Living in an apartment again, with no garage or basement, has reminded me how important it is to have a place for everything. I have a bad habit of small scale organizing – where I organize things sort of wherever they happen to be, rather than designing an organization plan.
We have two areas in our loft mostly dedicated to storage – the pantry and Evie’s room. Right after we moved in, I painted out an old bookcase and stuck it in the pantry/laundry room and sort of filled it with whatever had been put in the room during the move.
Somehow all of our tools got put in Evie’s room, which is super annoying because I usually need the tools when Evie is napping! I don’t know how I lasted this long, but I’m finally get our house really, really organized. I made a game plan last week:
Evie’s Room:
Sewing machine and supplies
Crafts
Linens
Bedding
Musical instruments
Suitcases
Pantry:
Tools
Paint
Laundry supplies
Stroller
Cleaning supplies
Accessory kitchen appliances
I want the pantry to sort of act like our garage. I considered getting a big tool box to organize everything, but space is pretty tight. I found a 36″ wide lateral file cabinet on Craigslist that I think will work perfectly for tool storage with very easy access. And I like that I can lock the drawers to keep the girls out of the sharp stuff.
Buying a tall file cabinet reminded me of this project from Mary McDonald’s office featured in Domino years ago. She photocopied a sample of her favorite wallpaper and had kinkos blow up the image to fit the drawer fronts.
A version of this project could be fun for my cabinet, but I’d maybe go a little more subtle with the pattern.
This is such a great idea – and love your new dining room light.m I so love that you think outside the box and introduce us to a new way of looking at elements that we see over and over – Great job, Jenny (& family)!
I can't wait to see what you do with your Craigslis find, Jenny! Happy papering!
What a marvelous idea. One of my friends just used fabric on her file cabinet drawer fronts. She used modge podge. Love the bright yellow book case too.
I loved that file cabinet idea when I saw it! They are so lame plain… I did a DIY on a regular sized one and posted on my blog awhile ago… http://houndstoothandnailastylistforhire.blogspot.com/p/diy-before-and-afters.html
Not as dramatic, but much better looking!
:)
That's an incredibly organized bookcase. It's making me inspired to organize myself. Looking forward to seeing what you do with the lateral file!
Do you make house calls? Wow – you amaze me with your organized self.
pve
Wow you have really gotten organized! I love the idea of the print being put on the file cabinet. Also what a great idea to use it to store tools!
Oh, seriously your pantry is to die for. I've been fretting over the lack of organization around our house lately… seriously, I struggle so much with the best place to store things like tools, paint and brushes, light bulbs, extension cords, unused garden pots, cat medicine, the ice cream freezer, etc. Our house is not real big and we don't have a garage, but we do have a full basement and enough space that it should all be organized.
I look forward to seeing more on this topic!
Can't wait to see. I've always loved that image from domino and the file cabinet in failure to launch as well that's similar.
I just organized our storage this weekend after moving in January. It feels so good!
I'm thinking and wondering if I could Modge Podge a fabric onto a file cabinet. I saw that in Domino too, but I've got all of this leftover fabric. Hhhmmmmmmm?
Love it – you could even paint it a really fun pattern. Can't wait to see what you do!
I remember that filing cabinet in Dominos, think I still have the page folded over to mark it-pure genius. Good luck with the project!
Brilliant!! I will have to try it out! This post makes me want to start organizing!
xoxo Lauren
http://happylifeinnyc.blogspot.com/
Oh, I hope you do it. I'd love to see how it turns out!
I love the glued on wallpaper! Is that a Schumacher piece? I got something similar from DecoratorsBest at an amazing price – I love it!
This is one of my fav ideas form dominos…and why I ahven't been able to part with my magazine stash, even though the magazine is asleep now. Thanks for the reminder!
just be careful with open drawers on the lateral file. when they are pulled out it can be easy for the file to tip over.
solution would be to screw it into the wall at the top sides with brackets.
Wow! That is the exact definition of ORGANIZING! How did you do that!? I now think organizing is a talent. Wonderful post! Btw, I almost didn't notice your gorgeous fixture :) Cool room!
um. wow! talk about organizing!!
Looks great!
Hopefully that will inspire me to get organized!!
also- love the idea of wallpapering a piece..
I have a white chest of drawers I scored from goodwill for $5.00 that could benefit from that! :)
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