Monday's Question of the Day - January 2, 2017

Happy New Year everyone!  I haven't been around much the last couple of weeks with the holidays, company for several days in between and I'm on my 2nd cold in a month.   Both my kids have been sick too.  

How often do you organize your closets and cabinets?

How often closets/cabinets get cleaned out here really depends on where they are.  The low priority is the master closet and it's driving DH a little crazy; so that's what we are doing today.  DH is in charge of the kids linen closet which doubles as our "bulk" pantry.  Our main pantry gets organized probably once a year. It needs it more often.  I'm itching to go through the main cabinets and give them a wipe down too.  That might happen after the Christmas decorations come down.  It might have to wait longer.  I also need to do the kids dressers and that should be a priority.  I already took care of their closets when I purged toys in December. 

DH also put together a new cubby organizer for DS's room for his new toys.  I already purged a lot before Christmas; but now it's time to give all the new things a place to belong.  DS is just getting old enough that most of his toys are in his room instead of the living room.  When he was younger I couldn't trust him to stay in bed if he had toys to distract him!   I was all excited because I found a cubby system that had openings large enough for the clear plastic totes I use to separate types of toys.  They don't fit on the regular ones.  The only thing I didn't consider was how much taller it would be.  It turns out its taller than DS!  So much for being able to store the bigger playsets on top!   

I used to deep-clean my house faithfully twice a year. In spring & autumn. Unless it moved, it got cleaned! Including closets. I am a neatnik to put it mildly.

Last summer husband decided he would divorce me after 30 years. He later changed his mind, but I am disinclined to do that kind of housekeeping any longer. Maybe once a year now?

Very rarely, bordering on never. I hate living so disorganized, but I try and try and just can't do better. I cleaned out all of my cabinets, in one big swoop over a few weeks because I just suddenly was able to concentrate, once during the time that I lived in my old place, which was about 3 years. And I felt extremely proud of myself because the likelihood of the answer being never is high.

Before things got quite busy with a death in the family and then the holiday, I had gotten pretty good at doing one shelf or one cabinet every day, so eventually everything would get done. I should remember to start that again.

Very rarely.  Mostly because I don't have enough IN my closets and cabinets to warrant frequent organizing.  The only exception is the front bedroom, which I use as a guest room/offie/library, and the closet in that room houses office supplies, craft supplies, and cat box supplies, so it gets done on a fairly regualr basis, as I think of a new configuration that makes more sense at the time.

Umm, never?

One of the things I am hoping to do in 2017 is have a professional closet company build useful spaces for us.  My house is old (1925) and the closets aren't good to begin with and not many of them either - like, we don't even have a coat closet on the first floor.  We are not hoarders by any means but we are disorganized since there isn't enough shelving in any of them.  We have a decent sized area near our powder room we can utilize, but it currently only has one shelf and one long rod in it. It's a mess of cat related items, large kitchen items that won't fit where they should be kept, paper good storage, shoes, coats, and other sundry accessories and "stuff".  We have high ceilings so there's huge potential there - but we aren't capable of doing ourselves.  

I'm tired of boxing up important paperwork to get it out of the way so this HAS to happen!  We can't find anything!

I rarely clean out my closets but I really need to clean out my bedroom closet. I need to get rid of a lot of clothes that no longer fit.

I used to organize closets/cabinets twice a year but since the kids are grown I only do it once a year now, Amen.

When I have the energy and / or have nothing to do I recently tackled the hallway closet. I got rid of a bunch of stuff I didn't need, Freecycled a few things, and organized what was left. It looks much better now but it doesn't look like what you might see in a a magazine.

The Container Store is currently having a sale on Elfa shelving products if anyone is looking for ways to better organize closets and such or just browse the gallery for ideas. I'm thinking of getting oneof those Elfa door rack things for the hallway closet, maybe the linen closet too.

Rick does his own closet in our bedroom; I won't touch it because he wouldn't be able to find anything. The rest of them are pretty much mine to do when I can. I usually wait until he's not around for a few days to tackle closets and cabinets. I did the bathroom closet summer of 2016, but it could use it again. I did my bedroom closet fall of 2016, when I was trying to find my smaller sizes in pants and shirts. Attacked my bureau drawers around the same time. I won't do Rick's bureau drawers either.

I probably go through things at least once a year. Kitchen cabinets more often because I'm always trying to find room for stuff!

Husband HATES it when I try to organize him. He gets upset.

i tend to organize with the thought, 'a place for everything, and everything in it's place'. so most things in my home stay in their appointed places. however, i will occasionally move something, if i've found a better/more efficient location for it.

the last things i relocated were two 48-count boxes of kool aid packets, which i moved to the pantry shelves in one of my downstairs/first floor closets. i did that yesterday.