I'm becoming obsessed...

It's true. I think I'm obsessed. Addicted.
With organizing and rearranging my apartment.
Which actually means tearing everything apart and completely revamping. At least that's what it feels like. It's one of those "it gets worse before it gets better" things.
I'm not sure everyone else does it that way...or IF anyone else does it at all. :P But I'm the kind of person who basically just has to take EVERYTHING out, sort it, and put it back in a more organized way.

I've talked a lot about the closet project. And I'm sure everyone is probably tired of hearing about the closet (and frankly my obsession with organizing in general) but it's something that's actually making me feel pretty good about life. I'm a little overwhelmed lately with health problems, issues with my apartment manager, trying to decide what the heck I'm going to do now that I've graduated, and of course dealing with the girls' dad. But I don't really want to talk about all that right now. Instead of continuing to be overwhelmed...I'm just trying to keep busy. So...enter my obsession with redoing my apartment. :P

My living room doesn't really have a lot of rearranging to do. The furniture pretty much has to stay where it is because it won't fit very well anywhere else. But, I DID organize the bookshelf in there. Then of course there was the closet project. And then I started rearranging my bedroom. I'm not finished with it yet, but I'm still not completely sure how I want to arrange it so I took a break on that.

Today's project...rearranging and organizing the girls' rooms. I've been working on it all day...but had to take several breaks because I live in a 2-story townhouse and the upstairs gets unbearably HOT (while the downstairs is very cold...there's no happy medium). I've made a few minor changes off and on in the girls' rooms since moving in...but I basically took everything out and I'm trying to put it back in a way that will help the girls KEEP it organized.

I started with Aubry's room...which was mostly just cleaning up her mess because she's kind of a slob. :P I even vacuumed...which I don't do upstairs as often as I should because it's such a pain carrying it upstairs. I know, poor excuse! But Aubry's room DEFINITELY needed it. I managed to find homes for her stuff...there are just a few odds and ends that still need to be put away...but I ended up getting a brilliant idea while I was in Aubry's room and then switched to Ashlyn's room to make the idea happen.

Since the girls' closets are now empty of clothes...I've been trying to find ways to make the most of ALL the space in their rooms. I am still trying to decide exactly how I want to situate Aubry's room...but the good idea that came to me was for Ashlyn's closet. I'd moved her bed half into her closet after taking all the clothes out but it just wasn't working for me. So I just moved her bed to the opposite wall and decided to put BOTH white shelves in there (one was previously in Aubry's room).

Here are their rooms shortly after we moved in a year ago. Ashlyn's closet is on the left and Aubry's room with the shelf is on the right:


This was halfway through my process today...what a mess!


And this is what Ashlyn's closet looks like now!

If you'd like to know all the details:
Almost all the "toys" are in Ashlyn's room now. She plays with them a lot more than Aubry does and Aubry really hates when Ashlyn goes into her room. So having both shelves in Ashlyn's closet with all the toys on them will work better, I think. All the plastic storage containers have labels (yay for the cheap label maker I picked up at Walmart last year on clearance!).
All the Littlest Petshop and Ponyville toys are on the left shelf. The houses are on the middle shelves and the little pieces are in plastic containers with a lid on the top and bottom.
The top shelf on the right is all the dress-up stuff. Ashlyn still LOVES playing dress-up. I have the clothes in the large pink pink and then the smaller bins next to it have makeup, jewelry, and then I put the magnetic paper dolls on top (kinda dress-up!) and the Legos next to them for lack of a better spot. Oh and the plastic high heel shoes are on the very right of the top shelf.
The next shelf has all the Barbie furniture and big items, small Barbie toys in a container with a lid, and then the Barbie clothes are on the right. I need to figure out where I'm going to put the Barbie car. :P All the actual Barbies are in an underbed plastic storage container.
Then the next shelf, Ashlyn uses it as her desk. It has her notebooks, pencils, office supplies, etc. After I took the picture, I found her chalkboard and it fits perfectly on the shelf (it's *almost* too tall but it fits just enough for the shelf above it to hold it in place).
The bottom shelf just has a mixture of her other toys...snap dolls, Tinker Toys, her princess castle dolls and furniture, a fold-up Barbie house, and some other random things.
The Little Peoples and the princess castles are still on the actual closet shelf that was in the before picture. And the crates in between the shelves have Little People toys in them. And the bookshelf on the right was previously in her closet along the very left wall. She likes it now at the foot of her bed.
Ashlyn REALLY likes how everything is set up now...she can't wait to start playing. I told her I at least want to have it all organized ONCE before she makes it messy again. :P

I still have quite a bit of work to do. Tomorrow I'm hanging out with the girls but they leave at 5pm and then I'll have until Wednesday to get their rooms all done. Hopefully I'll have some final photos soon!