sharing my love for swedish organization

I went to Sweden!

Okay, just kidding…  I went to Ikea!

Ikea’s philosophy is when you make room for organization, you make room for a better start to your day. In 2017, I think we can all make room for  better days.

Last week I started a new series on the blog called “#goals”. We all create resolutions in the new year and create goals for ourselves, but do we actually keep them after February? Every week I want to update you all One of my biggest goals that I have every year is to clean my house and declutter my life. Last week I started a Home Organization Challenge on Facebook and started with the kitchen.

Last week my family and I went to Ikea for a day trip. I love Ikea because everything in the store is made to create an organized home. If you know me at all, you will know that I love everything in my life to be organized. Now that doesn’t mean everything in my life is always organized either (currently staring at a chair in my room covered in clean laundry that still has to be put away). I was walking through the store and I kept gasping with things I *needed*. My mom kept saying I was having an “O O” or an Organization Orgasm LOL GUYS, I just really like to have a clean and organized home. While I was there I picked up a few things to help me in my Home Organization Challenge. You can’t have an organized home without the right tools and a plan.

You can have a big kitchen or a little kitchen,  but if you don’t have a proper organization system, your kitchen will always be a mess. When I was at Ikea we picked up some drawer organizers and I immediately rushed home to organize the drawers. Everything has a place in the kitchen. Doesn’t this drawer look so much more organized? Even the junk drawer is organized (ish).

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I swear one of my favorite hobbies is cleaning my kitchen. I usually spend two to three hours cleaning it. Yes, I am that crazy! But now that I spent all last week cleaning, organizing and purging my kitchen, my weekly clean up will be a lot easier. Everything has its own place in the kitchen. If it didn’t fit, I donated it or moved it to another place.

While I was cleaning and taking every thing out of the cabinets, I also collected Christmas and summer kitchen items and put them in their proper boxes downstairs in the basement. It’s something that always happens every year as the holidays go by and we forget to put away kitchen items, but once I put everything in its proper place I found a lot more room in the cabinets. Who knew under the kitchen storage could look so organized?? This organizer came from the dollar store, so if you can’t get to an Ikea you should go to the dollar store to pick up some storage containers. 

This week I am continuing the Home Organization Challenge and  working on my pantry. I just cleaned and organized it in September, so I am sure this will be an easy week. The pantry in our kitchen is big and it is where everything just gets thrown in when we want to clean the house quickly. But after I created a new organization system in the pantry last fall, it is very easy to tidy it up a bit every few weeks.

 

Let me know if you are joining me in the home organization challenge and  know how your progress is going in the comments!

#goals : declutter

One of my yearly goals is to clean and declutter. This may not seem like a lot of fun, but decluttering you room, your home, car, closet, etc. brings so much happiness into your life. Walking into a space that is messy makes me very stressed out. It’s hard to go to bed if I have clothes on my floor or there are dishes in the sink. It sounds crazy, but waking up in the morning and everything is in its place helps me get out of the house faster. This is coming from the girl who loses her keys at least once a week (because I put them in a new place every night)!

Cleaning seems like a big task, but if you do one big clean in the beginning of the year and maintain it, it’s not as scary as a task. One way to make it easier is to declutter. Go through each room at a time and then go through each drawer, and each category of clothes. I wrote another post on this here that I highly recommend.

Another exciting project that I am starting is the Home Organization 14 Week Challenge. It started when I found this Facebook group and every year they have this house cleaning challenge. Each week there is a different room to clean and it provides a to do list to make sure you go through all of your items, purge, declutter and do a big clean so it is easier to maintain throughout the year. You can find the challenge here.

Over the weekend I started with my kitchen and checked off a lot on my to do list, but there is still a lot more fun to be had! Since I did this last year, so far the cleaning has been very easy to do. I created places for everything last year, so it is just me putting some things back to where they belong.

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My parents are in for a big surprise when they try to find things this week! I am sure they want to kick me out of the house after all of this cleaning!

Who wants to do this with me??

 

 

 

Perfectly Plaid

So on on this marvelous snow day I thought I would share my new bed with you guys! I have been wanting to do this for weeks and this snow day finally made me get to it!

Okay, quick story: When I was in college, my parents surprised me and completely my bedroom. I was that person who still had a childhood bedroom when I went away to college, but found it so difficult to throw things away and change much. After sophomore year in college, I started the purge… I literally threw everything out that did not have sentimental value, and everything that did have sentimental value I put away in a box neatly and of course labeled! I still have a majority of my childhood furniture, but upgraded from a twin bed to a Full bed while I was in college. However, it was a really ugly bed that we just had laying around the house. So Junior year is when my dad created a headboard to go over the ugly bed. He spent so much time with the stuffing and burlap to make it look like one of the pretty beds I wanted! Fast forward a few years and the burlap is stained, ripping and the bed is literally breaking in two! So for Christmas, my dad surprised me once again by buying me a bed on Overstock.com. And when I say surprised, I mean he pulled up the website and told me to buy anyone that I wanted (He’s a smart man!). On Christmas morning this giant box that we have been hiding in the guest bathroom came out and I got a new bed! It took my dad and I two hours to get my old bed apart and the new one up. My dad kept saying that this was worse than building a Barbie Dream House!

