Organized: Laundry Room

I hate laundry. It's my total housekeeping nemesis. I can't stand doing it. One of the reasons I hate it so badly is that, until very recently, we had one laundry basket. This was a problem because no matter what I did, I would have to sort through all the laundry just to figure out what loads needed done. This led to our entire laundry "landing'" (our laundry closet is in a closet in our upstairs landing) being covered in piles of dirty clothes, leaving barely enough room to walk, let alone efficiently complete the task at hand. Having one basket also led to some confusion on where dirty clothes went - which meant most of them landed on the floor.

To try and combat this laundry area disaster, I figured what I needed was some serious organization. I could have gotten fancier baskets, but it's laundry. These were cheap, the right size, and would be up to the job. I looked into other baskets, but it seems that all the ones that come pre-divided have three pouches (darks, lights and colors). I don't wash my reds with my blues and since I was trying to avoid the repetitive sorting, I wanted four - one for each load I typically do - reds, lights, darks and other colors (greens, blues and yellows).

I also wanted to make some sort of label so that anyone could easily figure out my laundry sorting that way maybe the clothing would end up in the appropriate bin. Instead of just making some simple labels, I took some fabric scraps and made it visual.

Here's how it works. I have a regular laundry basket in the bedroom. Laundry gets placed in the basket each day since it's always empty. Every morning, I make a sweep of the house and pick up any other clothing (socks, outer shirts, etc.) that may have been placed elsewhere. I then take a peek in the bedroom hamper and grab those clothes as well, sorting all those dirty clothes into the laundry room bins. It's easy to see which bin is fullest and needs attention. Whichever is full gets placed in the washer and the bin sits on top of the washer. When the laundry switches, the bin moves to in front of the dryer, ready to catch the clean clothes. Once the laundry is done, I can easily fold the clothes into the empty bin and hang clothes that typically get hung. The clothes can then be put away quickly and  the (now empty) bin now placed back on the shelf. The load that will need done next moves to atop the washer until the basket gets filled enough to warrant a load.

If you easily keep up with your laundry, this is probably overkill for you. But I dreaded the chore and this organization really helped make it enjoyable less dreadful.

Organized: My Freezer

So, with it being spring and all (almost), and my Lenten goal to become more purposeful, I thought about organizing some of the systems in our house. But during some research online, I realized that maybe documenting some of what we do (and some thing I implement that we currently don't do) will help someone else out there in cyber space. Because while none of the home organization solutions I found were perfect for me, they at least gave me a starting point. And with a Frankenstein of those, plus a little creativity, I came up with some solutions that worked for us.

Our freezer has been organized like this for quite some time. The hubs is fabulous at organizing kitchen things and he came up with this system while we were still in Florida. But the label part, that's all me (I have a thing for bins and labels).

We have plastic bins of varying sizes (it's dependent upon your freezer size and shape, obvs) that we place like items in and then label (with chalk). When we take one out, we re-write the number. This way, nothing gets buried in the freezer and becomes a "What is that?" It also cuts down on the amount of rummaging we do for "I thought we had.." The key here is that once you bring food home or have leftovers you want to package, to do it in portions that are realistic for your family. We usually do half pounds and sometimes even quarter pound packages of ground meat because we're only two people. Steaks and other meat cuts are wrapped individually. A family of 6 would obviously portion differently. You can also use one large freezer bag with smaller portions just wrapped in plastic wrap to cut down on bags (and space in the containers).

I tuck ice pack for the hubs lunch bag in between the containers. And since we took out our ice maker, we have a few ice trays in the top left corner there.

We also portion everything, and shape it for the containers before we freeze it. Trying to fit already frozen items into bins can work, but it's less space efficient. To maximize freezer space, shaping fresh items allows you to "mold" things into the bins so that there is little wasted space.

Behind all these bins, we have our prepared meals (soups, pot pie fillings, chilis, etc.) in 2 c. Ziploc containers. The 2 cup size works well for a serving size of two portions - exactly what we need). They sell larger cup sizes that we use on occasion, but we mostly use the 2 c. size. The nice thing is, though, is that the 4 c. size fits in the location of two 2 cup containers, so you can use a mix of both if you need some larger portions and some smaller. To keep tabs on the back of the freezer, we keep a running list of what gets put back there so that we know without having to unearth what's in front of it. Take it out, cross it off.

On the door, we keep go-to items again in the Ziploc containers (for easy rearranging if necessary). Things like chicken stock and fruit for smoothies goes here, along with odd items like old bananas, popsicles, etc. that would clutter up the freezer bins or won't fit into them efficiently.

How do you keep your freezer organized? Anyone have tips for the fridge?