In an effort to be one step closer to having every nook and cranny in the entire house organized, we decided to get the linen closet in order this week. Since we moved into the house, it has just been a place to stash extra towels and toilet paper, rather than a real, bonafide linen closet. Until now…

I talk about about the linen closet and the organization process in my latest contributor post over at iHeart Organizing (check out the post here). But over here on our blog, I wanted to chat a little more about our favorite feature of the newly organized linen closet.

When we started organizing this area, the first thing we did was find a solution for the linen storage on the bottom shelf. Since the bottom shelf is a little hard to get to – especially when you’re trying to put away clean linens – we came up with the idea of installing a pull-out drawer.

After some shopping around, we bought this Bamboo Roll-Out Cabinet Drawer from The Container Store. We contemplated sliding wire metal baskets, but ultimately decided the bamboo drawer wouldn’t put little dents in the linens like wire baskets might and, well, it just looks better. The opening of the door is a very tight 17″ wide, so we purchased the 14″ drawer to make sure it would clear the door and be able to slide all the way out. We have roll-out shelves similar to these in all of our lower kitchen cabinets and we l-o-v-e them. They make everything easier to keep organized.

We wanted the drawer to match the color of the shelves and the door trim, so we painted it using RustOleum’s Universal All Surface Spray Paint in a Satin finish. This stuff is seriously the best. spray. paint. ever. It has primer built in, so we didn’t have to do any prep at all. The final finish is super smooth, and the drawer looks like it came from the factory bright white, rather than natural bamboo. We’ll definitely be using this line of products again in the future. And no, this isn’t a sponsored post, haha.

The installation process was really easy, and it only took Greg a few minutes – hence the lack of photos of the installation process. The reason it was so easy is because the drawer came with a nifty cardboard template. To get the drawer positioned properly, all he had to do was center the template on the shelf and line the rails up with the template. Once that was done, he drilled a few pilot holes, turned a few screws, and done.

Once Greg had the drawer installed, I put the linens in. I was really happy with how much storage space it offered, but it seemed like something was still missing.

Ahhhh… much better. Everything is better with a label. I took one of my go-to Martha Stewart Adhesive Bookplates and coated it with a few light coats of Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. If you ever plan to spray paint these yourself, the key is to keep them on the adhesive backing (I normally spray paint a whole set at a time) and do two very light coats of spray paint so it will end up being nice and even. I really wish they would just come in black or oil rubbed bronze. That would make me happy.

What I didn’t expect, and really like about this set up, is that there’s a little space on either side of the drawer – perfect for storing back up soap. That, my friends, was one of those quirky giddy moments I get when something just works out unexpectedly well.

It feels so nice to have another organized space to mark off the to-do list. Having this done makes me feel hopeful about the other closets in the house – oh, except for the foyer closet. It’s not messy, it just houses a whole bunch of different “categories” of things that I’m kind of stumped as to where to start. But for now, let’s just think about good things, like this newly organized and functional linen closet. Ahh… happy thoughts.

Check out the details on the rest of the linen closet in this post over at iHeart Organizing.

As I mentioned in this post, one of our goals for this year is to organize every nook and cranny of the house. Needless to say, a task like this can come across as pretty overwhelming, so we’re starting with baby steps and getting things kicked off with areas of the house we use on a daily basis. Areas like the chest of drawers in the laundry room, the medicine storage, linen closet, the infamous “junk drawers” in the kitchen – you get the gist. We decided to start with the medicine storage.

Up until we tackled this, the Band-Aids and other first aid necessities were in the linen closet in the hallway, the anti-acids were in the bedroom and the Vitamin D and Iron always wound up on my desk. To have everything in one designated spot would be a breath of fresh air. That being said, the first task was to find a place to store everything.

After a bunch of going back and forth, we realized the best place would be the kitchen. We like to keep things pretty minimal – especially in a work environment like the kitchen. Less is better. We have plenty of unclaimed kitchen cabinet real estate, and this narrow cabinet to the left of the stove (closest to the living room), seemed like a good place. All it was housing was the salt and pepper. Oh, and check out my sweet pink hydrangea Greg got me last week. Love me some hydrangeas.

