Rubbermaid - Adventures in Organization

Pre-Garage Sale

We've been really busy with college visits and out-of-town guests, but we’re finally getting organized for our Garage Sale.

My husband and I decided to divide and conquer. He took the garage and miscellaneous shelves/storage areas in the house while I weeded through closets, one by one.

My husband did a good job cleaning up some dusty furniture, file cabinets and sports equipment no longer in use. My daughter definitely had an overstock of baby tees and blouses she could part with. I found a ½ dozen prom and bridesmaid dresses and a full dozen of nice dress slacks my husband hasn’t worn since we got married.

     
 

Combine that with 3 sets of old dishes, 4 sets of matching bedding, a small library of paperback books, a TV, boombox and stereo and I think our driveway is full.

We now have an almost empty closet we can now use for seasonal clothing. 
And remember the teenagers room? Messy room   Look at it now!

 

This is exciting!  We bought in-expensive dot stickers at the office supply store to price everything and bright neon cardboard for signs. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I'm Midnight Plum; You're Very Berry Kiss

I don't know about you, but I have a stack of keys that would make the maintenance man at the Empire State Building blush. Professional Organizer Beth Ziegler posted an awesome tip on how to keep keys organized on her blog Bneato last month that was picked up by Lifehacker.

 

[Image from Lifehacker]

Give your keys a nice shiny coat of nail polish to tell which belongs to which door, lock, or mystery trunk. If you have a particularly old key, you might try cleaning it with nail polish first. It'll take off any oil or grime that's on it and help the polish stick better.

Sidenote... Beth Ziegler = awesome. She writes for the equally awesome Apartment Therapy and I've added her RSS feed to my list (though I had a hard time deciding if I should file her under organization or cool design...hmmm).

New Rubbermaid Bloggers - Last Round

Here is the final introduction to the new Rubbermaid Bloggers! Please remember to give them some love as they will be writing some great posts for everyone!

Joyce

 

Joyce is great at maintaining organizational systems if she could only find the time to set the systems up. She likes horseback riding, golfing, reading and gardening.

Megan Grieser

Megan has a problem with throwing things away - she always thinks she might need it at some point. She loves volleyball and coached at the college level.

Rob Warner

Rob is great at organizing closets and garages. He loves to swim and unicycle (HOW COOL!!)

Sam Aron

Sam is a graphic manager at Rubbermaid who adds an artistic flair to everything. She is great at making organizational plans but lacks to follow through to finish them. 

How to Sell Clothing at a Yardsale?

My husband and I combined forces with our friends for a yard sale this fall. We had tons of stuff and quite the variety: home decor, electronics, speakers, tv's, dvd players, purses, shoes and all sorts of other jazz. The first thing we had to do was go through our house to decide what was going to be in the sale. Purging is something that is tough for me because I'm always scared I'm going to get rid of something I will need "someday" (which of course never happens). This time around I did a pretty good job, with the help of my husband encouraging me and reminding me that no, I will never need that bag, or that shirt, or those shoes ever again. One room at a time, we went through the closets, checked under the beds, looked in all of our storage bins, and designated one of our guest rooms as the yard sale room. We started this process in August, so as we found more and more things to sell, we placed them in the yard sale room. One night as the sale got close, we sat down and priced everything. We used masking tape and a red marker, that way we knew what was ours (our friends marked theirs in black marker). Our friends made some signs (below was after the sale, but thought I would show you the signs!), and the day of the sale finally came.

Even though it rained (despite the sunny forecast), we were prepared with canopies to cover most of our selection. The photo below was after the rain let up a bit, and my husband was brave enough to put the speakers out from under the canopy.

 

One thing we had plenty of was clothing, and we weren't really sure the best way to display all of it. We had shirts, sweaters, jackets, jeans, shorts, skirts and even a couple suits and bridesmaids dresses. As you will see from the photo, we gave it our best effort. (This consisted of a rope tied from a tree in the front yard to a hook on the front porch held up in the middle by a ladder. We hung the shirts on the rope, and we had all of the pants and shorts in bins on the ground.) 

