Saturday, February 22, 2014

Organising On a Budget - My Planning Process



Since moving houses (and towns all together)  we have so many new rooms and spaces to organise. When we moved into our house, my husband could not get any time off so it was just me (and the 4 kids) and a bunch of unpackers. Actually, I don't think you can call them that, they seem to just lift the items out of the boxes and deposit them on any available flat surface. Every where!!

Anyway, everything was just chucked in the cupboards and drawers and were never really organised properly. Its driving me nuts!! Its time for that to change and I am a woman on a mission. Nothing is safe!!

So the return of the 'Organising on a Budget' series. If you have been a follower of the blog for a while, you would have seen a few of my other Organising makeovers, and this is no different. 

This series focuses on creating cleaner, more organised spaces but on a low budget. 
Everything having a place , Simplifying and labelling to make spaces more functional and ..... prettier. 

Seeing as though we are now in a rental we are limited with permanent changes, painting etc. However small cosmetic changes can often make the world of difference. Our home is an older style, from the 80's era so the bathrooms , laundry and kitchen are rather dated. Old laminate, cupboards that have seen their fair share of water damage (from leaks or perhaps Cyclone damage) are features in most of the rooms, but I am still on a mission to add some personality and style around the place. 


Other than some gorgeous friends that inspire me to organise and decorate to make our house a home for our family, one of my biggest inspirations is Jen from I Heart Organizing. For other than the obvious reasons , the way she organises , her gift at finding the right tools to complete her jobs but for her sense of style. For personalising everything that she does and for making simple organising tasks look ..... gorgeous!! So that's my goal!!
I have been rather reserved in the past with my colour selection around our home. Putting it plainly, I am boring. Beige, brown and white. Wow! haha I am determined to add some colour and life to our home and make each and every project, not only functional but gorgeous to look at! 

The main question I have been asked via emails or private messages on my facebook page (thank you for sending them in by the way) is ; 

How do you find the time to complete your projects?
AND
Where do you start? How do you know what needs doing?

Great questions and simple answers!!

In regards to finding the time to complete projects around our home, well I am a busy lady. I think all mothers are. It helps that I am an insomniac and find it hard to sleep. But I also don't need much sleep to survive either so that has always been a bonus since having twins! I find I get a second wind at around 10pm and can still go for hours! The most productive hours of my day are after 10pm at night!
I also have a husband that is home on weekends and helps with the kids and our projects and tries to give me some time out to complete my tasks. 
But I prioritise. Having a clean, organised home is important to me. It effects the way I function and cope with every day life and it effects my moods and anxiety levels. Crazy I know!!
But my home is my work place. I am a stay at home Mum and I now also work from home so I think its important to maintain my environment. 
Life in our family is busy enough, the last thing we need is to not be able to find something or for piles of cr*p to fall out on you when you open a cupboard! I can control the appearance and functionality of our home, but so many other aspects of parenting, so I choose to use it to my advantage!

My planning process is also pretty simple. There is still nothing like the good old pen and paper system. Even with all of the technology and devices around these days, I still find it easier to have a hard copy in front of me to refer to.

When returning from holidays in mid January (after spending time in my parents gorgeous brand new home) I felt a little cluttered and unkempt in our house . So I went through each room. 
I made a list and wrote down all the things that needed to be done and all the things that needed to be bought/ things I would like to update.   Whether they were big or small, they were written down. 

I then worked my way through each room, cleaning and making a list of what needs to be purchased to complete each organisational task, if we didn't already have the supplies at home. Easy....



Now that I have made a copy , I have found this gorgeous printable on the I Heart Organizing blog , and I will transfer my list onto here. It looks prettier !!


I love knowing where we are at. What we have bought. Roughly how much things will cost and what sort of a look we are going for. It saves time and money, both things that are precious to each and every  one of us!!

Armed with my list of supplies for my first few projects,  I headed to our main 2 shops in our town - Kmart and Thingz (Thingz is a WA store and is a gift ware type shop).



Kmart have some fantastic organisational products at the moment and for great prices too, so if you are coming on this organising journey with me, that should be your first port of call!

I hope I answered your questions clearly, and I hope you can stay tuned for the first weeks makeover, our ensuite vanity. That post is coming tomorrow !! 

For now though, perhaps you would like to check out some of my previous posts in this series?

Happy Saturday everyone :)





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Thankyou for taking the time to read and more importantly comment on my blog. They are all so appreciated! Liz x