So for Gracie's toy storage. The main problem occurred because some people (who shall remain nameless... i.e. Daddy, Mommy, Grandpa, Grandmas, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, etc) spoiled her rotten this year. She got so many presents. So many, many presents. I'm not even kidding. I tried to display them all on the fireplace hearth to take a picture of her surrounded by all her toys, but there were too many to fit! I'm serious. Whatever Gracie did this year, it must have been good! I decided against the present picture on the premise that none of my other offspring need to have proof of such a massive gift explosion (spoken like a true second-born, huh?). I don't suspect Gracie will ever see the likes of this Christmas again, nor do I suppose our other child(ren) will either. Seriously, we were overwhelmed with all the love for Gracie this year! Such a loved baby girl!
But back to the problem of having so many toys. We had already decided that our basement was going to become more of a family room, which includes some of Gracie's toys. We chose a few of G's new toys to store in the basement where we hope to spend more time as she gets older. I found a great inspiration at the The Red Chair Blog and was able to replicate for my own house. There are still many toys to store upstairs. I'm working on a living room toy storage solution as we speak! But for now, here's the basement! When she gets older, anal Momma plans to take pictures of each cubby and attach them inside so Gracie knows exactly which toys go where and can put them away properly. We'll see if I actually do it and if it actually works.
My pantry storage has been a work in progress for a while now, but I finally put the finishing touches on the project just this week. I wish I would have taken a before picture because our pantry was sort of tornadic before.
I found several inspirations for my pantry organization on Pinterest, but the basic idea I decided upon was to use bins to categorize the products in our pantry. The categories are: Condiments, Seasoning Packets, Pasta, Sides, Snacks, Dinner Items, Baby Items, Cereal, Chips, Baking Items, Icing/Sprinkles, Random Stuff, Paper Goods. I found these white bins at Walmart for like $4 a piece. I think I spent $30 total on the bins for my pantry project.
The second step is to get rid of all boxes from the boxed goods that have a plastic sack inside (cereals, snack crackers, etc). Just store them in the plastic sacks... that saves lots of storage space.
I still have a few items that aren't in bins. Things like canned goods, cake mixes, and spaghetti sauce have their places on the shelves.
After I had finished filling the bins, I attached 3M removable hooks for hanging lunch bags, trash bags, and other items.
Just this week I got the bins labeled so the husband can find things on his own. We've been using system (sans labels) for about 2 months now and our pantry, thankfully, has not returned to its tornadic state again.
As with the toy storage, I have plans of turning the pantry doors into a whiteboard for writing grocery lists and other notes and also a magnetic board to store spices (in magnetic jars) and other things I have yet to think of!
Ryan isn't exactly a huge fan of my Pinterest addiction. He has told me multiple times over the past week that I need to focus less on my "projects". He says I fixate on them and can't think of anything else until they're done. He's a little bit right, I'll admit it. But at least I'm not a procrastinator. We balance each other out, I think!
