I spent the week organizing.  I tackled the upstairs storage room on Monday and gathered five bags of clothes and toys for donation.  I updated our kids’ clothes bins and organized items per child rather than per size.  I filled a giant Ikea bag with shoes and clothes of my own to bring to the consignment shop.  Dare and I worked on organizing the storage room at Josie’s school this morning.  I had hundreds of other things I should have been doing this week, but when my head is swirling with to do lists and I find myself up at 2 am despite a lack of newborns in the house, it is time for me to organize.  Editing, tiding and purging stuff totally clears my head.

I read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up a few months ago and of course loved it.  Marie uses a simple system to remove clutter and has clients keep only pieces that bring joy.  I totally agree.  I love her system.  We do not follow her advice perfectly, but when we do it makes daily life with three kids run much more smoothly.  My only hesitation with the book is that Marie does not mandate that the pieces used to store and stack be as beautiful as the items saved.  I think any large organizing job requires the right storage pieces.  If you are going to put in the effort to edit your belongings you should also extend this editing to your storage items.  We often use vintage pieces repurposed as storage.  My favorite trash cans are old enamel buckets.  We use a large wire bin to hold bath towels and antique pitchers to contain cooking tools on the kitchen counter.  I love storage that is beautiful, simple and useful.

The pieces pictured above are available in our Etsy Shop:

*Corner Spindle Shelf, perfect for plants in a kitchen or bath.

*Wicker Plant Stand, for a single pot.

*Green First Aid Box, great Band-Aid spot in the bathroom.

*Huge Antique Ironstone Urn, awesome umbrella stand.

*Vintage Tackle Box, art supply storage.

*White Enamel Pail and Lid, great as a small trash can.