one corner at a time
Jan 13, 2010 New Years resolutions? Still forming them. Decorations? Boxed, but still waiting to be brought to the garage. Needless to say, I’m a little slow out of the gates this year. But that annual circadian pull to organize is beating strong, and I’m looking forward to clearing the decks, moving furniture to dust underneath, and giving away a trunkful of stuff.
So far, I am trying to attack areas that could give off a nice and restful vibe…but instead, jangle my nerves because I treat them as one-step above the recycling bin. Take, for instance, the side of our fridge. This is the state of affairs after a couple years of accumulation:
And now:
All this took was a roll of cork at the office supply store, some glue dots, a good pair of scissors to cut out a nice shape, and a steady hand for painting a border (inspired by this post at d*s). Now I feel a little wash of happiness every time I come into the kitchen.
The next zone that will be worked over is on the other side of the doorway. It’s our slush pile of bills, mail, sunglasses, seed packets, you name it. I cannot just cute all of that away, however. I actually need to change some of my lazy behavior in that department. Does anyone have a good system for dealing with the riffraff of everyday life, especially bills? If so, please share. This is an area I am going to work on this year.
In the meantime, I’ll look the other way when I come into the kitchen.
cork board, organize, refridgerator in etc
Reader Comments (10)
Do you make house calls?
This is the BEST idea I have seen in 2010! Thanks for the inspiration. Going to pick up cork tomorrow. As for the bills...good luck. I continue to receive those daily as well.
Hi! I just recently found your blog and love to visit and check out all your great ideas. I thought I'd share one that I got from "Real Simple" magazine about 6 years ago for organizing monthly bills. I use a brightly-colored, 8.5x11-inch, accordion-style folder from an office supply store. It has 13 sections. I label each section with the months from Jan-Dec, and leave the 13th section blank. Every month when the bills and bank statements come, I put them in the appropriate section. This helps me keep track of them and I always know where to find one when I need it. I use the 13th section for all my tax-related documents so I know where it is when it's time to give it to the accountant. The folder takes up no space (it fits on a shelf), and it can be reused from year to year. I also tuck my chequebook, some blank envelopes, a pen and stamps in the back section. It's like a portable office - very useful if you don't have a designated desk at home.
Although I live in a good size house, we don't have a "place to land" when we walk into the back door. We walk into our small kitchen, kitchen table on the left and fridge on the right. For a while, our kitchen table was anything but a place to eat. It was a heap of coats, mail, and stuff. To help us keep the kitchen table clean, I put two small baskets on the top of the fridge. You can still see them if you look for them, but they are a place to throw all our stuff - keys, change sunglasses, and misc. The mail and the outerwear required daily changes in habits. We have a coat closet just beyond the kitchen. We now just make it a practice to hang our coats in the closet, not just where we land.
The mail was a little more of a challenge since my husband gets the mail, and I sort it. I don't like to sort it everyday (I find looking at bills everyday depressing) So, I just bought a big "inbox" for all our mail. Everything just goes in there until I get a chance to look at it - usually every week or two. The inbox is in our office, which is more than a few steps from the kitchen. But now that my husband is in the habit of doing that, we have a pretty clean kitchen table!
Your board looks great!
We have a small table in our entry way. I sort the mail when it arrives: junk goes straight in the bin, magazines go into our magazine holders (mine, his, shared), and bills are left over. I pay the bills every Saturday. Before I created this system, it was too easy for important mail to get lost in the shuffle of catalogs and magazines!
What a gorgeous fridge transformation!! The fridge can be a great place to start your organizing efforts. You can see my recent fridge transformation here:
http://www.beruly.com/?p=573
My blog deals with organization and motivation. I provide tips and advice on organizing in a variety of areas.
ok, now that is some inspiration...not too hard...very feasible and I'm guessing didn't cost 100$
Your new display looks very cute! Is the type of cork you used really thin so that you can still use strong magnets? Or are you using actual push pins?
Hi K. Anne, the cork is thin enough that I can use magnets and they work perfectly well. I was expecting to have to use thumbtacks but haven't needed to, because this is that really thin cork sold in office supply stores.
Wonderful post... Very informational and educational as usual!
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