Busting Through the To Do List [Part 2]: the craft room/closet and kitchen desk

I am so predictable.  I knew that if I challenged myself to tackle the four clutter areas of the house (i.e., the garage, the laundry room, the craft room/closet and the kitchen desk area) before moving on to the fun of decorating, I would attack those clutter spots with wild abandon.  And did I ever.  On Tuesday I posted about how I got a handle on the garage and the laundry room.  Up today: the craft room/closet and the kitchen desk area.

The craft room/closet was ridiculously easy and took all of 10 minutes.  Here it is before I got started:

It was all the contents of my former craft room/closet in the old house just dumped in the closet in the kids' playroom.  I knew it would only take a few minutes to unpack and organize, and I was right.  It surely will not stay like this, but for now, it's pretty neatly organized and I can find whatever I need quickly.  While I'm at it, I should mention I think I will remove the door and turn this particular closet into the kids' art closet, since it is located in their playroom, and move my craft room/closet into the guest room walk-in closet, which is much bigger and can accommodate a workspace!! But I digress ... here are the much better afters:

Last, but certainly not least, the kitchen desk area.  Oddly enough, I put this one off for last and was dreading it even more than the garage, which was far more of a bear of a project.  Here is the kitchen desk before I got my hands on it:

Pretty grim.  It had the contents of our old bill paying drawer from the secretary desk (which now lives in the living room), our junk drawer (which was neatly organized) from the old kitchen, and the drawer of the buffet in the old dining room (a drawer which was pretty much a place to dump stuff we didn't know what to do with or feel like dealing with. In other words: disaster).  Because the computer would now live here instead of in the secretary desk, I realized we needed a place to charge our phones.  I bought a Pottery Barn desk charging station years ago, but gave it to Jamie when we bought the secretary desk.  When Jamie and I were at the Pottery Barn Outlet recently, I spied a few of the desk chargers and had one in my hand. Jamie offered to give back the charger I gave her because as much as she loved it, she couldn't find a place for it.  I double, triple and quadruple checked with her that it was OK for me to take it back and she insisted.  Yay for free (er ... already paid for) solutions!  Here is the charger:

I took everything off of the desk and out of the drawers.  I shredded a bunch of things that we no longer needed and then took stock of my storage.  I had four drawers to use.  I decided to put the bill paying stuff in the top drawer, the junk drawer in the second drawer, my coupon folders and paint fan decks in the third drawer and paper & notebooks for the kids in the bottom drawer. Here they are organized and orderly!

top drawer

second drawer (behold the Sharpies)

third drawer

bottom drawer

And here is the top of the desk.  Ahhhhh ... so much better.  I still have some work to do: I might want to bring in a lamp and it definitely needs some accessories.

You know what this means? I am getting closer to be able to start the Library!  I'm celebrating my organizational efforts by buying paint samples for that space.  I think I'm going to try Olympic paint for this one.  Lowe's is right up the street and I've heard great things about that brand of paint.  I'll be sure to show you the test swatches!

See you swoon,