I wish you…

I think this image is perfect, it marries the time period I am blogging about to the actual time of year it is currently.

I don’t usually set goals for the new year.  Dan told me not to this year, he says that if you call it a new year’s resolution then you won’t do it, because no one does.  Hogwash.  Really what happened is that I decided that I want to organize my home better one day in January, so I am calling it my new year’s resolution! Ok, so here’s my goal:

Organize 1 closet (or space) a month for 2011!

Why am I mentioning it to you?  Accountability.  This is a big motivator to me!  So I will report back to you on the blog at the end of each month showing the closet I’ve re-organized. 

The reason I want to do this is to make more space in our apartment, we are going to be a family of 5 in our 1,100 square foot apartment this year and we are going to need more space!  And since buying a house isn’t quite on the horizon yet (blame my accounting/finance background, but I really want 20% down!) I plan to make the best of where we are at so we can save the maximum amount and get the best loan possible.

Here are my spaces for January and February:

January’s was pretty easy.  I organized our coat closet.  First of all, we are very grateful to have a coat closet, a first in our marriage of almost 7 years.  It also doubles/triples as our luggage and vacuum/broom/mop storage.  All I did was: 1) go through the coats and donate a bunch we haven’t worn in years, and 2) buy some storage bins (purchased from Wal-Mart $22 the pair), one for the back pack/duffle bags and one for the hats and gloves.  I think it was a pretty big improvement and definitely more functional and easier to find and retrieve things from the top shelf without pulling down all of it’s contents.

February’s space was a much bigger project.  I tackled the 3rd bedroom.  This was a priority because we had visitors coming to stay in February and I wanted to get it cleaned out so we could fit a queen size air bed plus a pack-n-play in there.  This poor room had become our dump.  Literally, we just dumped anything in the room that we didn’t know what else to do with, including broken appliances, unused furniture, boxes from recent purchases we wanted to hold onto in case we needed to return them, and even some boxes that hadn’t been unpacked from the move (since they were full of junk!) etc.  See for yourself… this is really embarrassing.  It was seriously like the whole room was just a big closet, with poor Tessa’s crib jammed in the back.

It took me a few hours to go through everything, not too bad.  All this cost me was a trip to the dumpster and another to the donation center for GoodWill.  It’s not perfect, it could use some more organizing and I need to sell the shelves on craig’s list, but when we remove the small table and chairs along with the high chair (which we needed in the dining area while our guests were around anyway); there was just enough room for the guest bed and their things! This was a very satisfying room to work on since the difference was so great from before to after as to the usefulness of the room.

I am really excited for my resolution this year and look forward to making more use of my space, preparing for this baby (we find out the gender a week from tomorrow by the way), and making everything in my home easier to find!  Do you have any organizing suggestions for me?  Stores or websites that are helpful?  Do you have a new year’s resolution you want to share?  I’m happy to hold you accountable if it would help!  I’ll post pictures of my March organization space once I take some after pictures.

Happy late New Year!! :)