January 1st Success

My goal is to have a more successful plan to keep our home clean and clutter free. It is difficult with 5-6 busy people in the home. It seems often that surfaces find clutter quickly. Things get placed on anything with a flat surface and then it soon becomes a mountain. We lack closets, attic space, a garage.. so it really means creative planning. I have some projects for the year that I hope will help get us steered in the right direction.

While I would love a desk that was more functional for me, for now I am working to clean this one up. Its probably over a year of paperwork and other things as we have moved rooms, done repairs in our room etc. The den tends to collect anything that comes out of a room that is being worked on. 

I had a plan to use expandable files and binders to clean this area up. I hope to get my external hard drive set up to start taking scanned quilting files, from purchases, to recipets, to orders. I think that will help. I am playing with the idea of doing the same with bills. I have no idea how to stay on top of all the papers that come in. I do great with mail and then getting bills into my slots. I now have one metal rack for things that need to be filed and I have a binder for monthly bills, and one for quilt orders. Will see how it looks in  a couple of months and if this is the new system for me or not.

Another issue is shoes and jackets. My husband surprised me with this jacket "rack" by the back door. To create a kind of mud room. Let me tell you I pick up jackets constantly and shoes as well. You can come in and out of two main doors through the back or front and it seems that shoes and jackets follow. I am hoping to train children to put their jackets here and their shoes in their rooms or the shoe rack. We will be working on a new shoe rack that is taller and narrower. We built our old one 7 years ago and we both agreed a better solution is needed. 

Its these small things that will make a difference, just need time for more ideas like this one. This was simple to create with some pegs from Hobby Lobby, a Pallet board and a little bit of stain. I love it.

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