A few months back, I made a list of everything I wanted to accomplish with my sweet little apartment. As a refresher, this is what the floor plan looks like:

I gave a little update here, about where I’m at with the original list. Realistically, though, a lot has changed since creating that list: my work, my daily schedule, etc. So, the other day, I was getting ready to leave the house, and I snapped some pictures of the spaces that need some serious love.

 

Clearly, it was dark out and some of these photos just really aren’t great, but you get the general idea: chaos.

I spent some time with these pictures, and my list and I decided I needed to think about it differently. Some things needed to go, and some things needed to be more deeply examined. So, here’s the old list and where I was at:

1. Talk to sisters about coffee table
2. D – wtf is with this bean bag chair??
3. Find home for reusable bags
4. Bed frame to moms house
5. Hang towel hooks in bedroom
6. Find new home for donations
7. COUCH
8. Arrange bedside table
9. Lower super high shower shelf
10. Revamp system for online selling – I’m just done with selling things online, I think.
11. Get a rug – $45
12. Refinish coffee table – $20
13. Get Bedroom Art – in process
14. Replace the trunk with a dresser that can hold DVDs – in process
15. Make desk a workable space
16. Move off kitchen table
17. Window treatment for sliding glass doors
18. Reorganize Bathroom closet
19. Upgrade the trunk
20. Reupholster dining room chairs – meh. I don’t really need to do this…

But a new list is forming.

“Study”

I call the little nook where my desk is my Study or Office (sorry for the horrible photo quality – I took these at like, 5am).

Some things here are great: I played musical desks with my parents and ended up with their much bigger desk. It’s working well but there’s still stuff everywhere, including that bean bag chair (not pictured) I still haven’t talked to D about.

The desk chair was at my mothers secretary when I was little. My sisters and I played on it. It’s really… not that comfortable to do homework in. I don’t want to get rid of it, because I would like to have it in my real house someday, but I want somewhere more comfortable to sit.

That pile of sparkly notebooks is for my classes this semester. They pretty much need to be at the desk, but they don’t need to be piled all crazy-like in the corner. I think that when I finish the TV Stand I can move the trunk under the desk as a combo foot stool / school work organizer

1. Talk to D about that bean bag chair.
2. Find home for desk chair
3. Purchase more comfortable desk chair
4. Find home for school binders/books when not in use.

Family Room

I found this much better picture than the one above. Even though it’s been a few months, this is a pretty accurate presentation of what this looks like.

Some items from the above list are staying on here. I think I want to upholster the coffee table though, rather than just refinishing it. D isn’t in love with the idea, but I think it could be really cool.  I also want some art for above the television, and I’m not sure about those iron chairs.

1. Get a rug – $45
2. Refinish / upholster coffee table – $40
3. Replace the truck with a dresser that can hold DVDs – in process
4. Window treatment for sliding glass doors
5. Upgrade the trunk
6. Art for above the TV
7. Make an iron chair decision

Bathroom

What is even happening here? Towels are folded all crazy. Bins are overflowing, there’s a crochet project at the bottom. What. the. heck. I realized that I was saying “Reorganize” but I wasn’t breaking that down into smaller pieces that make it easier.

1. Reorganize bathroom closet
   1. Make better use of under the sink space
   2. Consider putting towels out, not in linen closet
   3. Purchase additional bins to better sort
   4. THROW THINGS AWAY
   5. Dedicated crochet spot?

Bedroom

 

So, in the summertime, this is what the bedroom looks like: no quilt. I don’t actually care because it’s too hot to have a big quilt on there. But I’d like to warm up the bed a little. There’s a lot of blue and white happening.

There’s another crochet project on the ground. Pj’s on the foot board. Sketches of actual art hung with push pins. Those dressers are from my moms closet. And those metal lamps are hers and don’t really work with the space. And there are two chairs on either side of the tallboy that just collect…things.

1. Warm up the bed – brown blanket? Different color sheets?
2. Spot for Pj’s – maybe train myself to hang by towels
3. Get Bedroom Art – in process
   1. Finish paintings
   2. Make frames
4. New end tables – I want to build these, but need to assess what we really need.
5. New lamps
6. Spot for quilt in the summer
7. Home for D’s robe

The Storage Closet

I like, don’t even want to talk about this closet.