On Christmas, my mamma gave me new sheets, a new duvet, pillows, blankets, the whole lot! I am in love with my new bed and I have a trip to Ikea planned this week because when you improve one thing in a room, everything else has to be updated!

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Fun fact, where my bed is now was once a kitchen! My floor was once an apartment and I chose my bedroom to be in the living room/kitchen because it is so much bigger than the room meant to be a bedroom. (You can see my guest room here

My bed takes up an entire side of my bedroom and I actually prefer it this way because it’s very cozy and at night I don’t have any distractions like a pile of laundry or a dresser with things on it to stare at all night. My mom decorated my bedroom in a French Hotel Room when I was in college and I love how clm the room color is. While I personally may have outgrown this theme, I still love how simple and clean the room is. There is very little on the walls and the furniture are all antiques my mom found. My two bedside tables are items she found while antiquing and the flower carving she found for only a few dollars at Goodwill. If you are in the process of renovating a bedroom or getting an apartment, I highly suggest going to Goodwill or second hand stores. I hate knowing that when we are done with things that they just sit in a landfill polluting our Earth. It takes some digging and going to a few places, but you can find some very interesting pieces of furniture that don’t look cookie cutter from an Ikea catalogue. DSCN3821.jpgDSCN3820.jpg

Another fun fact about myself is that I worked in a hotel one summer while in high school. It was one of the worst jobs I ever had, but it is a right of passage in my town because every girl does it, but I learned a lot  about cleaning and making a bed. Since then, when I make a bed, I make it the hotel room way! I just really like everything to be neat!DSCN3818.jpgDSCN3819.jpg

I am obsessed with pillows (!!!) but like to the point where it is becoming a problem. My decorative pillows here are from Target. The two fluffy ones are from the Dollar Bin at Target and the two decorative ones were seriously marked down clearance. The snowflake one was $4 last year! The decorative blanket on my bed is also from Target! When my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I just told her bedding and Target!

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My duvet and sheet set is flannel and I am in love. I know black is not the traditional winter color for bedding, but when I saw it in the store on a bed display I immediately took photos and sent them to my mom with the only words saying NEED! The bedding is Martha Stewart at Macy’s and on major clearance right now. It’s not available in stores anymore, but my parents were able to order it online. This is honestly the most comfortable bedding I have ever slept in! My mom has bought Martha Stewart sheets for years and never understood why she was obsessed, but after these flannel sheets were put on my bed, there is no going back!DSCN3816.jpg

I do have a large bedroom, but my closet is very tiny and I don’t have much room in there for storage. I have two dressers, but since they are from when I was a little kid the drawers are very small. To get creative in making more space, I took one of the under the bed storage plastic containers I had from college and I have all of my pajamas in it. That way all of my pajamas are in one place and near my bed. I also have another one that has all of my sheets for my bed. I hate the idea of a linen closet for sheets for multiple beds because everything just gets thrown in there and gets messy fast. Since being home from college, I have all of the sheets to the corresponding bed neatly placed in a box under that bed. That way, when we have to change sheets we don’t have to go far to get new ones!DSCN3823.jpg

I have built a bit of a collection of slippers over the years and have them neatly placed in a basket by my bed. If you cannot already tell, I like when things have a place. If it does not have a place I try to find a permanent place or I get rid of it. Since I started to adopt this philosophy with my things, my room seems so much more clean and open! On the side of my bed I got a Pottery Barn basket from Goodwill that I keep extra blankets and pillows in.As you can already tell, I like bedding accessories and when they are not being used, I just put them in the basket to make sure they are not on the floor creating a mess. DSCN3825.jpgDSCN3822.jpg

I hope you enjoyed my little bed tour and let me know if you have any other questions!

 

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We’ll Be Home For Christmas

img_3218Something my mom and I share is decorating the house for Christmas. So you can imagine our delight when our house was chosen to be included on the towns Christmas House Tour! After weeks of decorating, cleaning and crafting, the day finally came. Here is a tour of our home for Christmas.  Continue reading “We’ll Be Home For Christmas”

Crafting on a Friday Night

img_2848When there is a sale at Bath & Body Works I am always stocking up on the candles! Over the last year I have burned through a few of them and have a collection of empty glass canisters sitting in my room waiting for a craft project. It’s a Friday night so of course I am cleaning my room because I have nothing better to do. I thought I would finally do something with these empty candle canisters. Continue reading “Crafting on a Friday Night”

Target Holiday Preview

Okay, I know it is November 3rd…. but Target just started putting out their Christmas items and OH MY GOSH! I went to Target to buy a birthday card for my mom and some gift wrap…and left with more goodies than planned. I immediately started throwing items in my cart and told my college friends the good news. A friend asked for pictures so she could see too. I looked like a crazy person walking around documenting everything- but now I have plenty of photos to share for you guys!

img_2653 Continue reading “Target Holiday Preview”