the chu's sweet home: House: Organization

Showing posts with label House: Organization. Show all posts

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Rethink of Goodie Bags

I thought Valentine’s Day is to show signs of love to someone who is “romantically” involved with. Nowadays the school makes it a big deal to build friendships among the kids. My kiddos brought a whole lot of candies and goodie-bag toys home surprisingly more than Halloween and Christmas! I like the idea of building friendships and sharing with classmates at school but the amount of candies and toys is not my ideal way of sharing. As I become more aware of sugar intake and eco-friendly, I’d like to see what else my children can share without taking away the spark of joy.

Organize Lego Building Instruction

Since I became a Lego Afol, I’ve accumulated tons of building instruction booklets. I used to throw them in a drawer. However, the number of them just grows so fast that the little drawer is no longer able to house them anymore.

How We Organize Kids’ Lego

作為一家子的樂高迷, 處理孩子們的樂高是需要有點學問的, 媽媽我觀察到每當凌亂的樂高被收拾乾淨, 整齊擺放之時, 孩子們對於樂高的專心度和創意度便會大幅提升; 在嘗試了千萬種收納方式後, 現在所呈現的是目前大家都能接受的收納方法:

Every Pair of Shoes Needs a Home

If we limited 3 pairs of shoes for each one of us, our family of 5 would end up with 15 pairs of shoes. Come on, how is it possible to have ONLY three pairs of shoes per person?! Our house doesn’t have a foyer. It leads directly to our living room when opening the door. The shoes storage has always been a problem for us.

Where to Hide the Toolbox

Charles, as a handyman, can’t get too far away from his tool bag. Where to hide the toolbox in the house? We thought about hiding it in the garage with the rest of the big tools. But our garage is a detached garage; it just takes too much time to get a few household tools. The toolbox had been sat on the floor in our laundry nook like forever. A few months ago, I finally came up with the weirdest idea, which we would not recommend to anybody, but somehow it works for us: We hide the toolbox in one of our kitchen cabinets

Charles bought a set of soft close drawer rail to make it retractable:

Additional Caddies for Shower Storage

The standard 16” x 14” x 4” built-in shower niche we picked was not the perfect size but we thought it was acceptable. Besides the fact that two of them would double the difficulty of laying the tiles, we tried to eliminate the unnecessity and keep just shampoo, conditioner, and a soap bar in that niche.

It turns out:

Ultimate Changing Table

We bought this Ikea SNIGLAR changing table (the cheapest one in Ikea) when en was born. All the diaper changing, cloths changing, hair drying, and teeth brushing happen on this table in the bathroom. Now en’s sister little el has joined the family. This table carries out more duties than before.

First, Charles added the casters. Sometimes the table can be in a way. It is nice to have it movable.

Being Organized in the Kitchen

I’m definitely not a clean freak; however, keeping the house organized and neat is one of the challenges that I wish one day I can be somewhat closer to that goal. Here’s a start:

I remember when the kitchen layout designer that we hired back in 2012 asked us if we are certain to have the big wall cabinet with glass doors. I’m sure the solid doors make things easy. We can toss anything in the cabinet and hide all the mess; but I’m glad I say yes to the glass doors because being organized actually saves more spaces and keeps the kitchen more delightful. I love how our retired Starbucks mugs are displayed in the cabinet:

Since we started with this one organized cabinet, why not being organized for the pots and lids that hide inside the doors as well? We bought Rev-a-Shelf at Lowes. They are not cheap; in fact, quite expensive, so we only bought one of them to try it out.

There are two tiers that operate independently: up for lids and down for pots. The pull-out basket design makes the pots and lids very easy to access without scratching each other. Because they are pretty expensive just for organizing purpose, we only keep this one, which carries 70% of our pots and lids anyway.