De-cluttering

It's been almost a year since we redid the kitchen. Ever since we have owned the house , there is a corner of the kitchen that is my nemesis. No matter what I do, I cannot keep this area clutter-free. It makes me crazy. It is the place we throw keys, wallets, mail we don't want to throw out but don't have a place for ... you know the deal- every house has a place like this.

This is a picture taken last year, and it pretty much has looked the same but more cluttered. Every few weeks I would clean it out, only to have it get cluttered again within days. So, I decided I couldn't take it anymore.

We took a trip to Ikea this past week to look at stuff for the office (a work in progress). Ikea has such great organization items. It makes me happy. So we got these gord-like-pod-things and hung them on the side of the cabinet as a place to throw keys, pens, or whatever. I really wanted to get most everything off the counter. I also picked up these cute little tins which now keep tea and other hot drinks in easy reach, which is crucial this time of year.

It makes me much happier to have this space clutter-free. I have realized when you don't have a place to clutter, it makes you deal with that mail as soon as you get it, rather than add it to that corner and forget about it.

This year we have lots of plans for de-cluttering and organizing. The big one of course being the office that we are making in our old closet. I have to go through lots of stuff in the now guest room and organize everything to have its own place in the new office. The other project will be the basement at some point. We have done a lot of organizing down there already, but we want to invest in getting some shelves or other storage to help keep it organized.

And while we're on the subject of organizing, if you have kids, you know how difficult it can be to keep all their stuff organized. A constant battle for us is Aiden's toys. I like things to have a place and to be put away at the end of the day. We picked up these fabric bins from Ikea (did I mention how much I love Ikea!!) which are perfect because they slip right under the sofa for storing.

Do you have any organizing tricks or plans for 2011?

Updates

I'm back! Happy New Year! The holidays were crazy busy and I am so relieved to have the Christmas decorations down and to be back to our normal schedule.

I relized that I have not shared some of the little changes we made around here in December with all the busyness of the holidays.

First, I will give you an update on the bedroom. I finally finished the curtains for the closet space. These were way more complicated than I wanted them to be. I will spare you the details. Now that they are done though, I am happy with them. I thought that maybe it would be too much white, but, now that they are up and hemmed, I do like them.

I got some new throw pillows for the bed. The yellow flower one is from Target. I think I see it on every blog I read, but it is a great pillow. The gray one is from CB2. You may (or may not ) also notice that we got rid of the Malm end tables that attach to the bed. With the new room configuration, they were too big/ So on one of our Ikea trips, we picked up these stools for $20 each. I have had plans (since getting them months ago) to change the covers. It hasn't happened yet, but it is going to happen, and maybe even this week. I'll keep you updated.

Now, I have a bit of a confession, we had this grand plan of putting tall, skinny, bookshelves on either side of the bed, in between the wall and the windows. We actually did get them, and it looked great, until we got the closet up. It was way too crowded. Book storage is a serious issue for us, so I knew I had to find another place for them. So, out into the hallway they went, right outside the bedroom, at the bottom of the 3rd floor stairs. Aiden helped me take off all the books to move them- he thought it was so much fun. I forgot to take a before picture of them in the bedroom, but here they are in the hallway.

I also hung up our long mirror which used to hang over my dresser horizontally. I like having the mirror in the hallway, and to add a little light, I hung a paper lantern pendant so that we could actually see if using the mirror.

And, speaking of light. I am really weird about light in our home. I like soft light, and I like it evenly dispersed. When we got the sectional, I got kind of stressed out about the fact that we couldn't have a light in that corner anymore. There was definitely no way a floor lamp would work, so it was actually Rob that suggested a pendant. I realized when we needed to move the dresser to put up our Christmas tree, that we would only have one lamp in the room. So, I finally gave in and ordered this pendant from CB2. It was actually a great price ($50), and it looks good too. It makes me happy.

When we took our tree down, I realized now that we have the pendant, I don't need as large of a lamp on that small dresser. So I brought this one down from upstairs, which was a wedding gift. It is from Restoration Hardware and is so nice, so I am glad that we can uses it downstairs.

I have lots of things on my to do list around here. The first being finishing up the bedroom. I think I found something for over the bed, however, I am having a hard time finding a frame that would fit it. Hope everyone had a great holiday and I am looking forward to lots of projects in 2011!