Sponsored by Brother P Touch
I’d like to take this moment to come out against medicine cabinets.
Okay fine, I’m not against medicine cabinets like I’m against the holocaust, but I really dislike them. Sure, they made sense back in the day when people milked their own goats and a family of five shared a single toothbrush, but nowadays, even for the most frugal consumer, a teensy cabinet above the sink isn’t going to cut it. Uh-uh. I guess somewhere in the mid-50s residential builders started adding cabinets under sinks to provide “additional storage,” but you can tell that most 50s residential builders were dudes who saw little need for anything beyond deodorant and toilet paper (and that second one was questionable). Today, in the new millennium, at the dawn of a new year, when I’m joining the herd behind the third most popular new year resolution – to get organized, I’m going rogue. I have ditched the cabinet altogether and I have partnered with Brother P Touch to help me in the adventure!
As someone who lived in an old house with a small bathroom, adding cabinets or shelves wasn’t really an option. Luckily, I found this inexpensive kitchen rack at the hardware store (I think it’s meant to work as a pantry spice rack?), and a variety of clear plastic boxes and jars. Add some labels and BAM. More bathroom storage than I could ever need.
Yussss!
One Touch
As part of my post, the folks at Brother asked me to provide a list of organizing tips, but I’ll be honest, this is not an area where I can give advice. I’m not a naturally neat person. That said, even on my messiest day, I am always fairly organized because of these two words; One Touch. Nothing in my house can be taken out or put away with more than one touch. All I ever have to do is reach in a bin and pull it out. When it comes time to put it back, all I have to do is toss it in its spot. One touch. No shuffling or unboxing or unbuckling or putting lids on-and-off. One touch. This also means stuff gets taken out of it’s original packing; instead of keeping a bag of cough drops inside a box, I just remove the bag and the cough drops roam free –when I need one, it’s one touch to grab them. Same with bandaids, or rubber bands, or pill packs, or….whatever. And because everything is nicely labeled, it’s always easy to find what you need. If I had to deal with boxes with lids or zippered pouches or stacking stuff in place, the whole system would fall apart because I’m not fussy enough to deal with crap. Naturally neat people can cope with that stuff – it just doesn’t work for me. So I’m all about the one touch. Lots of labels, and one touch. I’m telling you, it’s a game changer.
One of things I like about massive organizing binges like this is you start to see patterns about yourself and your buying habits that you never knew. A week ago, I was at the drug store thinking I needed to buy mascara. Now I realize I already own 8 tubes of the stuff. So I can probably save that money and put it toward chocolate.
So, I don’t know if you have ever worked with label machines, but let me tell you something, they are crazy nifty. And they make it weirdly thrilling to start cleaning your house so you can reorganize and come up with stuff to label. Back in 2004 when I bought my first Brother P Touch (which is still kicking, btw) I got so excited that I started labeling everything in the house. There was literally a label on the television remote that read REMOTE. Did I think we were going to forget it was a remote control? Not sure. But it felt good.
As much I still love my original, this latest model is much more sophisticated. It does multiple fonts, sizes, capital and lower case letters, lines and boxes, even some cute little clip art. Muchos Niftotoes. For this project I stuck to the plain and simple, but I’m looking forward to the potential possibilities.
Also, I’m not sure when they started doing this, but it’s a big deal: the back of the paper is scored so you can peel away the paper and stick it down. Back in the day you had to mess around to try and peel it off, but now it’s super easy. This makes me want to label even more stuff. Don’t tell my remote.
Did you know January is National Get Organized month? This is to cater to people like me who hoard office supplies and look for new and exciting ways to use post-its! The folks at Brother P Touch are celebrating the occasion by giving away a label maker every day this month with a chance to win $2,000 to overhaul your space.
More creative ways to use labels…
My organization revolves around more of a “one lock” plan. Having 1 glorious, child-proof handled closet on my main floor is key to keeping my toddler outta all my paints, glitter, medicines, etc. It’s a weird oxymoron that having my stuff easy to access means it will never be there when I need it but instead made into a terrible mess or destroyed. People can’t even cook in my house without constant assistance in overcoming various childproof locks. But, like any system, once it becomes a well-oiled machine, organization works as long as you make it work for you and take the time to tend to purging every once in a while.
My spouse and I had a similar idea, adding half-size pantry racks on either side of the sink mirror! Not the prettiest, but defs the most practical. Most important thing was to teach our kids to shut the lid before they flush. Eeeewwww!