I started out by dividing all of our medical necessities into categories: First aid, prescriptions/pain relievers, cold/sinus, misc (anti-acids, nausea remedies etc) and vitamins. Needless to say, the vitamins needed to be easy to get to (maybe we’ll actually remember to take them!) so that left four categories for “once in a while”.

I picked up a few of these small paper rope baskets from Target. Now, let me gush for a second… I love these baskets. I first used them when we organized our coffee station and ever since, they’ve been one of my favorite go-to organizing tools. They are the perfect depth for our upper kitchen cabinets and look pretty spiffy with a bookplate label attached to them. They come with a fabric liner, but for this organizing project, I decided to take them out.

After five or ten short minutes of going through everything, trashing the expired meds and restocking the bandaids, we were one step closer to a designated and organized medicine cabinet.

No, we don’t have any kids. And yes, we totally have Disney Princess and Candy Land Band Aids. It’s amazing how much mental clarity you can gain with just a few baskets, labels and 20 minutes of moving things around. Now that the “stuff” was organized, Greg and I wanted to add more functionality and purpose to the cabinet…

I picked up this pack of cork tiles from Michael’s for about $12 – actually, it was only $8 because I had a coupon on my phone. I really liked this cork as opposed to “normal” cork tiles because it was rich in color and had a chunkier texture and thickness – making it easier to pin things onto it.

We wanted the cork to fit as perfectly as possible in the inset of the cabinet door, so we had to trim it down. Because of the chunkiness of this particular cork, cutting was a little difficult (and messy). A utility knife probably wasn’t going to cut it, so Greg left the pieces in their cellophane packaging, measured 11.25″ over (the width of the inset of the cabinet) and put a piece of duct tape along the line where it needed to be cut. Once he made sure the tape made a straight line, he cut along the line with a jigsaw. Fast and painless.

Luckily, the cut was clean and perfectly straight. We attached the cork to the cabinet door with a few 3M strips here and there. This way, if we decide to take it down later, the doors aren’t damaged. A strip here, and a strip there and we had a cork-lined cabinet door. Because of the cork’s color and texture, you can barely see the seems which makes it look like one continuous piece. This will be perfect for recipes, notes, grocery lists, etc. I love that just by adding the cork, there’s so much more functionality behind this single cabinet door.

Now it was time to put everything back in the cabinet. To start out, we put our daily vitamins in a bright blue basket on the bottom shelf- hoping the fun blue will draw attention to itself and remind us to take our vitamins. Next to the basket is a mason jar we have dubbed “the Tip Jar”. When either of us have an extra small bill, we stash it in the jar to later use for tips for the sushi delivery guy or the kid at the front door selling candy bars for summer camp. Our thought is that if it begins to overflow with bills, it’s time to deposit some of it in the vacation fund.

After a few more seconds of basket sorting, we now have a fully organized and functional cabinet…

I put a basket on the very top shelf to store our “back ups”. Well, Greg put the basket up there because my 5’7″ self couldn’t reach it – he’s 6’7″ and, lucky for me, can reach the tallest of shelves in the house. The “back ups” consist of extra Band-Aids, Tylenol, and whatnot for when we run out of what’s in the reachable baskets.

As we “grow into” our kitchen and figure out the organization systems for the rest of the house, this area may switch up a little here and there. Sometimes it takes a few “rough drafts” before you get the “perfect” system that works for you and your family. But for now, we’re loving this neat and orderly area. To have just this little bit organized feels so good and a great note to get started on for the rest of the house. Here’s to a fully organized abode for 2014! Fingers crossed.

Over the past year, we’ve had a few requests for a peak into how we organize our finances. When we first got married, I was the one who kept track of the bills and made sure everything was paid on time. After a few months, the fact that I’m not much of a numbers gal started to catch up with me – and our checkbook. Things were fine, but not as smooth as we knew they could be. So, to prevent my brain from overheating too much, Greg took over the actual bill paying and the proverbial heavens have been rejoicing ever since.

