The 2 Big Organizing Projects I Want to Tackle in 2019

I have two big organizing projects that I want to tackle in 2019 (and several smaller ones too)! Come see my plans and the scary “before” photos!

I’ve found that I’m a lot more likely to follow through on my goals if I share them with other people. Simply telling others my plans makes me feel more accountable to them, and as a typical type-A first born, I hate to not follow through on what I say I’m going to do!

At the beginning of 2018, I shared 4 big organizing projects that I wanted to complete during the year. And while we only knocked out three of the four– my office, the mudroom, and the garage— I was (and still am!) thrilled with how they turned out. (More on the unfinished 4th project in a second… be sure to read to the end of the post for a fun announcement! 😉 )

As we’re approaching the 2.5 year mark of living in our house, we don’t have as many huge projects anymore because we’ve tackled many of them already (yay!), but I do have several small organizing projects on my list like…

• adding a display shelf in the boys’ room to help set some boundaries and curb clutter
• sprucing up our guest room to make the most of the closet space and making it more conducive to welcoming guests
• finding the perfect nightstands for our bedroom to provide a little bit of extra storage

The 2 Big Organizing Projects I Want to Tackle in 2019

These smaller items should be easy to tackle in a weekend or less, but as far as “BIG” projects go, there are two major areas I want to tackle in 2019.

1. The Laundry Room

Our laundry room isn’t terribly unorganized. We’ve tried to do the best with what we have… which is basically a single wire shelf.

I’ve added clear bins so we can easily see what we have in this space, but this year I would love to replace the wire shelf with a nice roomy cabinet + bar for hanging clothes. (I hang Connor’s hockey gear to dry at least weekly, so that bar is important!) I’d also like to paint and add some backsplash tile to this space to make it a little prettier.

Our laundry room also boasts the world’s smallest linen closet (ha!), so I want to see what I can do to maximize the space in there as much as possible. (It’s really only half the depth of a normal closet, and there isn’t any other designated linen closet in the house, so we really need to do our best with what we have here– eek!)

(I am already anticipating getting the question, “Where are all of your sheets?!” Since the linen closet is so small, I keep one spare set of sheets in a basket in each of the bedroom closets. They’re close by when it’s time to change the sheets, and it saves me from trying to stuff them all in this minuscule space!)

2. The Basement

Oh, the basement. This was the space that we didn’t get to in 2018, so I am determined to knock it out first thing in 2019!

This space has been a struggle because it is unfinished and we’re not down here all that much, but it serves several purposes. The majority of the space is used for storage. All of our bins of Christmas decor are stored in the basement, along with a few bins of mementos.

Believe it or not, I actually have a few bins of BINS– containers that I used to use, but are not currently holding anything in our house. I’ve hung onto them thinking that I might have a use for them at some point, but I really need to go through and throw away/give away/donate a whole bunch of them!

We also have a bunch of random furniture stored in the basement. Some of it is pieces that we used in our last house but haven’t found a home here. We’re holding onto some of the pieces for family that is moving in the not-too-distant future and may need them in their new home. And some of it is just stuff that we need to get rid of and haven’t yet.

Connor has taken over one end of the basement for hockey practice, which we’re fine with at this point since completely finishing the basement isn’t on our to-do list anytime soon. As you can see, he’s kind of rough on this area, so we need to address the sagging insulation and also reseal the floor.

The final part of the basement is Donnie’s workshop. We have an area where we’re storing trim pieces for framing in windows and doorways and replacing the baseboards in the house. This is a project that Donnie is plugging away at little by little, so we’ll likely have these pieces here for a little while yet. We need to do a better job of organizing them, though, so we can get around more easily in this space.

The other side of Donnie’s workshop holds his tools and woodworking supplies. We actually have a lot of organizing pieces for this space, but we just haven’t taken the time to get everything in order yet.

UPDATE: Follow along with our basement progress in these posts…

The KonMari Method: Organizing Sentimental Items

Top 10 Best Tool Storage Systems for Organizing Your Workshop

The Abby Organizes January 2019 Organizing Challenge– YOU’RE INVITED!

We are planning on tackling the basement in January because we want to “eat that frog” and get our biggest project taken care of! While we were planning out the details of the project, though, we realized that many people are probably in a similar boat to us– there is a big organizing project they’ve wanted to tackle, perhaps for years, that they just haven’t gotten around to yet. So we figured, why don’t we all tackle our biggest organizing project TOGETHER?!!

Everything is more fun in a group, right?!

This is normally the time each month where I publish a decluttering calendar to tackle one specific space, but this month YOU get to pick the space in YOUR home that you want to declutter and organize most!

Here is the plan:

• Each Monday, we are going to send an email to a very special list of people who sign up for our organizing challenge with things like encouragement, tips, milestones to hit, and printables you can use to help organize your project.
• Everyone who signs up for the [FREE!] challenge will also be invited to join our “Abby Organizes January Challenge” popup Facebook group where we can share photos, encourage one another, ask for advice on challenges we’re having with our spaces, celebrate victories, and hold each other accountable to KEEP GOING and finish organizing this pesky space that we most want to have organized!
• Each Friday in the Facebook group, we will all share the progress we’ve made on our spaces, along with a goal of what we plan to accomplish the following week so we are committing our plans to the group and being held accountable!

You can choose any space you want– big or small– whatever space is bugging you most and is just begging for some organization. You can use my tips, milestones, and printables, or organize in whatever way makes the most sense to you. We hope that you’ll be part of the Facebook group for extra motivation and accountability, but it is certainly not required if that’s not your thing!

Basically, if we’re going to take on a big, daunting, unorganized space, we want to have fun doing it, so let’s all do it together and cheer each other on! You can sign up for the challenge by clicking the button below!

I am so excited to see all of the “befores and afters” that come out of this challenge, and I am REALLY excited to get these unorganized spaces (like our basement!) that have been hanging over our heads for years become organized and functional again! I hope you’ll join us!

Do you have any organizing goals for 2019? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below!

Have a wonderful day!