Office in a Box

If you have a small space or are just lacking an office I made a post for you. It seems like a "Blank in a box week" with our remote in a box post yesterday and today I have an Office in a Box post over on I Heart Organizing.

Office in a box: 

If you have a second pop over to I Heart Organizing this afternoon for an office in a box. I LOVE small space organization and this is something that I think can work for everyone, whether you have a small space or a large one! :)

Make sure to check back this afternoon to see if you won our Made by Maru Giveaway!!!

How we organize all the books

I LOVE getting questions from readers! This one came right after our new Library Bookcase post.
Thanks Jennifer!

I don't have an overly organized bookcase. By 'overly organized' I mean I don't have it organized alphabetically or by the Dewy Decimal system. 
I read mostly non-fiction so our fiction section fits on one shelf alone. As for the rest of my non-fiction collection I organize them by topic.
While I don't have a super organized system, I do have a weird system all of my own. Well the system itself isn't weird but the categories are a bit unorthodox. Here are the topics found in our library:
1) Healthy Living. Mostly heath books, or exercise books.
2) Sewing and other craft books.
3) Finance Books, I love a good finance book. I have no idea why but I love books about saving money. I think it's the organizer in me . . . I love new ideas on how to organize our spending.
4) Spiritual books. 
5) Biographies, every one from Tori Spelling to Sidney Poitier, my tastes vary greatly in this area.
6) Green Living, this section takes up two shelves. Here's one:

7) Gardening.
8) Simple Living. I have enough books on simple living to garner their own shelf. Ironic because having tons of books on the same subject is definitely NOT living simple ;).

9) Style books. Books on pretty clothes and defining your personal style. Choosing clothes and defining my own style wasn't something that came easily to me. I found a lot of help in the writing of people who have it together in that department!
10) Adoption books. This is also where we'll keep the books on babies and kids and subsequently teenagers.
11) An entire shelf dedicated to Home Organization. 
12) Another shelf dedicated to Home Design.
13) Cleaning and Home Maintenance. 
14) I have an entire shelf for Ms. Martha Stewart herself. I have no idea why I have a whole section on Martha. All of her books could fit into other categories in the bookcase but for some reason I like grouping them all together!
Last is my favorite section:
15) An entire shelf for "Housewife" Books. Those are books that have anything to do with being a housewife. Or any retro books about women.

And that's how we do it. I could alphabetize them within each category but so far I don't have enough books to make that worthwhile. Maybe one day when we have more books we'll need to get them in alphabetical order, but now it's easy enough to go to the section and find the book I'm looking for.

I almost forgot to mention that the books that are either currently in use or that I have recently purchased and haven't gotten around to reading yet, get put on top of the lower bookcase between the A and Z. Once they've been read they get put into their respective categories. This way I ensure that I don't overlook or forget about a book I intended on reading! 

Bonus:
I collect Martha Stewart Magazines I have approx 150 of them. They are relegated to the bottom shelves of the bookcase because they are very heavy.
I hold the magazines in magazine holders from Ikea and I group them by month. That way I can grab an entire month at a time. It's really handy for planning seasonal menus or for holiday ideas! Just grab a month and you have am abundance of ideas for each and every holiday!

I hope that answered your question Jennifer!

Books, Books, Everywhere!

It's been 7 years and I'm not itchy at all!!! (get it, the 7 year itch??)

That's right it's been 7 years since we said I DO! And we are more in love than ever . . . well I am anyways . . . I don't want to speak for Lee but I think he'd agree!
I was down right spoiled rotten this year, usually we decide on a gift for both of us . . . almost exclusively it's something for the house. For 5 years it was our wood dining table (for the traditional wood gift) and 6 years it was our pots and pans organizer (iron is traditional so we did a spin on that). 7 years was copper or wool. I didn't want anything copper . . . but a warm wool blanket would be nice??? Cashmere is a type of wool . . . right??? hehe
We still haven't gotten around to purchasing our mutual gift but Lee did sneak in a couple of very sweet gifts for me!

The first was a stamp I've been wanting forever!

