For the past 4 months I’ve been on a mission to get things cleaned out, organized and downsized throughout our home. We’re older now and empty nesters. Just the two of us, so we don’t need all of these things that we’ve been holding onto for years. By cleaning things out…we’ll be saving a lot of time and regaining a lot of space!
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To get started I spent time walking through every room in our home and making a detailed list of things that needed to get done. I didn’t set an exact time table as our schedule is always changing. Furthermore, I was in no hurry to get it all done within a month. If you need supplies for a particular project you’ll want to pick them up ahead of time.
I started off with reorganizing and downsizing one of the small linen closets in our home. That project took me about 4 hours from start to finish. I then moved onto the large first-aid medicine cabinet in our kitchen. That project took me less time but I did have to pre-plan by going out to buy removable shelving that I placed inside the cabinet. You can read about both projects on the blog.
Last month I tackled the medicine cabinet in our master bathroom. It ONLY holds a few medications, things we might need in the middle of the night and don’t want to trek out to the kitchen to get it. The majority of items in our master bathroom medicine cabinet are personal care items and make-up.
You will want to give the cabinet a good overall cleaning. I used a non-toxic, all-purpose cleaner and a cotton cloth to clean it out. I used a cotton towel to dry everything as I didn’t want warping or streaks. Make sure you wipe down the back, sides, the shelves, etc. CLEAN IT GOOD!
To get it a little organized and to save space I purchased a few clear acrylic medicine cabinet organizers from Amazon. You’ll see them in my photograph. They have magnets on the back. My cabinet is NOT metal, so I had to get creative. I purchased commerical-grade magnets (small in size) from Amazon and then glued those with E6000 Adhesive Glue inside my cabinet where I wanted to place the organizers. I left it dry overnight.
Go through everything and toss out the items that are old and/or have expired dates on them. If you need to replace those items, make a list so that you can pick them up the next time you’re out. I got rid of half of the items that I used to have in our cabinet! Yup, the mission is to clean, organized and downsize!
When I put things back in I organized “like items” together. The few medications went on the top shelf, with personal care items and cosmetics on the bottle shelf. I then used my plastic organizers to hold additional items like travel-size toothpaste, nail clippers, tweezers, mini perfume vials, mascara, eyeliner sticks, make-up brushes, etc.
What’s really nice is that now when I open my cabinet I can clearly see everything and find it quickly. Everything neat and organized. All of the old stuff is gone and I gained back some valuable space. If a guest gets nosy and opens up the cabinet while visiting my home, I won’t be embarrassed by what they see inside. Yeah, people are nosy!
It feels really good to be tackling all of these projects around the home. To keep myself motivated I take my time and work at my own pace. I don’t want to rush and get burned out. I remind myself that hubby and I are older and by cleaning things up and downsizing it will make our lives easier. That’s the goal.
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I need to get some of those acrylic cabinet organizers. They would make a big difference in being able to fit everything in and see exactly what is in the cabinet. Super idea.
I also am cleaning and getting rid of……….. I take a drawer or cabinet ever couple of days and clean out and get rid of stuff. I don’t have much in my medicine cabinet it is just about empty. I don’t have a counter/drawers in my bathroom. So I bought plastic rolling cart with drawers that slides under my sink. When I place anything in the drawer I write the date on it so I will know how old something is.
I clean out my medicine cabinets once a year. And every 6 months I check for outdated things.
You were very creative in finding ways to organize your bathroom medicine cabinets. I now have a few ideas that I can use to reorganize my cabinets. Thanks.