Ugh. But I probably should.

Ugh. Seriously, I stopped writing this for a while because I just don’t want to think about it.

The Pantry

The pantry actually works really well. It looks crazy because there’s a thousand small things on it. And there’s stuff on the floor. I got a Costco membership and my little pantry isn’t really built for Costco, I guess.

I know that one of the problems is that things are stacked on other things because the shelves are wire. I think I could easily solve this by lining them with foamcore, or something similar. I also think it would help to put certain things (pastas, rices) into canisters that could be stacked and, honestly, I’d like the chips up top to be in big baskets. There are two rows of snacks like that and I’m 5″2′. My rice cakes often get buried behind D’s Doritos and I end up purchasing things I don’t need as a result.

Now that I’m thinking about it, that would be smart to do with the cereal too. I don’t eat cereal, but I’ve noticed that D will buy a bunch of one kind from Costco and then one smaller box of something sweet from the grocery store. So, probably a cereal canister too.

And now that I’m looking at it, I’m realizing that my spices have way over-grown the small-sized baking sheet they’re on. I want to be able to hang something to hold them all, but I haven’t figured that out yet.

1. Line shelves with foamcore
2. Purchase canisters for dry goods
3. Baskets for chips/snacks
4. Purchase cereal canister
5. Figure out spices

Okay, so this isn’t really that many things, it just feels overwhelming. This is why we write things down, people. 🙂

The Storage Part

So, the vacuum and Christmas Tree pretty much have to be there because there isn’t another home for them. Which blows. You can also kind of see that there are boxes in front of the vacuum – that stack is a flat of coke, a box of protein shakes, and a box of single-serving nuts. This is how the pantry complicates things.

There’s also a bag of pop cans. In Michigan, you pay an extra $0.10 for every can / bottle you buy, but then you submit them to the bottle return and get your $0.10 back, so we hold on to the bottles. There’s another bag in the coat closet that’s in the process of being filled. I’m not pleased with any of this. I think I need to either start taking the cans to the store every time there’s a full bag and saving the bottle slips, or I need to ask D to take them to his shop so that they aren’t stored at home.

On that low shelf, there’s foods I’ve canned, which are stacked nicely. That’s fine. But then there are weird like, pasta jars with a humidifier on top of them, next to a printer.

I need to toss some stuff.

And make a shelf.

The same thing goes for the next shelf. There’s a stack of board games, which is great, but then it’s all crazy. I know part of the problem is the pile of stuff in front of the storage space, but shelves actually would help a lot.

1. Figure out cans.
2. THROW THINGS AWAY
3. Build shelves

The List

So I’ve got my list for each room. I’m going to follow the same process I used to organize the last list and put this in priority order. Here’s the new end result, with the items from the original list in green:

1. Replace the truck with a dresser that can hold DVDs – in process
2. Find home for school binders/books when not in use
3. Get Bedroom Art – in process
   1. Finish paintings
   2. Make frames
4. Talk to D about that bean bag chair.
5. Reorganize bathroom closet
   1. Make better use of under the sink space
   2. Consider putting towels out, not in linen closet
   3. Purchase additional bins to better sort
   4. THROW THINGS AWAY
   5. Dedicated crochet spot?
6. Warm up the bed
7. Spot for PJ’s
8. Figure out cans in Storage Closet
9. Throw things away in the storage closet
10. Line shelves with foamcore
11. Home for D’s Robe
12. Refinish / upholster coffee table – $40
13. Build shelves for Storage Closet
14. Make an Iron Chair decision
15. Art for above the TV
16. Spot for quilt in the summer
17. Purchase canisters for dry goods
18. Baskets for chips/snacks
19. Purchase cereal canister
20. Figure out spices
21. Find home for desk chair
22. Get a rug – $45
23. Window treatment for sliding glass doors
24. Upgrade the trunk
25. Purchase more comfortable desk chair
26. New end tables
27. New lamps

It feels a little overwhelming! But I think it will go quicker than I expect. I’ll keep you posted!