With so many books in our little library and so many friends and family members with similar reading tastes I'm always lending out books I wanted to make sure that our books get returned to us, so Lee picked me up a book stamp. It says Ex Libris (which is Latin for "from [the] books", which when used as a bookplate means "from [the] books [owner]") and in true anniversary style he chose "Mrs. Malinek".
It's perfect! I couldn't love it anymore! He gave it to me before he headed to work and came home to THIS:

(That top stack I'm staring at fell down on me seconds after this picture!)

I stamped every book in our library. I thought about only stamping the books that get lent out . . . but how do you know which books people are going to want to borrow?? and stamping a big MINE on a book, right in front of someone before they take it home just seems in poor taste! Kind of like, "I don't believe you'll return this to me so I'm going to make sure you don't forget!" So I just bit the bullet and stamped them all in one big go . . . although I still haven't made my way into the kitchen to stamp all the cookbooks!
I'll share my other two gifts tomorrow!!! All I can say now is Anthropologie! (and I still can't imagine Lee in that store all by himself!) haha

Ex Libris stamp is from Holmes Stamp . . . Lee said they were really helpful and even emailed a mock-up of the stamp so Lee could see how it looked before they made it!

Reader Request: Paperwork Organization

Another question I receive often is about paperwork, Bills, Junk mail, statements  . . . all of it!
I seriously can't stand paper clutter, one because it's messy looking and two because it's so un necessary. By un-necessary I mean most of it is JUNK!

Here's how we handle it:
Disclaimer: Some paper cuts may occur ;)

First things first, Junk mail goes straight into the recycle bin! It's a really simple thing to do, but it really makes a ton of difference.

Second, you need an inbox. Just something on your desk or in your kitchen or where ever. Something you can put the mail into everyday.
Every week we go through the inbox. Wednesday is our day to pay bills and file away what needs to be filed away.

Third, set up two filing spots.

 You'll need one spot that's really easy to access. This would be for your monthly bills and statements. We use a transparent file holder hung off the wall. (from Staples for $5.99)
We keep a folder for:
-Credit Card Statements, for 1 year.
-Regular Bills Cable etc. . . 6 months. Our cell phone bills are emailed to us.
-Bank Statements (we've gone paperless with those too).
-Our Portfolio statements (like our retirement savings and mutual funds).
-A folder labeled House for Utility bills and incoming property taxes and assessments.

The other filing spot can be a box in the back of your closet or where ever. It will hold less frequently accessed files. Things like:
-Product Warranties
-Appliance manuals 
-Mortgage information for every house we've bought in the last 7 years.
-Property Tax and Assessment information.
-Tax returns up to 7 years back.
-This is also the place to keep any important information like birth records or immigration papers, stuff like that. 

 As for Receipts we have two boxes on the shelf, one is for my bloggy tax receipts and one is for Lee's business receipts.

 And that's how we tamed the paperwork beast. Woooo cha (That's the sound of my whip cracking). 

Now that the paper work is organized . . . it's time to get on to some cable management. We are swimming in wires over here! 

*Pretty File Folders are from Target!

Organization in PINK!

Finally, Boxes have been painted, labels have been affixed  and organization has been achieved!
Before:

After:

I LOVE PINK!!! For any one looking for the same Pink Organization, the boxes are from Jysk, the paint was from Martha Stewart's Paint Line at Home Depot (Persimmon Red) and the labels are from Martha's Line at Staples $4.99 for a pack of 6!
I think my favorite part about it is that it's hidden, when you open the doors BAM hot pink! . . . otherwise it's just a plain white slab door and you would never know that I secretly LOVE color ;)

Desk Organization

Okay so it's not quite done yet! But I thought  I would share where we're at.
I went ahead and did what every single organization book told me NOT to do . . . I bought the boxes and organizing gadgets FIRST! Which resulted in me returning 4 boxes and buying smaller ones.
Which resulted in an extra $40 being spent on an impulse purchase at the store . . . seriously I have NO willpower!
Anywho,
I found the Boxes at Jysk. They were $4 for the larger ones and $3 for the smaller ones.

I still have to paint them, and add labels. I'm thinking PINK PINK PINK!! Since it's MY desk (Lee will have his own), I thought when else am I going to get to paint things bright pink . . . there is no guarantee I'll have a daughter, I could very well end up with sons, so I'm going to take the opportunity and go with Martha Stewart's Persimmon Red!!