Even though Greg is essentially the one who makes sure the bills are paid on time, together, over the last five years of marriage, we’ve finally come up with a system that works for us. We have a sit-down about once a month to go over the budget, set goals and make sure we’re on the right track dollars and cents wise. However, the main thing that keeps our finances in tact is, in the words of Blues Clues, a handy dandy notebook… errr binder. In that case, to answer the question, “How do you organize your finances?”, the best way would be to give you a tour of the binder…

In the front of the binder, we have a small notepad that houses all of our passwords for the online accounts (mortgage, cable, power, etc). It comes in really handy when you’re trying to remember 10+ passwords in your head. One of the benefits of keeping them in a separate small notepad is that if we’re going out of town for a while, we can just stash it away in a safe place – rather than the entire binder. All the information in the binder is pretty much useless without them. We also keep a few stamped envelopes for the few bills we still have to send through the mail. Seriously. Why can’t we just pay everything online?! In the zipper pouch are a few Sharpie pens, white out, and stickers for notes.

Being the obsessive organizer that I am, I had to make sure there was a place for absolutely all essential types of financial information we could possibly need on a regular basis. We divided the binder into eight sections: bills, accounts, budget, register, receipts, donations, investments, and taxes.

BILLS // In this section, we have a monthly bill check-list where we keep track of the bills we have to pay. In the first column, we have the day of the month the bill is due, followed by the type of bill, a note whether or not it’s an automated payment and then a box to check off when it’s been paid. We’ve been using this system for a while now and it’s very handy and an easy way to get a snapshot of your month-to-month finances at a glance. Click here to download the monthly check-list! Also in the section is a page to keep track of what we call “rogue bills” – like the once-in-a-blue-moon dentist bill.

ACCOUNTS // This is where we keep all of our account numbers on hand. This section was created out of the frustration when we’d call the cable company or the power company and they’d ask for our account number. Rather than fumbling for an old bill or having them look it up with our social security numbers, it’s all right here in this section. Oh, and we have “Mortgage 1″ and “Mortgage 2″ because we pay a “half-mortgage payment” every two weeks rather than a full payment just once a month. Doing this cuts down on the total interest we end up paying in the long run and essentially pays our mortgage off faster.

BUDGET // In this section, we keep track of the household budget. We also have a few sheets of blank paper for number-crunching or jotting down financial goals we’re wanting to reach in the near or distant future.

DONATIONS // This is where we keep receipts and other information about the donations we make to charitable organizations. It’s nice to have a place for those little slips they give you when you donate something to Good Will.

REGISTER // In the world of debit cards and online bill-paying, we rarely find ourselves using a check book, but there are still one or two annoying bills that refuse to go paperless. When we write a check, we note it in here (including the date, check number, payee, amount) to keep track of what will be coming out of the account. Once the check has cleared, we just put a little check mark beside the check number.

INVESTMENTS // Just like the accounts and donations sections, we keep information about our investments in this section. The most recent balances, account numbers, dividends, etc. are all handy right here.

RECEIPTS // This is where we keep a top-load page protector with important receipts of large purchases – just in case. These particular top-load page protectors are really handy because they have a flap on the top that prevents stuff from falling out – perfect for receipts. At the end of every month or so, I go through the receipts and get rid of the ones we don’t need to hang onto anymore. If it’s something that we need to keep long term – like the dining room table receipt that has to be kept with the warranty information – I end up filing it away.

TAXES // In this section, we have another top-load page protector where we stash W9s, W2s or other important papers that float in throughout the year that we’ll need come tax time. That way, when 2014 rolls around, we’ll have everything ready and waiting for our tax guy (whom we love… dearly).

This system works pretty well for us – it helps us stay organized and all the information we need is right at our fingertips. How do you guys keep everything straight? Does one person do the bills in your house, or is it a community effort? Talk to us in the comments!