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    • I'm Christina, a full-time web developer with a dog sitting business, home renovations, and a blog on the side.

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You are here: Home / Organizing the small things

Organizing the small things

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Our house came with a nice organizer on the back of the basement door.  We used that area as our junk drawer and storage for all those small, miscellaneous items.  It kind of worked. 

The door to our basement is in our dining room, which is in the middle of the house.  And in the winter, it’s better to keep our basement door open.  But it was driving me crazy because we had to look at this ugliness all the time:

Organizing mess  

The shoe organizer was hanging in that small empty spot on the wall.  It had to be easier to look at (and easier to find things). 

I started by removing everything. 

Covering wall with canvas

The lath and plaster will eventually be removed and replaced with drywall, but we just needed a quick fix right now.  So we used roofing nails to hang up a canvas drop cloth and cover the ugly. 

Once we had the drop cloth trimmed, we mounted one-inch strips of oak to the studs. Then we hung mini buckets and baskets from cup hooks on each piece of wood.

Mini buckets as wall organizers

When we turned our attention to the door, we were surprised to find a very large crack that had been “repaired” with caulk, electrical tape and topped off with packing tape.  How does someone even get to the point where they just try to use packing tape to hold their house together?

broken door

All of that fun was removed and replaced with wood filler and then the door and the casing were painted white.  Now the whole area looks like this:

Organized hallway

We have storage space to spare and it’s WAY easier to look at. 

The buckets only cost $1 from Target, and the drop cloth was under $20.  We already had the rest of the supplies on hand, so this was a really inexpensive re-organizing project. 

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  1. onshore

    January 29, 2013 at 8:09 am

    Oh wow, it looks so good, especially the door.
    You have had lots of energy lately. I love your DIY.

    Reply
    • Christina O

      January 31, 2013 at 3:55 pm

      Thank you! It is certainly much easier to find things now too.

      We’re trying hard to get back to proactively working on the house instead of just fixing things once they break. 🙂

  2. Anonymous

    January 29, 2013 at 6:35 pm

    Huge difference! It looks great!

    Reply
  3. Kris

    March 28, 2015 at 9:14 am

    Wow! Just when I think you can’t come up with any more usable ideas, you come up with solutions that I have been trying to find for our basement. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Christina

      April 9, 2015 at 11:29 am

      Haha, you’re sweet! We still use those every day.

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Finished! (ish) let's just pretend the new mantle Finished! (ish) let's just pretend the new mantle is painted a warm gray. It will be soon. 
It was $94 for the whole thing. 
Swipe for the before. See everything at littlevictorian.com
#100roomchallenge
So we were making great (though last- minute) prog So we were making great (though last- minute) progress. Then we're putting the picture hanger on the DIY art I made for the room when the 80-pound dog comes in and steps STRAIGHT THROUGH THE ARTWORK. 😵 

Hubs is trying to fix it as usual. But seriously...I don't know if any more obstacles could be thrown at us during this challenge. 😂 

3 hours to go. 
#100roomchallenge
Ugly photo time! We're doing the $100 Room Challen Ugly photo time! We're doing the $100 Room Challenge on our dining room (that you guys haven't even seen the "before" of yet). It's a super fun challenge to stay within $100 and makeover a room in a month. We're behind schedule, but there has actually been progress. I'll try to remember to share here, but there's more on the blog! LittleVictorian.com
#100roomchallenge
Update: the MCM is officially sold! We did eventua Update: the MCM is officially sold! We did eventually finish most of our restoration/renovation projects. I'll share the updates in the coming months as we get settled in to our new place. 😁
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We had three offers the first day, one of whom hadn't even seen the house in person yet.
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