create space, storage and free clutter in home office
Judy Raines
5 years ago
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Toronto Veterinarian
5 years agoRelated Discussions
Home office / homeschool / clutter....yikes!
Comments (34)Thanks Talley, it is good to know I am not alone. It drives me crazy when I do spend hours cleaning, only to have DH come home and move something centimeters. Or I haven't touched something all day, and he will come home and move it. AAARRGH. Just leave it alone!!! Now to the office. I do have a good 2 drawer filing cabinet I think we got from an office that was moving, but it is full! Although I am sure it needs to be cleaned out. Right now we have a corner computer desk that has really no storage. Everything is on the top of the desk, cubbies, in baskets, paper, paper everywhere! I do research for a coupon website and am the secretary for the music boosters at the high school, so there is a lot of paper. Just need a better filing system. I do have in the closet a cabinet that right now houses lots of craft stuff that I haven't used in forever. I am thinking about taking that out, cleaning it out and repurposing it. Maybe paint and a little molding, a cork board on the front, baskets and labels inside... I need a real desk with drawers to put stuff away. I have 4 different rolly carts with different size drawers for various and sundry things. One holds kids school supplies I try to always have on hand so there is no running to the store in the middle of the night! Buy them in Aug/Sept when they are cheap! Then I have all my fabric, I make flannel rag quilts for friends then use the scraps to make blankies for preemies. Have lots of flannel remnants, need to get that in line. Ok, now I am stressing, just need to concentrate on one thing at a time. Today it is the paper work on the floor. Once I can get through that it won't be so bad. Thanks again, Laura...See Moreoffice clutter and more stuff
Comments (16)Annellis, The thing to do when you have so much necessary "stuff" and just not enough room, is (1) try to declutter again - throw out what you can live without, (2) separate "home" from "business" from "hobbies" (3) Within each one of those three sections are sometimes ten or so subsections. Don't feel like we've all got the tiny desk with the 3 flowered vase on it and are just so content with that. At the moment, I've got a few rooms of disorganization spilled over onto the next (but I work almost 16 hrs a day and wait for weekends to catch up). Anyways, those magazine desk rooms are "staged" rooms - they don't exist. The minute you put a real person with real receipts and documents in those rooms, it will be a tornado. Anyways, a few tips I've used that have helped me: (1) Buy a photo album with the clear sheets: I put warranties, important receipts, important documents (deeds, mortgage transactions, etc.) in these bad boys because it lets me see instantaneously what I have. (2) Get an accordian style folder. This is for coupons. Label the tabs by month, and put the coupons in that are due to expire in that month. We are never more motivated to use coupons then when their value will expire. At least that is the way for me. (3) Get fancy (but cheap) bins to put "stuff to look over when I have a minute" and divide by type: business, home, play. Organizing is very personal; make it the way you need to in order to retrieve documents quickly and to organize efficiently. If big color stickies are what grabs your attention, then do it! If you want that kind of attention-getting organization, but behind closed doors - stash your stuff in matching bins, cabinets, etc. You don't have to buy fancy stuff, just make it all consistent; paint the ugly file cabinet a nice brown to match the incoming & outgoing mail bins, that will match the accordian files. Harmony is established visually through consistency. So, you can have alot of clutter, but consolidate it behind consistent color and texture and find a code of organization that works for you and your family. Having alot of "stuff" isn't bad - especially if it is important documents or idea sheets or creative inspirations. The trick is to be able to devise a system to organize it so that you can retrieve it quickly, or flip through it to remind you of what is available. I have volumes and volumes of pictures I've cut out from magazines, because I loved the way a room looked. I have several albums dedicated soley to kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, bonus rooms, basements, mudrooms, and gardens. And in each one of those categories, I have several subcategories (paint style/color, furniture arrangement, etc.). As long as you organize in a way that you won't have to lose an inspiration idea, you are fine! And you can do all this on a budget, and still be eloquent, and organized looking. Go over the system with your partner and make sure you two are on the same page in regards to (1) what needs to be filed and where they go (2) what things can wait and where their holding place is, and (3) not sure, but I'll ask my partner about this one bin. Remember that the "home office" is the "brains" of the house; deceptionaly pretty, but internally complex. Kinda like what my DBoyfriend calls me. ;)...See Moretips needed - keeping island clutter-free!
Comments (35)A couple of things about FlyLady helped me, like setting a timer for 5 or 15 minutes and just doing as much as you can during that time, stop when the timer goes off. I THINK that kids could declutter at least some things in 5 minutes before bed. Grown-ups can allot themselves the 15 minutes. I also bring the mail in and stand over the trash can while throwing the junk right into recycling. Mail that looks potentially important, I open and then discard the envelopes. The rest of the paper isn't technically clutter, and it gets dealt with some time before bed! Keys, wallets, cell phones, and other stuff like that just have their own space. Of course, that space is generally somewhat cluttered itself, but it is smaller and has a "junk drawer" beneath it, which helps some! A major motivator is that our island granite is heart-stopping and we really love to look at it, though we definitely do most of our prep on it (no prep sink)! Maybe that's part of it - everything that would be hurt by tomato paste, paprika, lemon juice, really any kind of spill - has to go before we start prepping. It's small compared with other islands, 3'x5' so that really needs to happen. Well, good luck!...See MoreSpace for home office
Comments (8)We've been looking at houses with guest houses/casitas for my mom. We saw an interesting one last weekend. The guest house was a former tool shed that had been converted by the architect owner into a really interesting space. Although it might not be at all what you want, it was an interesting exercise for me in thinking outside of the box. Every room is a pass-through room, with the flow something of a serpentine through the rooms. It has 862 square feet and is based on a grid of 9' squares (sub-optimal, but he was working with the cards he was dealt, it appears). I thought to post it here because it has no true hallways. We would consider making one tweak -- a door from the Office Space into the bedroom, so that the "ante room" or whatever on the way to the bedroom could be its own private bedroom and/or storage area for the main house that is "separate" from the guest house. The spiral stairs go to a sleeping loft over the bath and kitchen area -- large enough for a queen mattress....See MoreJudy Raines
5 years agowednesday morning
5 years ago
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