The Posh Space

Dream Closet – Jessica Alba

OMG!  I’m in closet bliss!  This picture of Jessica Alba’s closet may not be showing much, but the delight is in the details! Here are my thoughts on this tiny tiny section of Jessica Alba’s closet.

The Good

Everything! Ha, ha!  Let’s start with the hats.  I have seen those hat racks before but was never 

impressed with them aesthetically, but in this closet the way the hats are displayed looks more artistic than utilitarian.   You can see just below Jessica’s lifted foot where the system attaches or clips to the door.  Organizing things behind the door “doorganizing” is a great way to get more out of a small space. I love it!  I’m not sure which rack is being used in this picture, but you can find a variety of this system at Bed Bath & Beyond as seen to the right. I also found another variety on Organize It.

Let’s get to the shoes!  Just like in Khloe Kardashian’s closet Jessica’s shoes are being displayed with one facing forward and one facing back (toe & heel).  This is a fabulous space saving tip!  So BIG kudos for that!

Now here is the Pièce de résistance for me.  If you look closely at the spacing between the shelves that the shoes are on you can see that they adjusted the shelf height based on the height of the shoes.  So all the heels are on the same shelf that probably has about 6-8 inches between each shelf. The flats are probably on a shelf that has about 3-4 inches between the two shelves.  This is brilliant!  Adjustable shelves are worth every penny!  She is saving TONS of space simply by adjusting those shelves.

The Bad

As is the case with most of these Dream Closets the only bad thing is that I can’t see any more of it.  Especially since she is using SO many great organizing ideas in 6-8 feet that we can see.  I would guess Jessica is either a very organized person by nature or has an AMAZING Professional Organizer!

The Reality

There is nothing about this closet that you could not do!  Woo!

Oh me! That was so exciting! I hope you got some dream closet inspiration.  What did you think about Jessica Alba’s closet? Leave me a comment and let me know.

P.s. those shoes she’s wearing are awesome!

Organizing Stuffed Animals

With the holidays just behind us you may be wondering “what do I do with all these toys?”!!!  Well, over the next several weeks I will be slowly revealing what I did with my kids toys and playroom.  In late November I started asking my girls slowly if they still played with certain toys.  My oldest has NEVER wanted to get rid of anything, so usually I would sneak a few things out that they never played with.  So I used my 5 step system that I use with clients GREAT.  It was time to start letting my girls make their own decisions and boy was I surprised!!!

In December it was time to get serious!  One day when the girls were at school I pulled out all the stuffed animals from the “stuffed animal hotel” (AKA the IKEA PS Fangst) that they never play with and I gathered ALL the other stuffed animals.

On a side note: I know that storing stuffed animals is a universal problem for SOOOO many people.  It’s probably one of the most frequent questions I get from my clients.  So let me just say the IKEA “stuffed animal hotel” can be a good thing, but in my case (as you can see in the picture above in pink-it’s empty in this picture because I got so excited about organizing that I started emptying it out before I remembered to take a picture of it for you-sorry) it was located in the corner of their playroom closet and was not easy to access.  I think it would be better in a room where the kids could easily reach it.

Then the girls and I sat in the playroom and went one by one “do you want to keep this one?”.  If one of them wanted to keep a stuffed animal we kept it.  To my amazement…they got rid of 33 stuffed animals!  Above was just a few of the animals before we sorted them.

Now that we had reduced our numbers I need to figure out what we were going to do with them.  After looking at what we had left I realized it was mostly small stuffed animals and only a few large ones.

So I decided to re-purpose a hanging shoe bag that really wasn’t working to its best potential.  Now the animals had a new home. We had some extra room at the bottom so I added back some of the items that go with the girls dress up clothes in the closet.

I had already started using this adorable Simply Stashed behind the door organizer for some of my girls Barbie dolls earlier this year so now I added the remaining stuffed animals to the top.

Now Barbie and friends all had a place to hang out!  The great thing was that I asked the girls if they thought this would be a good place for the Barbies?  They said “yes”.  Then I asked them “will it be easy for you to put the Barbies away if this is where we keep them?” and their response was “yes”.  I must admit we actually have about 20 Barbies and at Christmas the girls got a Barbie house, so many of the Barbies are permanently residing there these days.  But, the girls were able to let go of three Barbies to send to their Grandparents houses!  Score for us!

Now my girls space had been transformed! Now they can actually see all their stuffed animals so when they want to play with them they can.  I would guess we will go through them again during the summer.

If you want to learn more about my 5 step GREAT organizing system you can click here to go to my home page to get my no cost 7 part audio series.

Good luck with your kids spaces!

Gift Wrap Organizing Part 3

Tis the season for gift wrap and gift wrap organization!  If you follow my blog you know I’ve been posting weekly on Gift Wrap Center Organization.  In Part 1 Gift-Wrap Organizing I shared some tips on using the back of a door or built-in shelves to organize gift wrap and Part 2 More Gift Wrap Organizing I shared three clever ways to organize ribbon. This week I will share thee creative ways to organize a variety of gift wrap supplies.

