How Far $10 Can Go at Dollar Tree

 Well I am a teacher and the budget is tight for the summer, the catch 22 is that it's when I have the most time to get things done around this place.  Therefore, off to Dollar Tree I went.  I'd seen a few posts on pinterest about organizing your entire home using items from the dollar store, but I decided to target a few areas that have been annoying me.  Below is what I bought, I did go back to buy two more of the blue and pink baskets to the left for a total of $10.

First I had this bin in my laundry room that was ok, but having a small bin for each person's socks made more sense.  I chose a different color for each person.  They are stackable so they take about the same amount of space in my small laundry closet.  Bonus: this led to mating about 10 pairs of socks.  

Before

After

The other addition to the laundry closet is the tiny trash can you see.  It sits on the dryer and is the perfect place for lint and all the other pieces of trash that are found in a certain man's pockets.

 Next I tackled my biggest nemesis, under the sink.  It's been ignored since the garbage disposal came unhooked and made a mess my husband *claimed* he cleaned up close to three years ago.  Basically things were just thrown in there.  Wow was that a wake up call.  I had to wipe down a ton of products, pull up the shelf paper (which I still need to replace) and give it a good cleaning.  Then we could get to the organizing.  I sorted the items according to their purpose, dishwashing, disinfecting, wood cleaning, etc and put them in baskets so it would make sense.  Due to the fact both the hubby and I tend to stock up and the fact he will sooner tell me we are out of something than move something to find the 80 million of whatever he thinks we're out of, there was a lot more under there than I believed.  The green basket is for kitchen laundry.  It always bothered me to put a damp kitchen cloth in with the family laundry hamper until I do wash, but I don't need to do towel laundry frequently enough to just throw it straight in the washer, so this was the perfect solution.

before

after

I also took those four little purple tubs (top left of the first picture) and put one under each sink in my house for cleaning sponges.  

Laundry Closet Update

So I finally got my indoor retractable clothes line installed (we received it about a month before but life got in the way).  It was an impulse buy when I saw a friend had pinned it.

It was easy to install, however because the cheapie drywall anchors that came with it didn't seem to work and to my husband's dismay the directions did not say what size drill bit to use, we replaced them with these which just happened to be sitting on my washer from another project.

The hubbie was a little frustrated and uttered what my be my favorite quote of all time.  "Did you find this on Pinterest?  Don't go on there anymore!" 

But in the end, it was installed.  It's everything I imagined (once you get the hang of holding the plastic piece so all the lines get an even amount of tension when you pull it out for use).  Seriously though, it holds all my cloth diaper laundry and I no longer have to take up space in my son's room with a drying rack :)

Retracted

Ready to use

Holding about 20 cloth diapers.

New and Improved Laundry Closet

The laundry closet was one of the things I was most excited for when we bought our house, and now that we've lived here a while, it's become one of my greatest frustrations.

 Initially I was excited because the house I grew up in and most of the homes near our house have laundry in the basement.  Our laundry area is one step outside of my bedroom door! Though now I do wish I had a full room dedicated to laundry.  The grass is always greener right...

The first problem occurred when we bought our washer and dryer. The installers had to remove the doors to get the machines in.  We had to reinstall them a couple inches out to allow us to get to the detergent/bleach drawer.  We try to combine being thrift and eco-friendly, so of course we have a HE frontloader. 

For the last 2.5 years, if I wanted to use bleach or any other additive I had to open the bifold doors about 2/3 of the way in order to have enough space open the drawer.  Then I had to snake my arm in to pour in the additive.  It wasn't a big deal at first, but the longer we lived here the more annoyed I became, and so I searched for a solution. 

Pinterest had a few great ideas like putting inexpensive normal doors there but there's just the teeny problem that the laundry closet is in a standard hallway and they'd be a roadblock (and probably a fire hazard) when open.  My searching led me to Johnson's Full Access BiFold Door Hardware Kit.  We installed these in September and I could not be happier!  We kept the same bifold doors, now they just open all the way, which gives us easier access and more storage space :)

Unfortunately I was not terribly organized in this space either.  Our guest bath has no storage, so the extra towels get stored here.  Add to that that we're a family that likes to stock up when things go on sale and I refuse to store my cleaning supplies in the basement (it's scary down there).  It led to a big mess.  Finally while on a Home Depot run with my husband, I persuaded him to buy me another shelf to take advantage of the 4 feet of storage space we have above the only shelf in the laundry closet. 

I didn't realized I was going to blog about this or I would have taken a true before picture, but here is what it looked like shortly after we installed the new shelf.  That entire shelf that's half empty is usually cluttered with cleaning products, linens, an iron, a steamer, and miscellaneous other household items.

The added shelf space allowed me to get more organized.

Now there is a place for everything and everything is in its place!  I even have a bin for singleton socks!  .  We're in the process of becoming a green family, slowing replacing chemical ridden product with more natural ones, so you'll see that here.  My everyday use basket includes All Free and Clear Detergent, Bounce Unscented (for work clothes-- as much as I want to get rid of these I can't stand the static cling, Bac Out in a small spray bottle, Rock-n-Green detergent for cloth diapers and undershirts- we may completely switch over to this for everything once we use up the All, and vinegar.  I picked up that blue wire basket at Target today; it's perfect for holding my wool dryer balls which reduce drying time by up to 75%

I'm sort of ashamed all those hangers are still there but they aren't recyclable, so I feel awfully bad throwing them out when they're still useful. 

For an update click here.

 

Ideas for the future:

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