The Great Room Reorganization - The War Plan

I reached a major milestone last weekend -- Sunday the 4th was the first year anniversary of my moving to San Francisco and into my glorious and adorable apartment. I still love being in the city, I still love my apartment, and I'm stoked to be living my Big City Dreams.

That said, uh, one never realizes how much stuff you accumulate in a year. While I keep the main areas of the apartment nice and tidy (the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, etc.), my room tends to be a complete disaster. You know -- shoes everywhere, papers, tote bags, etc.

And since everyone appears to be moving and reorganizing right now (tis the season?), there are some really amazing posts going up right now, like Market Publique's post on shoe organization (and oh my god, look at all of those amazing shoes), Jessica's closet organization category at What I Wore... It's really lit a fire under me to get thinking about spiffing up my room and getting everything pulled together.

I started by creating a little blueprint of my room to give you an idea of what I'm working with. Behold the glory of my pixel-y art!



Most of the furniture is staying in place -- the bed, the dresser, the nightstand, and the lamp. I actually have very little wall-space to place things against -- I couldn't put the nightstand between the two doors because that's where the thermostat and the light switch live, I can't put anything underneath the window because that's where the heater lives, and an entire wall of my room is the mirrored closet. The lamp can't move because the light switch turns a single outlet on and off, and that is the outlet the lamp is plugged into. (There is no overhead light.) So there's not really much I can do in terms of rejiggering the layout of the room and the furniture.

What I really need to do is reorganize all of my stuff -- I have two plastic storage drawer bin units, a la these Container Store guys, which are noted as "storage" in the wee blueprint above. One's got a whole lot of miscellany (plugs, make-up, hats) in it, and the other's got all of my nail polish and most of my knitting stuff. My make-up is scattered in several bins in my closet, in one of my storage guys, in bags all over my room (and my bathroom), and that doesn't include all of my face washes and lotions and potions, my perfumes, etc., which are pretty haphazard. I also need to organize the top of my dresser... and that's not even going into the dresser itself.

So what's the plan? The plan's to do a drawer-by-drawer and closet-panel-by-closet-panel reassessment, find new places for things, and maybe get some swanky organizing system going on top of the dresser. It'd be nice if I didn't have to buy stuff to organize my stuff, since the budget is a little tight, but I'm sure I can find the things I'm looking for at Daiso or Ichibankan, also known as MY FAVORITE PLACES IN THE WORLD. I'd also like a new duvet cover, but again, le budget is tight. (I *do* have the Amy Butler 'Feather Your Nest' pattern, though, which is intriguing! Although the last thing I need is a sewing project...)

Eventually I'll have pictures so I can show you my progress! But for now, I'm working on it. Also, I am a little embarrassed to show the "before" pictures. Because they would be terrible and embarrassing.

What are your tricks and tips to keeping organized? Do you have any websites or books or places that inspire you? I'd love to get some advice as I dive into this...!

image from periodicstyle.blogspot.com