In the picture above from BHG I like the use of the wire fruit basket to keep all the bows, ribbon, and gift tags close at hand on the counter but still looking gorgeous!  It looks very Anthropologie to me.   If you have a favorite wrapping paper that you use for everything you may want to consider a wrapping paper dispenser as show here.  What a smart idea!  You will never loose your roll of wrapping paper again in the sea of presents, paper, and tags while you are in a wrapping frenzy.  You should also be able to tear the paper off the dispenser too and it should be a straight line! What a fun idea!

In this picture from Real Simple they use a tiered slack hanger to store ribbon and tissue paper.  Skirt hangers were used to hold folded gift wrap and gift bags.  In the back on the left you can see a multi-pocket shoe organizer that is being used for gift tags, ribbon and tools.

Finally, this simple and clever idea to store rolls of wrapping paper using a wine rack comes from Scrapbooks etc.   Another great idea for keeping paper close at hand during the holidays so your paper isn’t getting lost in the shuffle.  So simple yet so smart!  Love it!

(Click any image to view larger.)

Gift-Wrap Organizing

Tension rods in a shelf organizing system.

The holidays are knock, knock, knocking at our door so what better time to get your gift wrap organized?  I’ve found some great examples of gift wrap organization and inspiration.   I’ll share my favorite tips  and over the next few weeks I’ll post a tip a week on gift wrap solutions.

Pictured above is a gift wrap center from Better Homes and Gardens (BHG).  I love the clever use of the tension rods in this system!  These are easy to install and you don’t have to worry about damaging your walls!  You should be able to find tension rods at your local hardware  store.  Use the shelves above to store ribbon as pictured or get slightly larger decorative boxes to store tissue paper, gift tags, or gift bags.  You could also use the drawers below the gift wrap for extra supply storage.

If you keep up with my blog you know I’m obsessed with using the back of the door to organize.  I think a few years ago I called it doorganizing!  The picture above is also from BHG but this one uses a  behind the-door organizer.  I like this idea because this is more realistic in most homes.  Unfortunately most people cannot dedicate an entire closet to gift wrap but they can dedicate the back of a door.  I like how the tissue paper is hung over one of the rods.  If you are loving this you can find this  product from the  Chefs web-site.  It is actually designed and sold for the pantry and contains 6 adjustable shelves, in the picture above it looks like they removed 1-2 or the shelves.  Again, love this because you can hang it over the door.  One problem is that the rack does not appear to be secured at the bottom. You can try some large 3M Command Cord Bundlers on each side on the bottom to try to hold it in place.

Here is another behind the door organizing project from the blog A Brooklyn Limestone in Progress.  She used the IKEA Bygel rail system.  This should be a pretty easy and inexpensive project.  The empty space you see in the top bar has hooks hanging from it which could be used to hang gift bags.  You could also add another bar at the bottom of the door for extra storage.

(Click any image to go to their original page and view larger.)

I’ll have more gift wrap organization and inspiration coming next week.  Is your gift wrap center an organized vision of beauty?  I’d love to see it and possible share it on my blog.  Go to my comment page and send me a note! Hmm…all these fabulous ideas have my brain thinking how I can improve my own gift wrap center!  We’ll see!

Simply Stashed System Special

When short on space, I love using every inch to its fullest potential. One of my favorite tricks is to use the back of the door. I have written several blog posts about organizing using the back of the door including Organizing Office Supplies Using the Back of the Door, Organizing Kids’ Jackets, and Three Space-Saving Tips – Kitchen. One of my favorite finds are the behind-the-door pocket organizers from Simply Stashed (you can read my review here). I love the colors, and I love that they are available in a variety of sizes and layouts. I also like the grommet holes, as they allow you to use them with Command Hooks. That way, you can position the hanging bag anywhere you would like–I had to lower one of mine so my three year old could reach the pockets better.

If you want to use a Simply Stashed pocket system in your house, you can currently recieve 10% off of your order by using the coupon code: POSH on the Simply Stashed website.

Happy organizing!

POSH Simply Stashed Contest

Earlier this month, I reviewed the Simply Stashed Pocket System, an over-the-door system that’s a fun and fabulous upgrade to the traditional ‘shoe organizer’. I love it! I’m currently using the pink Variety Stash in my daughters’ room, and its variety of pockets are just right for holding little items such as lip gloss and hair accessories as well as larger items that otherwise would clutter up a drawer.

If you’d like to win a Simply Stashed system of your own, there’s still time to enter my drawing! I’ll be giving away a green Variety Stash (pictured left) to one lucky reader who leaves a comment either here or on my Facebook page telling me where you would use a Simply Stashed system. Comments must be received by November 30th to qualify!

Meanwhile, check out the Simply Stashed Organizers page for ideas and to view all of their available products.

Good luck,
Angela

Disclaimer: Angela Ploetz was provided with Simply Stashed products for review purposes and one product to give away. All of the above thoughts, comments, and opinions are those of Angela Ploetz.