If Betty Crocker had OCD

I love to bake.  Decorating cupcakes is my favorite.  I think it’s the idea that if the first one doesn’t turn out quite right, you have 23 more to make it perfect.  It’s the OCD perfectionist in me.  A few weeks ago, I made my nephew Camouflage cupcakes for his birthday.  (Yep.  Pinterest).  When I opened the cabinet to get started, I was hit in the face with a bottle of vanilla extract.  Guess who found a new organizing project?  This girl! 

During a Christmas baking extravaganza, I performed a very minor organization of the baking cabinet.  Originally I just had everything tossed on a shelf.  Ingredients, cupcake liners, icing bags, icing tips, food coloring, etc.  It was always the rouge rolling pin that got me. 

So, I found some empty canisters I had stashed in my organizing bin and proceeded to give everything a home.  Cupcake liners in one canister, food coloring in another canister, nuts in a third.  I tossed all the chocolate chips, coconut, and other various ingredients in a plastic bin and the cookie cutters in a cute tin left over from Christmas.  The few remaining items stayed on the shelf.  One of which was the jumpy vanilla extract bottle.

However, although this quick and dirty system got the chaos under control, it still wasn’t a completely functional setup.  If I needed cupcake liners, I had to move three other items out of the way, get the cupcake canister out, get what I needed, put it back, and then put back the three random items.  Not so good.  But it was an improvement, so I carried on with life.  Then I walked into my local Bed, Bath, &Beyond to kill time one afternoon and discovered the Bake Stack.  It is what I have been missing my whole life.  My life to this point has been a lie.

This handy contraption made use of the vertical space in my small cabinet instead of simply the horizontal space allowed by the shelf.  It has three drawers with dividers you can space as you see fit.  (I love this feature.  I hate organizational products that restrict how you can use them). 

I was able to house my cupcakes liners, pastry bags, icing tips, food coloring, birthday candles, sprinkles, and the vanilla extract in the drawers.  I then found glass canisters at World Market to hold the baking ingredients – chocolate chips, coconut, powdered sugar, marshmallows, brown sugar, nuts, etc.  I also now had room to move my sugar and flour canisters into the baking cabinet and out of the pantry (a massive pantry renovation is coming in the next few weeks – I’m sooooooo excited.  Stay tuned!).   I had a few random items that didn't fit in the Bake Stack or in canisters so I tossed those into small tins I found at Wal-Mart.  The last step, of course, was adding labels.  The Bake Stack came with printable labels however I went with cute red ones from the Martha Stewart Avery line at Staples.

I now love my baking cabinet.  Might have to whip something up tonight.  But more than that, I love how a quick, meaningless trip into Bed, Bath, & Beyond opened my eyes to an organizing project I had completely ignored.  Who knew that big box retail stores were the breeding grounds for creativity and imagination!  And people say shopping is a waste of time.

Please let me know of ways in which you have organized your cabinets. 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.

Loads of Fun

Sit back as I tell you the story of the greatest invention ever invented in all of the history of inventions.  It is called…the Laundry Basket Dresser.

If you are in the 12-step program for Pinterest, as I am court-ordered to be, I’m sure you have seen the “Laundry Dresser” pins.  Based on my research, this advancement in home organization is the brainchild of one Ana White, a Nobel-Peace-Prize-deserving homemaker and blogger in Alaska.  I fell in love with this idea the first time I saw it.  However I have a teeny tiny laundry room so the dresser on Pinterest was way too big for my space. 

I obsessed over this laundry dresser for quite a while.  I measured my laundry room and tried to draw out every configuration that would work with the small footprint of space I was working with.  I tirelessly researched online trying to find pre-fabricated shelving units that would fit in my space and laundry baskets that would fit within those shelving units.  Just when I thought my quest was going to end as a complete and utter failure, I discovered deep, square laundry baskets at Wal-Mart.  Their smaller surface area made it possible to construct a “Laundry Tower” that would be narrow but tall (like me!).  After more measuring and drawing, I had the blueprints for my Laundry Tower.  And with a little coercing, I had my fiance on board with assisting me in building it.  (Perhaps his surprise birthday trip to play golf all weekend at Callaway Gardens had something to do with his eagerness to help me - I have no shame in bribery).

The measurements I drew up were not exactly on point, so we had to make a few minor modifications to my original plans.  Had my measurements been more precise, I feel we could have shaved about an inch or two off the width of the tower, but as it is, it works great.  We added some edge detail to clean it up a bit and threw a few coats of white paint to match the trim in the laundry room.  

I now have a basket for my clothes, one for my fiance’s clothes, one for the dirty towels, and an empty basket that is ready for clean laundry to be taken out of the dryer.  It has been a while since we constructed this gem and my organizationally-challenged fiance has found no way to screw up this system.  Success!!

Since I have severe OCD and obsess over every detail of every project, my laundry tower project turned into a shelving project made of plumbing pipe (another idea stolen from Pinterest)…

Which turned into a clothes rod also made of pipe for clothes that need to hang dry…

Which turned into organizational baskets (with framed labels of course)…

Which turned into labeled drink dispenser and vase for my laundry detergent and dryer sheets (this is where friends and family started getting concerned, but I think it was the perfect finishing touch to my pretty, organized laundry room)…

My theory had been that if we had a nice, new fancy washer and dryer in a pretty, organized laundry room the chore of doing laundry would be more enjoyable.  My theory was proved incorrect.  I now enjoy standing in my laundry room and looking at it in all its organized glory.  However, the anger once caused by piles of dirty laundry has been replaced with anger whenever I find something in my beautiful laundry room out of place (*cough* fiance *cough*).  Looks like my plan backfired but at least I have a pretty laundry room! 

Please let me know of ways in which you have organized your laundry room, especially if you have constructed a laundry dresser. 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.