More Room Cleansing

My room cleansing adventures have been a hoot. I almost had a completely clean floor, but then I got involved in a new project and it blew up my floorspace again. Story of my life, LOL!

I have resigned myself to the fact that the floor is always going to be a problem. Although I am actually very good at putting new things away fairly promptly, when I get to working, I'm a mess. I have been pretty strict with myself about new purchases, but there are some new products that I found I could not live without.

Today, I thought I'd just show you how I attempt to stay somewhat organized. I do find that my organization methods are continually changing, as I either find a new bin to store things in, or decide to further group like items together. I have also found that I am interested in many hobbies and each has it's own specialty supplies. I call them my other lives :)

Here is a photo of how I am keeping track of what is where. These drawers were built by my father and were in his workshop. He kept his tools sorted in them by categories. When he passed away, we brought them down from Lake Tahoe and stored them in our garage. Last year, when I started in all this new inkiness stuff I brought them into the house. I have had them for 7 years now and I remember talking to my dad about what glue he should use to build these cubes. He probably had them a good 20 or 30 years himself.

Because they are unfinished, I feel comfortable putting labels on them. I've decided not to paint them because there are memories of them as my Dad used them. I use my Dymo Labelmaker to print out sticky labels. I like the Dymo brands of label makers the best because the labels are laminated with plastic and stay nice. I keep different widths of tape cartridges handy so I can label the spines of cd cases as well.

Labeled drawers

If you are wondering why there are so many labels on two of the drawers, they are my roadmap to an item's location INSIDE the drawer. It helps when multiple items are in layers.

The large label is my re-purpose invention. I found a box of name tag holders at Staples. I removed the safety pin and then adhered the empty pocket to my drawer. This way, if I decide to change the contents of the drawer, I can just pull out the card and replace it with a different label... fast and easy!

If a drawer's contents are in transition, then I use a sticky note until I'm happy with the organization. After that I'll get out my labelmaker and create the roadmap for that drawer.

I do this even for my clear plastic drawers. Labeling really helps me, as I sometimes forget where I moved something. I can look at my labels instead of opening and closing multiple drawers.