 

We put out plastic hangers with our clothes, which was tough to remember to get them back before people walked off with them. I should have looked at more research first. This site had a lot of good tips: http://www.yardsalequeen.com. (This site, for example, suggested using wire hangers or hangers that you don't want back.) I thought I would get some ideas for our next yard sale on our toughest challenge this time around...what is the best way to display clothing items? 

Life is Changing - Introduction

I really like to have everything in order. I want every closet, cabinet and drawer to have a specific use, but you know, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Busy schedules, family priorities and lazy procrastination gets in the way of the ideal state.

Now I have a new reason for things to be a mess - change, flux, holding patterns. Without sounding like a country song, it’s been quite a year. My husband started working from home, the oldest daughter got a place of her own, my mother-in-law had to be placed in assisted living, the youngest daughter leaves for college in 8 months.

 

What this means is it feels like my house has gone through a time warp. I have too much furniture in some places and none in others. All the closets have blended stuff, some coming in, some going out. There’s antique quilts and heirloom dishes, seasonal clothes, office supplies, spare electronics and so much more to store or place until it finds a permanent home.

HELP! The holidays are coming, and so are the relatives. I must start somewhere. I have found some inspiration and great videos here and professional organizers say step 1 is to purge and sort. But, I don't quite know where to begin....

New Rubbermaid Bloggers Round 2

I have some more AWESOME people for you to meet. As I mentioned before, we are adding some new members to our blog. Please welcome them!!!

Amanda Dudek

 

Amanda is a product manager here at Rubbermaid. She is a Virginia Tech fan who loves cooking and trying out new restaurants. She is an expert at keeping her closet organized but needs some help with her kitchen cabinets.

Bo Roe

 

Bo is great at keeping small spaces organized (though his wife would claim that he is not organized at all). He brews beer and loves RSS feeds (his Google Reader has a MILLION web sites in it) that include good photography.

Mayya Grinberg

 

Mayya is a marketing intern here at Rubbermaid. She travels a lot in her car and has issues keeping it organized and clean. She loves Earl Grey tea and use to live in Savannah, Georgia.

Shannon Joyner

 

Shannon's biggest organizational challenge is putting away her laundry - it gets washed and then sits in the laundry basket (I totally do this too!). She loves taking pictures and is known by her family as "the paparazzi."

Keep looking for their posts!

Rubbermaid Organizers to Race for the Cure

My mother is a breast cancer survivor, so it was really great to be a part of the Rubbermaid team who took part in the Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure event in Charlotte, near our home office.

An enthusiastic group of 2-legged and 4-legged friends took off for a brisk 5K walk through downtown Charlotte and beautiful old neighborhoods with simple southern charm.

Of course one of our over-achievers had to flaunt his superman cape to show how speedy our team could cross the finish line.

No hard feelings though. In the spirit of team work, we had a great time staying fit and joining our community to raise funds for a valuable cause.

Go Team Rubbermaid!

New Rubbermaid Bloggers

Over the next few months we hope that you will see some exciting new things on this blog. The first was the new design (isn't it gorgeous!). And now we are adding some new bloggers to our team! We'll be introducing all the new bloggers this month but I wanted to go ahead and allow you to "meet" the first batch.

Please Welcome:

Clara Sapienza

Clara loves the outdoors and to go hiking and horseback riding. She is great at organizing her budget and finances but needs to work on staying decluttered at home (don't we all!)

Betty Schmal

Betty is the closet expert! She is our closet product manager who loves the beach and her dogs (she has a gorgeous Great Dane that I want to meet!)

Dean Piepiora

Dean has a really cool job here at Rubbermaid...he's a Research and Design manager. This is the department responsible for designing and building all our products here at Rubbermaid. Dean likes to spend time with his kids and is a Red Sox and Panthers fan.

