes, and extra bottles.  All of this stuff was kinda just thrown in there with no rhyme or reason.  I had some stuff just thrown in baskets in attempts to be organized, but all in all it was just a big mess.  I couldn't even walk into the closet.  Check it:

So, I got in there and took pretty much everything out (except the shelves) and reorganized.  I added 3 new baskets which hold the small toys, extra diapers & wipes, and extra bottles.  I took out the items in the big boxes and put them where they belong.  Now, I have a happy closet that I can walk into!! 

Now all I need to do is add the labels I made to the baskets (I still need to wrap them in contact paper and the contact paper is in the carriage house and I'm just too darn lazy to walk over and get it).  Here is an example of the labels I made for the baskets:

This week Maryann is focusing on kitchen areas.  I've already started on a few cabinets so I'll be excited to share those at the end of this week.

What are you doing to get organized in the New Year?