They say that nesting can be a pregnancy symptom. I would say that I've definitely got it big time. I've had it since the beginning. I feel like nothing is clean enough or organized enough. I've really had to try to let go of a lot of my expectations, like putting a fresh coat of paint on the entire upstairs. I'm thankful we got most of the downstairs painted and the nursery is just about how I hoped it would be. I honestly feel insane most of the time because I know it doesn't really matter. It's impossible to keep all the dog hair up and I'm sure a newborn really doesn't mind if everything is organized perfectly.
One of the projects I was determined to figure out was our linen closet. It has always had a weird smell to me and it's been a mess since we moved in a year ago. Ideally I would like to replace the shelves and line the walls with cedar but I don't have the time or energy for that kind of project right now. The biggest issue was the fact that the shelves were painted poorly to where the paint dried all drippy and then the previous owners tried to cover it up with rubber liners. They are the kind of shelf liners that feel sticky to the touch because they are made to keep things from sliding around and they stink something terrible. Although my husband says he's never noticed the smell.
This linen closet is where we keep our towels, extra toiletries and medicine. Our medicine has been kept in a variety of places over the years as we've lived in different kinds of houses. We've always kept it in one basket though. My closet project started with me organizing all the medicine so I forgot to take a picture of the disastrous before basket. I figured with a new baby on the way I wanted children's medicine to be separate and easy to find. It's amazing how much I found that was expired. I hadn't gone through that basket in a long time and it was all just thrown in there so we were never really sure what we had.
After I separated out all the medication and figured out how much room it would take up I got some materials to recover the shelves.
I found this particular material on a really good sale, I'm actually not sure what it is exactly, it's almost like a canvas. I think canvas or oil cloth would work wonderfully. I decided to recover the shelves in fabric using a staple gun and then apply trim to the front edge. It was pretty simple and fast.
The shelves feel and look much cleaner covered in fabric.
Once all the shelves were recovered I finished organizing the medicine and labeling all the containers. Then I put everything back in neatly.
The closet functions so much better and it doesn't smell like rubber. I organized the medication into the following categories:
- First Aid
- Pain & Stomach
- Allergy, Mouth & Cold
- Supplements & Skin
- Ears, Nose, Throat & Mouth
- Pain & Fever
- Tummy & Vitamins
There is also a container labeled Travel that has all the small travel size bottles and toiletries in it.
It was hard to decide how to categorize everything. You could certainly do this on a smaller scale and use less categories. The 3 drawers with bike tape are for children's medicine only. So far this system works really well.
When is the last time you went through your family's medication? I HIGHLY recommend it there's no telling what you'll find.
I wish my linen closet looked as organized; it was one of my ambitions for this fall but it didn't happen. Mine is full of linen, though.
ReplyDeleteYes, nesting is a good sign. You must be close to 37 weeks now? I hope all continues to go well for you.