Org Chart.

You know how spring cleaning is a thing?  I’m having the spring cleaning urge in the wrong season.  (Fall nesting?)  I am on the lets-organize-or-purge warpath these days and can hardly open a closet or drawer without grimacing and thinking about how to tidy the clutter.  (And, BTW, I would describe our house as very clean and tidy to begin with.  Mr. Magpie and I like to keep countertops clear and to neaten up the living rooms each night before bed.  So what is this new OCD?!?)  I don’t know if any of you chickpeas fall into the same patterns — but thought I’d share some of my recent organization purchases.

BTW, if you REALLY want to experience organizational OCD, check out Khloe Kardashian’s pantry.  [Clouds part, angels sing.]  WOW.  If only.

Holy organizational skillz!

So it all began with my closet.  I decided that a good weekend project would be moving my fall wardrobe from the guest bedroom closet into my closet and my summer clothes in the opposite direction, and then fell down a deep and dark organizational hole from which I’ve not yet emerged.  Once I got going, I launched all of these other side projects — creating piles of clothes to donate, selling a few treasured pieces on eBay, and then deciding that I wasn’t using my closet to its full advantage and that instead of using up the guest closet, I should buy some sort of organizational system and store the fall gear in the top shelves of my closet system.  Kinda hard to visualize without pictures, but we have pretty tall ceilings in my closet so there’s about 6 feet of unused space.

So, I scoured the web for options.  I wanted the boxes/crates/shelving to look pretty (not ruin my walk-in closet aesthetic!), but it would have to be narrow (about 14″ deep) to actually be supported by the closet system I have in place.  There were lots of clunky, ugly plastic Tupperware-esque options.  And then there were wicker basket options, which mainly tended to be too small due to the depth restriction.  And then there’s this horrible place called The Container Store. [Jumps on soapbox.]  GUYS.  Who shops at the Container Store?!  It’s like a store for bajillionaires.  I went in there confident I’d be able to find a couple of bins/baskets to suit my needs for less than $100 and my jaw dropped to see simple, cheap looking bins with price tags on the order of $39 per.  Wut.  I looked around in wonderment at the hordes of organizationally-minded shoppers around me–who are these people?  Secret oil lords?  I mean, seriously, you can hardly get a 3×3″ container or two without spending $50.  Maybe I just didn’t have my expectations appropriately calibrated, but WOW.  To handle all the clothes I needed to store, I’d easily have dropped a few hundred dollars there.

So, onto Target.  There, after roaming the aisles like a mangy wolf for 15 hapless minutes, I honed in on a cute couple clearly trying to solve the same problem, and they directed me to my solution: these 13″ collapsible fabric cubes ($13 each).  They are PERFECT.  They are lightweight (so, easy for me to get down!), they look coordinated and clean, and they collapse in case you aren’t using them all at the same time.  And affordable!  I bought 10 of them, filled them with summer wares, and stacked them above my closet.  DONE DEAL.

I also noticed that I was not fully utilizing some spare wall space in my closet — and that I could do myself a huge favor by adding some hooks to the wall to store purses/bags instead of stuffing them in a bin (sinful, really).  I spent wayyyy to much time looking for cute but inexpensive wall hooks.  I really like a lot of the decorative options from Anthro, but I wanted to get at least 3 or 4, and just felt that it was going to stack up to too hefty a price tag.  But srsly, how cute are these (spell out your initials or nickname?!) and these?  I also liked the simplicity and no-nonsense-ness of these.  I also went insane over these Swiss cross ones ($14 each) because I have a great black and white Moroccan shag rug as a carpet and they would echo the design and color palette so perfectly, but was thrown off by the semi-long wait time and shipping process and still felt ambivalent about the price.  Problem finally solved with these adorable arrow hooks ($5 apiece!) from World Market.

I also decided to tackle the chaos that is our medicine “cabinet.”  Basically, two shoeboxes full of assorted bandaids, bandages, creams, medicines, hot water bottles, and a mess of other miscellaneous items we’ve amassed over time.  It’s horrible because half the time when you’re getting sick, you look around there half-heartedly for a minute or two, can’t find anything that meets your needs, go out to buy some Sudafed, and then find a whole box of ’em the next time you check.

I searched hi and lo for solutions and was close to settling for a couple of tupperwares I’d label with a labelmaker, when I found this cosmetics cube (normally $129, on sale for $49!), which I loved because of all of the different compartments to store different types of products, and then will supplement with a few of these ($16) and these ($15).

Next up: food storage.  I may have admitted I have a horrible sweet tooth for gummy candy (Haribo heaven!) and love to get a few different bags and throw them all into a baggy to mix them up.  I was able to find the most adorable little glass cylinders ($6 each, Crate + Barrel) in a petite size — perfect for storing my gummy bears and sour straws — or, as the mood struck earlier this week, Halloween M+Ms and candy corn.

Also comes in larger sizes:

I’m thinking I may snag a few more for my burgeoning tea collection/obsession.  I bought a TON of loose leaf tea from David’s Tea the other day to support my bedtime tea ritual…oh Lordy. Is this the most boring post over?  AHHHH, I’ve lost my mind.

Finally, don’t you LOVE when something is beautiful and functional?!  Like these gold orbs.  I’d been looking for a little traytop accent for my new little breakfast nook area (finally got armchairs!!!  One Kings Lane for the win — I got two of these and they are PERFECT), and love these glossy little domes that DOUBLE as little storage containers for matches/clips/whatever.  The cutest.

There have been a few other even less interesting enhancements that I’ll spare you, including tidying up our under-the-kitchen-sink area, but suffice it to say that I’ve been VERY busy the past few weeks.

One occupational hazard for the organizing fiend: prowling the aisles or webpages of home/furniture/decor stores can be very distracting.  I may have come home with some new goodies from Home Goods and Target that I definitely did NOT need, including a replica of this Tory Burch spongeware pitcher I’ve loved for a long time that I scored for $15 at Home Goods and new towels for the basement bathroom (these and these from Nate Berkus for Target, which look fab paired together — very Missoni! — but are affordable…and they coordinate so well with the funky graphic black-and-white Jonathan Adler shower curtain we have down there.  It works well because the basement is sort of Mr. Magpie’s mancave).

I also went down a long and dark rabbit hole one sleepless night convinced I NEEDED a new carpet for our dining area — something with a bit of color and fun to it.  I really loved this from Lulu and Georgia, but this fun turquoise color or this more affordable variation presented themselves as viable candidates.  In the end, I decided to postpone the decision for a bit while I preoccupy myself with organization.

OK, there we go.  A little peek into what goes on in the oversaturated brain of this little Magpie.  #ThisIs32.