A Place for Everything, and Everything in Its Place

I get a lot of calls from my fiance wanting to know where things are at the house. 

"Have you seen my flip flops?  I've been looking for them everywhere for over a week and can't find them," he says.
"You mean the flip flops sitting on top of your sock drawer in the closet?" I reply.

"We're out of milk," he says.
"There is a full gallon.  It's behind the butter on the bottom shelf," I reply.

I'm growing more and more concerned with his failing eyesight as the days go by. 

As I've stated time and time again, the key to organization and efficient time management is to have a place for everything, and have everything in its place.  Well, this past weekend I was looking for a certain article of clothing, and dare I say, I had to search for it!  I was on my way to the gym and could not find my black Nike shorts.  They should be on the left hand side of the third drawer from the bottom on the right side of my dresser.  But they weren't.  Oh, the humanity!!  I eventually found them, got changed, went to the gym, and finished my workout.  All the while I was in a panic that my home was falling apart.  I was on yet another mission:  Organize my dresser drawers. 

My original system consisted of lingerie in top right drawer, swimsuits and sports bras in second right hand drawer, all shorts (sleep and gym) in third right hand drawer, socks in top left drawer, and sleep pants and gym pants in second left hand drawer.  However, within each drawer there was no organization or categorization.  Bras and panties mixed together; gym shorts and sleep shorts mixed together, all socks mixed together.  The fact that I had to actually look for something meant the system did not work.

So off to Bed Bath & Beyond I went.  Mission #1 was to get the lingerie drawer organized.  I was working with a drawer that was 14" deep, 18" wide, and 5" high.  I found clear plastic bins that fit within those dimensions.   One larger bin was used to house my bras together.  The other two smaller bins were used to divide my underwear into two categories:  "Everyday Panties" and "Those really cute panties that are terribly uncomfortable and never stay where they should but you paid a lot of money at Victoria's Secret for them so you can't toss them out but they always get in the way when you're looking for those really comfortable full coverage granny panties".  Mission #1 accomplished.

Here's a hint when using drawer organizers, especially if you use "expandable" ones.  A problem I use to run into a lot was that no organizer is ever going to fit exactly perfect in your drawer.  And the expandable ones are created to move, so you will have issues with them shifting around.  The key to fixing this problem is double sided mounting tape (I prefer Scotch brand).  It's thicker than regular double sided tape and comes off of most surfaces relatively easy.  Use the mounting tape on the sides or bottoms of your containers and they will stay exactly where you want them.  Brilliant!

Mission #2 was to get one drawer organized just for my gym attire.  For this I simply needed a divider to keep gym shorts on one side of the drawer, sports bras on the other.  I didn't want to use containers because this would just cut down on the amount of actual space I would have for storage.  So I looked into the expandable drawer dividers.  The first ones I tried were from Real Simple.  They were horrible.  They were flimsy and did not stay in place.  So, I increased the budget and went with the good ol OXO brand dividers.  They worked great.  They are much sturdier and have a locking mechanism that allows you to lock them into place whereever you need.  (The cheaper version only allows for you to lock them in place within designated ranges).  Mission #2 accomplished.

I used the same OXO dividers for my new "PJ drawer" to divide sleep shorts and sleep pants.

Mission #3 was to bring order to the sock drawer.  I needed to divide these into gym socks, house socks (that my fiance abhors for me to wear, but until he stops keeping the house cold as a meat locker I will continue to wear them), and boot socks.  I used the same OXO dividers for this drawer.

My final mission was to organize my ten swimsuits.  Why I have so many swimsuits, I'm not sure.  I live 4 hours from the beach so I find this a bit ridiculous.  I did toss out two that I deemed inappropriate for a woman in her 30's to wear, but I couldn't bare to part with any of the others.  For my swimsuits, I wanted each one to be in its own compartment.  I was able to accomplish this by using a fabric jewelry divider (like the one I had previously had my jewelry in).  The dividers I found had 9 small square compartments and one large compartment on the right hand side.  This gave me the perfect amount of space for my 9 bikinis and my one larger tankini.  Although I found my fabric dividers at Big Lots, you can find similar products (such as these) online.

Now that all of my dresser drawers are organized, I can start nagging the fiance to let me organize his.  Wish me luck!

Please let me know of ways in which you have organized your dresser drawers. And if you live in the Birmingham, Alabama area and could use my help in taming any organizational issue in your home, email me at TheNeatFreakOrganizer@gmail.com.