Organization Nation

Put on your thinking caps, everyone.  It’s time for a speed round of Jeopardy.  Ready….GO! 

Clue:  It’s put to the back burner constantly, yet highly sought after.  



Question: What is closet organization?  

If you got that correct, picture me hoisting you up on my shoulders while you fist bump Alex Trebek.  You can also imagine the chuckling that ensued when I stumbled upon this funny graphic.  If you’re a Pinterest junkie like myself, it hit a little too close to home.  This lead to the day the boys’ bathroom linen closet got a mini makeover.  

And because I’m super dorky, I was actually really looking forward to tackling this project.  The fact alone that this bathroom even HAD a linen closet was enough to make me almost shout my love from the rooftop.  Neither bathroom in our previous house had an internal linen closet.  Our old first floor bath had one immediately outside of the bathroom and the upstairs bath didn’t have anything at all so we had to purchase a free standing organization stand.  We made both situations work, but I was hoping our next home would have an interior closet. Boom.  Wish granted.   

 

As the saying goes, it had good bones with its five shelves and plenty of space, but it definitely lacked order.  And an updated shelf liner design. So here’s how things unfolded.

First, out came the shelves (which were just sitting on the wall braces so they popped right out) and in about five minutes flat the old shelf liners were removed from each.  It resulted in a sticky mound of crunched up liner that looked a lot like the beauty of progress.  (Rolling your eyes yet?)  The shelves themselves were rather tacky as well, but since I had already picked up some new cute chevron inspired shelf liner on a recent trip to TJ Maxx, I wasn’t concerned with the stickiness and in fact, I was pretty sure it would help my cause.  It’s along the same lines of how it’s a good idea to “back butter” tiles before placing them onto their already mortared/thinset’d surface to ensure good adhesion.

At this point, I busted out my roll of chevron liner and quickly found that my shelves weren’t entirely square.  It was easy to see because the back of most shelf liners these days have a grid pattern on the back to help with measuring and cutting.  But since not much is perfectly square when it’s something that’s been cut specifically for a space, it didn’t come as much of a surprise.  It didn’t really affect the overall time spent on the project, though.  Here’s the simple technique I used (and I apologize again for not having any in-progress photos):

1.     Place the shelf liner pattern side down on the floor.

2.     Place the shelf on top and trace around it. 

3.     Cut out shape as precisely to the line as you can to avoid extra cuts later on.

4.     Grab your shelf, carefully line up your liner, and then peel the backing off to reveal a small section of sticky side.  DO NOT remove the entire backing at once!  Learn from my mistakes please.  It gets very Saran Wrap-esque if you do that and wants to cling to itself.  Rather, peel back only about a 2-3 inch wide section and work your way from left to right (or right to left if you’re a lefty).  As you remove more backing, slowly press down the new liner onto your surface making sure to smooth out any bubbles.  This is really where the 2-3 inch recommendation comes in handy because if a bubble or wrinkle DOES appear that you can’t work out, you can easily pull back that small section of liner and re-stick it without it being a big deal.

5.     Once it’s laid, trim any excess off with an exacto knife or your regular scissors. 

Now that I had the aesthetics of the shelves jazzed up, it was time to focus on the real star of the show – the organization. 

Since I’m a big fan of bins and baskets for grouping and concealing like items, I was excited to have a new home for six blue toned fabric bins that used to be in Holden’s bedroom at the old house.  He had a built-in bookcase in his old room and these bins were the perfect addition on the lower two shelves to storage miscellaneous toys.  Well, in the new house he doesn’t have any built-ins in his room so the bins were sitting in a closet.  Until now.  

  

Everyone wins when organization is involved!  {Insert groans here}  And now the side-by-side.  And let me apologize for my lack of expertise editing with the pics.  It was time for the new Breaking Bad episode so I was a bit rushed.  Walter White doesn't like to be ignored.

TOTAL PROJECT COST: $6

Shelf liner: $6

Fabric storage bins: $0, already had

Labels: $0, already had

And can I get a high five for crossing another item off the to-do list for this room?!

To-do list for this room includes:

• paint the walls and ceiling
• do something with current light fixture as interim fix; paint?
• new artwork
• new flooring
• do something with the vanity
• new vanity top & faucet
• do something with linen closet (organization)
• replace lighting
• frame out mirror
• paint the trim and doors white? 

Has anyone else undertaken any fun (yes, I think they’re fun!) organization projects lately?  Or at a minimum, pinned a whole bunch of ideas to one day tackle?

♥,
Anne