Organizing My Junk Room

At the beginning of a new year, I get the bug to organize, clean, and purge.  I finally took a day to get my junk room, throw it in there when we don't know what to do with it, dog hangout room organized!

 

This was the one area in the house that gave me heart palpitations everytime I walked into it.  It's a room that was converted from the garage which is adjacent to the kitchen. Take a look:

This was not a functional space as you can tell.  Look at that disaster!

Seriously, it was out of control

As you can see, there is a lot of stuff thrown in here haphazardly without any rhyme or reason.  I keep a pretty clean house, and I am not overly OCD, but this room kind of freaked me out.  Some people have a junk drawer, I have a junk room!

 

The first thing I did was start four piles: trash, donate, shred or keep.  Next I started in one area and worked on that to get it dusted and vacuumed so I could start organizing and categorizing.  Here are my final results:

 

The items on the top shelf are household documents categorized and labeled, as well as a few memory boxes that don't really have a home.  A lot of these things are old photos, school work and pictures that the girls have done in school, and taxes.

The second shelf is some holiday items, extra vases, party supplies and gift bags, vacuum bags and attachments.

Third shelf is re-usable bags and coolers, picnic supplies, and another box of holiday items.

The fourth shelf is a pizza maker, crockpots, the griddle, and some tupperware items

This is the rest of the shelves in the top photo

The fifth shelf has all the baking supplies, mixer, mixing bowls and a cool idea I found on Pinterest.  I took a file folder holder for a desk and used it to store the baking sheets, cutting boards, cookie racks, and lids to the tupperware.  It's an awesome way to store all these things!

The last shelf is a tub full of playdoh and moon sand (easy access for Miss M), dog food, extra papertowels, batteries, and lightbulbs

The cart to the right stores:  Miss M's craft and art supplies on the top shelf.  The bottom shelf stores travel cups, water bottles, thermos, and another small cooler.

The mini refrigerator got moved over next to the deep freezer.  The bird house cabinet stores candles and a few easy access household tools (screwdriver, measuring tape, etc.)

Not photographed is an old microwave stand (you can see it a little in the above photo).  This stores all the pens, pencils, tape, address labels, etc. in the drawer and under in the cabinets are items my husband uses for his business (paints, spray glue, caulk guns, etc.).  These items need to stay warm so they need to be in the hosue somewhere.  This was an easy solution to still store these items, but not have to look at them.

Although this room doesn't have all the pretty baskets and cute storage totes that I would really like to use, it serves it's purpose, everything has a place, it's labeled, and categorized for easy access.  Now I can actually walk in there and not feel like having a panic attack.  The dog is in heaven since he has reclaimed this space for his cozy hangout area too!

 

Have you got the organizing bug lately?  I would love to hear what you have done!