Organizing Chaos: Bathrooms and Linen Closets

I’m super excited to share, with you, the first part of this “Organizing Chaos” series. As a Type A mom, I function at my highest when my home, life and family are organized, but as you can imagine, in a family with small toddlers, things are often chaotic. I’ve come to the realization that if I strive for organized chaos rather than mess-free, germ-free, toys away, crumb-free organization, my success rate is much higher. I’ve also realized that, more often than not, the places in our home that need the most help when it comes to organizing are the places that aren’t on display for the everyday public and passersby to see. Which leads me to our first organizing chaos project: our upstairs bathrooms and linen closet.

I was lucky enough to work with Elisheva, founder and CEO of Let It Go Consulting, on this project. It’s always more fun when you’re working with someone who really knows their stuff, and Elisheva definitely knows her stuff. She thought of things that never would have crossed my mind, and I am so pleased with the way everything came out.  A couple of months have gone by since we initially organized, and both my husband and I have been able to successfully maintain the organization in our spaces, and if that isn’t a win, then I don’t know what is!

We started in the Master Bathroom, which was a complete mess. Things were thrown in the only two, small drawers we have, and everything else was stuffed in the back of the small cabinet. Without a lot of space to work with, Elisheva’s main focus was utilizing the space we did have. I think the test of a person who is really accomplished in her field is when they can work with anything. I mean, any size, any budget, any obstacle — they’ve got it covered, and I totally felt that way with Elisheva. She even said going into the session that her goal was to use as much of what I had as we could, and to keep my overall costs down — meaning she would be doing her best to bring in the least amount of new organizing products as possible.

We took everything, and I mean everything, out of the vanity, and went through it all to see what was able to be donated, tossed, in the wrong place or in the right place. It felt really good to do this. It is totally a form of therapy for me. As soon as we started getting rid of stuff, I could feel this weight of chaos being slowly lifted off of my shoulders — imagine what will happen when we get to my closet!!

 

The Plastic Lazy Susan Turntable was the one product I would never have thought to utilize in a bathroom, but it makes so much sense! You’re able to use space that would have otherwise been dead space because it’s a hard to reach area. I absolutely love ours! I also love how Elisheva helped us clear off the countertop, hide the ugly stuff, and only display the pretty things aka my makeup. Here’s a link to my vanity organizer that I got from Target. My favorite part about it? It looks way more expensive than it is! After this transformation it feels like we’re making use of all of our space — even though it’s not a whole lot of space. I am much happier now, in our little master bathroom, because the space is pretty, and I know that everything has it’s own place.

Keep on going…

After we finished in the bathroom, I now had freed up space on my bedroom dresser. I’ve always wanted that magazine-worthy dresser, but I’ve always had so much junk cluttering up the space. Now that Elisheva helped me move my makeup into the bathroom, it was time to take control of my dresser. For the first time in years, I can see the top of my dresser, and I feel happy (and a little bit fancy) every time I look at it. It was a small way for me to make our master bedroom truly feel like an adult space — since tiny terrorists have taken over the rest of my house.

We have one very shallow, but tall linen closet upstairs. By putting all of our meds in easy-to-grab baskets at the top of the linen closet, we were able to move the items we need on a daily/weekly basis down to lower shelves. I donated some of the towels and sheets that we no longer use, and Elisheva folded everything so it fits perfectly. Now it’s just a matter of keeping up with it, which is the hardest part!

We had a blast, and I’m looking forward to tackling our Organized Chaos, one room at a time.

I’d love to hear how you stay organized! Comment below if you’ve ever worked with a professional organizer before! Or if you have organizing challenges, please share those too. I’d love to work in certain rooms of the house that are hard for everyone!

This post is a collaboration with Let It Go Consulting. Some of the links on this page are affiliate links, meaning if you purchase using them, at no additional cost to you, A Glass of Goldwater may receive a small commission, which enables us to keep bringing you the awesome content that you love. As always, all opinions are honest and my own.