Rilla Saves Space

I think I should wear a cape while finding places to put things in our new house. It takes super powers to organize all this stuff! Granted, I’m no neat freak. On a scale of one to five—five being “slob”—I think I’m about a 4½. I’m okay with that. Not that I want to document my mess for anyone who happens to click on my blog post…

We have smaller closets, so I’m attempting to maximize closet space. I was very spoiled in our last house because I had a closet to myself. (You might remember, I liked to hide out in there to write.) Now that I’m sharing a closet with Realm, I refuse to give up having my dresser in my closet. Keeping my clothes in one location truly saves time. Unfortunately, there was no place to put my shoes.

Until… (Ta da! Ta da!)

I try to be sensible about my shoes…except for the ones with the mismatched shoelaces. Those were free.

I found this little shoe rack at Walmart. (Dear Walmart, You can always send me $15 for this plug. Your cheerful little consumer, Rilla Zerbert.)

In the bathroom I wanted to set out towels and toiletries for guests.

I bought the little white shadow box bathroom scene for 99 cents at the thrift store, along with the little pink tray holding the hand towels and wash cloths for $1.59.

I found the two-section shelf at another thrift store for $5.

Notice the magazines in the bottom section. You can tell from the lifted toilet seat that a male uses this bathroom. A couple of years ago, I learned a fascinating tip from Sheila Butt, a Christian mom of three Christian men and currently a TN State Representative. Here it is:

If you want your son to read something, put it in the bathroom.

Wisdom from a pro. That’s the reason for the stack of Discovery magazines from Apologetics Press in our bathroom. If you don’t think it works, try it. I cannot count the times my son has told me an interesting scientific fact and stated, “I read it in Discovery.”

Now to the guest bedroom closet, where I store items for welcome baskets to give to new members of our congregation. There are ladies who help me by donating gifts, so I needed a place for all these goodies. This is what I came up with:

I found the blue and green containers at the dollar store. I already had the shoe rack, which was too bulky to work in my closet. There is space behind the shoe rack to keep the rolls of cellophane for the baskets. I omitted a row to get to the rolls easily. I’m so motivated to see these containers empty!!

All this space-saving means I can sit down amidst my usual piles of stuff and write without the frustration of a dozen waiting boxes staring me down. Waiting boxes do stare. I saw one out of the corner of my eye while writing a poignant death scene the other day. And it shut its eyes in a flash when I looked up to catch it.

Next, I’m thinking craft center and a board game center. (Board games don’t get played if you can’t see them.) I just need to get a round tuit. 🙂