I also have to add a printer! Lee cut out the back of the cabinet so that we could keep the electrical outlet and add a printer. It will need to be wireless so that I don't have to hook my computer up to it every time, but most importantly it must be less than 12" inches deep!

So there's my newly organized not yet decorated office cabinet . . .

And this last picture is just because he's soooo darn CUTE!!!!

Organized Office and Paperwork!

I've received tons of emails, some emails, 2 emails? asking what we do to control the paper situation in our house, because every house has a paper situation.

Here's the HUB of our home, it's where we pay the bills, make appointments, and blog from!
It's where our cell phones charge, and where the stationary equipment lives.

Every organized office needs:

~Bulk storage: for printer paper, plastic sheet protectors, printer ink etc . . . We use the large wicker basket at the top to store those things
~Somewhere to keep important records: The Green binders is where I keep track of our Medical Records, also cutouts from magazines, future project ideas, kind of like a hard copy of Pinterest :)
~Correspondence tools: The two green boxes below that hold greeting cards, envelopes, and stamps.
~Below that the green box holds photographs
~Every organized office needs an INBOX!

~On the door hangs our spare keys

~And below the spare keys is a small cork board, I think every office space needs a cork board. There will always be small transient pieces of paper . . . Always!

On the desktop is where we keep our cell phone charging dock!

And in my opinion every organized office that sits out in the open on a main floor should have the ability to close up like this:

Here's how we handle, the junk to the bills.

First JUNK mail goes right into the recycling bin before it comes into the house. Our recycling bins are right beside the garage door entrance so in they go!

Next we open all the mail, we make a note on our calendar when the due date of the bill is,

then we place the unpaid bills in the INBOX and at the start of each week (Monday) we pay all the bills due that week.

Once they are paid I hit them with the PAID stamp, date they were paid and the confirmation number,

then file the papers in this file box we picked up at Walmart!

So there's our organized office and some of the tips we use to keep it that way. Anyone have any office organizing tips of their own??

Desk: Key Organization

Out of Curtain Frustration, I decided it was time to get the Spare Keys in Order. If you missed where we keep our everyday keys, follow the LINK.
Last week as part of our Library Reveal I showed you our Secretary's desk.

This little desk is the organizational HUB of The Manor. It's where we pay bills, make plans, it's where our calendar is kept, it's where I'm writing this post from, it's like the nucleus of our home. So when I needed to start organizing our spare keys I knew exactly where they should go.

We had a drawer full of keys just clanging around, I was starting to forget what keys were for what.
So after going door to door around the house I figured out what keys went with what locks and started out labeling them.
In the Townhouse I used these little round tags:

But Lee would take the keys to his "project" car, aka. the bain of my existence hehe just kidding (kind of :S) and then they would come back looking like this:

So a quick trip to Staples and I found these key tags for much cheaper then the little paper round ones and they are plastic so the grease and oil will rub right off.

I bought the key hooks from The Home Depot, but I've recently seen them at Target for much cheaper (insert angry face!!).
I organized each key holder into categories, the Top One is Locks (things like keys to the pad lock, keys to the bike lock, keys to the suitcase lock. The Middle One is house keys, spare front door key, spare back door key, spare basement key, etc. . . . And the Bottom Row is Car Keys, spare Ashli's car key, spare Lee's car key, spare project car key (which is missing, I'm sure I'll find that in the laundry later this week) and spare Motorcycle key (yes Lee has a motorcycle and yes I'm not terribly happy about it (insert angrier face HERE!) hahah just kidding (kind of).
And Last on the same door under the keys I put up some Cork! I find those Cork Tiles super handy. I LOVE having somewhere to pin up a slip of paper that would otherwise get lost in the shuffle!

 
So that's the first part of the Desk organized. I'll be working on the rest this week, along with the library curtains (which are proving to be more difficult then anticipated (insert yet another angry face). Wish me luck, I don't think I'll have a curtains post ready for this week, but I do have some special request posts coming up later this week. Also I've received the Stylish Blogger Award (Yahoo!!) so I'll have a post about that coming up later today!