Cabinet & Closet Organization

One of my organization projects for 2013 was to clean out the cabinet under the bathroom sink and to revamp my linen closet.  They go hand-in-hand because I keep backstock of all bathroom items in the linen closet (as well as linens).  So when I run out of something, I take the item from my backstock, then put the item on my “to buy” list.  This way, I never run out of something (for the most part—there are some things that get missed for various reasons, but mostly this works well), and I rarely need something immediately, which gives me time to buy whatever I need.  These areas also need to be reorganized fairly often because my husband and I both use them and because there is a tendency to eventually just throw items in there without placing them in their respective spots.

Although the bathroom cabinet wasn’t a complete disaster, things started to get unruly in there.

In order to store like with like, I bought some new Bento boxes for each place.  (You can check out my original review of the boxes here.)

The first thing to do with any organization project is to remove all items from the area you’re working on.  From there, I put all items into groups depending on their use, and then store like items with like items.

Cleaning products

My personal products

Then I put the boxes in their place. 

The bag you see in the front holds all of my hair and face wash supplies.  When I take a shower in the morning and when I go through my nightly ritual, the bag comes out and all of my supplies are there at my fingertips.  (I will be doing a review of this bag in the future.)  This is much easier—if I need something at the back of the cabinet, I simply pull out the entire box and can easily access what I need.

Then it was time to tackle the linen closet.  For the most part, this area is always well organized.  One of the problems I previously had with this system is that I was using wicker baskets to hold my items. 

The wicker made for an uneven bottom surface, so items were constantly falling over.  This resulted in eventually just chucking things in the baskets because I was too lazy to stand everything up just to add something new.  So this closet needed new boxes as well.

Once again, I removed everything, sorted my items, and started to put them back.  Certain things (big items or items already in a box) didn’t go into a Bento; they were just placed in the back of the closet.

I placed all of the packets (eye glasses wipes, hand wipes, etc.) in a small Bento.

I put all of my travel items in a rectangular Bento.  (This includes bottles and samples sizes of hand lotion, shampoos, conditioners, which I use when traveling.)

I put all of our oral care in a separate box (extra toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, and travel items).

In a large Bento, I put everything else—backstock of lotion, shampoo, conditioner, razors, medicine, etc.

Then into the closet the boxes went.

Since the wicker baskets I had used previously were in good condition, I repurposed them to hold various decorations and whatnot.

Now everything has a place and the places hold everything.

Ahhh….