Baskets Galore!

So you've seen plenty of pictures of the cabinets in our den, but I've never taken pictures of the inside of the cabinets.  I did that on purpose, of course, because only one set of cabinets was actually organized and neat.  The rest were dumping grounds and hiding places when company came over (with items sometimes never coming back out once they were placed in there!). 

The hubby and I are off of work this week thanks to Easter Break, so I figured today would be the perfect time to take everything out, organize (and purge!), and put back in order using baskets.

The one set of cabinets that were already organized had been through this process already (hence, no before pictures):

The longer baskets on the top and the bottom hold the DVD's that the hubby and I decided to keep, out of all the ones we had from college and before. (Yes, they are in alphabetical order because it's easier to find something when you need it that way).  Behind the longer baskets are smaller baskets. 

Some hold CD's, some hold Playstation (2 & 3) games and some hold computer games.  Behind the long basket on the bottom shelf are two rubbermaid containers full of cables, speaker wire, power strips, etc., and then there's my old printer which still works, but has been replaced by a printer/copier/scanner (love it!).

 

(The black dots you see are paint scuffs

from removing and putting the baskets

back - still trying to figure out what I

need to do to avoid that)

  

So today I tackled the other three sets of cabinets.  I hesitate to show you these pics, but it's part of the process, so here are the before's:

Here's the cabinet all the way to the left.

Here's the cabinet second from the right.

Here's the cabinet all the way to the right.

This is the process I used to organize everything:

• Take everything out of all the cabinets so that you can see it all at once

• Save all items that had simply been misplaced/not picked up  (Extra paint rollers, tools, papers that should have been filed, office supplies, etc.).  Put them in their correct "home" this time so that you do not find yourself picking them up again later! 
• Throw out any trash that was found (old magazines, papers with once-important-but-no-longer important information/phone numbers/addresses, random screws/nails, broken items, etc.)
• Decide which items are no longer used, but could be donated to a place like Goodwill (put all of these in a box dedicated to donations)
• Group like items together
• Decide upon basket size for the items depending on how big the group of like items was (larger items or groups needed larger baskets and small items or groups needed small baskets).  I purchased baskets from Tuesday Morning and Marshall's (also check TJ Maxx, SteinMart, Ross, etc. for great prices!)
• Place things neatly in their corresponding baskets and fit all the baskets into the cabinets (try not to leave unused space)
• Step back and enjoy the organized view! :) (and decide what should go in the now-empty fourth set of cabinets!)

Here are my after pictures:

(Cabinet all the way to the left)

(Cabinet second from the right)

(Cabinet all the way to the right)

(Finished Product!)

So much better! You can also see that so far I am using the extra set of cabinets for bulk purchases of sale items with room to spare! There are even a few empty baskets in one cabinet so they are available for future use.  Some of the basket-groups I ended up with were art supplies (markers, color pencils, hot glue gun, paint, paintbrushes), batteries (all sizes, charger for the recharge-able kinds), crocheting supplies, fabric remnants, scrapbooking supplies, etc.

So the next organizing project is already on my to-do list, but I'm done for today.  Do you have any areas that need to be organized?  Do you have a system that works for you? Share your tips!