Planning Your Organizing Project – Part 2 (31 Day Organizational Challenge)

Yesterday, I talked about the PROCESS for doing an organizing project.  Today, I’m going to go through the planning questions suggested by Laura of I’m an Organizing Junkie to help clarify the vision for the room and how best to organize it.

My Organizing Interview with Myself

What do you want the purpose of the room to be?

The original purpose of our office was as a place for me to do work for school (at home, ahh the life of a teacher), keep household papers, books, product manuals, office supplies, computers, electronics, etc. organized. As I’ve gotten more into crafting, I would love to have a space to craft and organize my crafting materials.

What do you need in or near the room to serve that purpose?

We will need to have a lot of storage areas (shelving or cabinets), storage products (files, boxes, etc.) and desk space to accommodate the storage, work and crafting needs.

What can you remove from the room?

We have already decided that we will need to get rid of our desk unit (anyone in Western Washington interested? If so, send me an email and we’ll make a deal). We’re now considering getting rid of the large file cabinet (even though I really like it, it’s too big for what we need and we don’t really have a good space to put it in this room) and the love seat (another item I really like but I’m not sure it fits with the purpose for the room).

We’ll also have to find another spot to house things like bags, suitcases, water bottles and my husband’s hats. We need to make sure we find a fitting home for these things so we don’t end up with another “dumping ground”.

I would love to find a space in the office/craft room to house wrapping materials also but I’m not sure if there is space (any creative solutions for wrapping supplies in a small space? Please leave them in the comments).

What problems do you see with the room?

Ummm… Did you see the before pictures?

But seriously, some problems I can see with this room are the overall size (which is a problem throughout our house) and restrictions on room layouts caused by the 3 doors (one to the rest of the house, one to the garage and one to the laundry room), the water heater closet and the diagonal wall with the window. This leaves limited options for room arrangements and furniture.

As for specific organizing challenges, we’ve been trying to figure out where to keep our printers (we have two, that’s normal, right?), crafting materials and files.

What organizational tools might solve those problems?

Are my husband’s creative construction abilities considered an organizational tool? If so, then I think that’s our solution. We’ve been designing a custom desk and shelving system to work within the space and layout. We’re still working out how they will look and function but we know we’re definitely going to need some custom pieces since it’s really a unique space with unique requirements. Right now, we’re thinking wall mounted L-shaped desk and open shelving with file boxes and other organizers to help keep things in order.

As for the printers, we tossed around ideas of pullout shelves this morning and my husband did a fact-finding mission to Lowe’s which I hear went well, so that might be the plan. I would like to have something like this:

I read about this file box paper organization idea a little while back and I think that might work well for our papers if I can find the right boxes.  It looks really nice and clean also.

Source

What habits need to change to solve the organizational problems?

I can see 3 habits that need to change (more embarrassing stuff here).

1. Similar to how I went about organizing our entryway, we need to pick the main things that need a “home” in the space and then find an effective place to store them.
2. We need to make sure that things are easy to put away in the correct spot. To be perfectly honest, a lot of our issues with clutter and organization come down to either not finding a place to store things or not putting them there when there is a place. This haphazard laziness needs to stop to be able to keep any of our spaces in order.
3. We also need to determine whether we really need something before we buy it or bring it into the house. My husband is notorious for finding “deals” at garage sales that accumulate in the garage and I’m notorious for buying whatever’s on sale (hello, Michael’s and Joann’s) and having it sit in bags for months before finding a place to stack them.

If we can break or establish those 3 habits, we will be in much better shape for any organizational task.

What kind of a budget do you have to create the organized room of your dreams?

Well, that’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it, self? The answer is basically no budget. We’ve already bought the wood for the desk and I have a few boxes already from IKEA so I’m hoping to keep the rest of the shelving and materials to less that $150.

What kind of a timeline is necessary to organize this room?

I’d say just about 31 days… haha! I plan to devote 20 minutes per day and whatever I can spring on the weekends to the basic organization. (I’m hoping to get some additional decorative pieces done on top of the organization to finish the space). I’ve also roped in my husband for the construction aspects which will happen in whatever time he has on the weekends.

What is your plan of action?

I think I’ve basically covered that so far. I’ll be pinning some more ideas and inspiration to my Office/Craft Room Remodel Pinterest Board to finish off the planning phase (feel free to check it out) and then on the R (R is for remove items – look for more on that later this week also). Each Friday, I’ll post pictures of our progress as I move through the rest of the PROCESS.

One last question, who can you ask to help you with this?

This is a very important aspect to consider when planning (especially since I’m terrible at delegating and asking for help, it’s definitely more likely to happen if I’ve planned for it). Like I said, I’ve already roped in my husband for his heavy lifting and construction abilities (I can do it, he’s just faster). I’m also planning to ask my parents and in-laws for a couple of hours of child care so we can really concentrate on putting in work (as opposed to trying to fit it in during nonexistent nap times or trying to entertain a 1-year-old while organizing).

Oooooh! Planning makes me so excited!

Now it’s time to get to the actual work of it!

(not quite as fun as the planning/dreaming step but necessary to get it into reality)

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