Zach Potts

Zach is a graphic designer here at Rubbermaid (can't you tell he is creative by his BEAUTIFUL picture?). He also loves sports and was a key player in the Marketing's win during the softball tournament.

Here are some of the new bloggers...check back for some more introductions. I hope you enjoy their posts!

Please Help My Mom Get Her Basement Organized!

The last time I went home to Virginia, my mom invited me to join her in the basement.

  She led me to a corner that had a ton of decorative flowerpots, home decor items, and party serving dishes.  Then she said to me,"Take a look if you want anything...I don't need all this stuff. I don't have any more room in the house for it."

Let's back up. In many ways, I am very similar to my mother.  My mom is really organized - see an example of her closet on the right that she and my stepfather designed and built.  They combed through magazines to find the perfect combination, then he built it from scratch in his workshop.  She selected neat organizers that matched from Tuesday morning.  Overall, it is quite impressive.

The Basement Problem

However, while I am a "purger" and like to get rid of anything in my home I don't actively use (except all my art supplies!!), my mom is more of a "keeper".  Her basement has become a collection place for so many items from their combined households when they got married.  The issue is that they don't have room in the house to put the decorations, extra chairs, etc. anymore - see below:

The decor area:

The graveyard of rocking chairs and dining room chairs from combined households:

The overflow area for household supplies that she does not use everyday (this needs to stay in the basement but I want to organize it better for them):

My mom is feeling a bit stressed from the clutter in the basement.  She feels guilty that she bought some things for use in the house, but ran out of room.  Many of the decorative items are not returnable.

I am thinking a yard sale might be best to sell a lot of the things they don't need, and then they could do something fun and spontaneous with the money.  That could allow her to feel like the purchases were not a waste.

Progress Thus Far:

I mailed her some tags that I bought at Target to start tagging things that she knows she doesn't need, things she wants to keep, and things she is not sure about. When I go home over Thanksgiving, we are going to go through it all together.   I will likely return in the Spring to help them have the yard sale.

Help me!

I would love your help.  Do you think the process is right so far?   Any tips or pointers for the process, or do you have any advice on having a yard sale?  This is my first time, so welcome your expert input!  I look forward to keeping you updated on the progress!

Airing out Sports Equipment

In any thorough ranking of unpleasant smells, recently used hockey gloves must be near the top of the list. Closely followed by shoulder pads. To be honest all sports equipment smells disgusting after the game / practice. It needs to be aired out.

When I was a kid my mother set up a wire hanging tree in our furnace room in the basement. As I moved into apartments I alternated between enclosed closets (which became hazardous zones) and balconies. For the last two years I returned to my roots with a hanging tree in the basement.

As you can see from the picture this is not an ideal solution. First off, they don’t make wire hanging trees like they used to….mine is really flimsy and bends like its trying to make it under a limbo stick. Secondly, it’s not big enough for all my adult-sized gear so I end up overlapping items, which isn’t ideal for airing things out.

Well this past weekend I solved the problem…see below.

I used left over Configurations (HomeFree) pieces I had from my closet installations and put them to use on the basement wall. In Canada you can go to Home Depot or RONA (Lowes in the US) to get the missing open stock pieces you need for the install. I also bought three sliding baskets.

The result is a functional wall with ventilated wire shelving that’s ideal for airing out the equipment. I designed it using our design tool so that every piece of equipment has its own spot without touching anything else. Once I started installing, however, I moved things around on the track to better suit my actual hockey equipment.

This just reinforces the versatility of the Configurations system. My suggestion to all of you who have sports equipment to air out and have been putting off a closet makeover is this: buy a Configurations kit and redo your closet(s). With left over pieces (as there almost always will be) build a sports equipment airing wall in your basement, your garage or anywhere else that’s away from most human activity.

As I mentioned you can round out the pieces you need at above-mentioned retailers to make sure there is zero waste. I like it….. save waste, save money, save space and most importantly save your marriage. Hockey gloves really stink.