Organization Station-The Plan (Phase 1)-Living Room

So a few days ago I let you all in on my crazy addiction with organization...my secret shame if you will. So I thought today would be a good time to introduce you guys to "THE PLAN" and to give you a little back story on why I long for a more organized space.

So, first up is the back story:

Okay, so for those of you who don't know, we were living in Texas for the last 3 years but moved back to Utah about 10 months ago. My husband is currently finishing up his prerequisites for Pharmacy School, and working crazy hours and I am currently finishing up my Masters in Education.

Needless to say, money is tight, we are both in school, we are trying to pay off school debt and put some money away to one day finally be able to get into a house of our own and for the time being we are living with family in a basement apartment. The situation itself is not a bad deal really, our kids are building a great relationship with their grandparents, we are strengthening our financial situation for the future, I have help with my 4 little monkeys when I have class or an order I need to work on, and my husband's grandparents (who we are living with) have help around the house that they otherwise wouldn't have. So for right now it's a good deal all around.

Now, with that said, our basement apartment is great! It doesn't at all feel like a basement apartment. It has a ton of storage for the size of it, great natural light and big windows. We have our own kitchen, living room and we even have a toy room/play room for the kids. The only issue is that there are 6 of us living in 2 bedrooms, sharing 1 bathroom, and while there is a lot of storage we still seem to be bursting at the seams!! Luckily, the bedrooms and closets are huge, but with my hand in several projects, and with me being a super organizational NUT, not having a organized, dedicated space to work is DRIVING ME CRAZY!!! Not to mention that my stash of yarn is taking over!

Okay so I devised a plan that I am from here on out referring to as "THE PLAN" (super original huh??) I'm also kicking around the name "Operation Organization Station" or "Operation Stop the Crazy." The name is a work in progress, but for now it shall be known as "THE PLAN."
So my plan is to go one room at a time, come up with a organization solution that is low cost, easy to handle, but functional to what I need the room to be. I'm starting at one end of the apartment and moving my way down to the other end, and first up is the doozy...the Room of many functions...the Living Room/Office/Entertaining Area. So here is what I'm starting with:

This is our everything room (a.k.a living room), it is cluttered to the max! Our goal for this room was to cram as much junk into this room as humanly possible, and to make it function into as many functions as we could imagine...I'd say we succeeded! Yay, go us!

As you can see this space houses our TV, baby gear, office, work out center (didn't you see the Sweet Treadmill/Coat Rack?), and Craft room, to name a few. It is cluttered, and unorganized, and in every sense the word annoying. It is as unproductive as a space could be!!

AND I'm sick of it! It's a little difficult a space to work with because we are restricted on space and we do have to keep some pieces in here (i.e. the piano which isn't ours), buy fear not because I have a plan.

The Plan for this room consists of
1. rearranging furniture

2. purging unnecessary junk

3.organizing with some low cost (fingers crossed) solutions.

4. accessorizing/decorating just a touch for a more homey feel

The third part is the part that gets me all giddy! Believe me I have ideas for this, most are pretty standard, get some bins, drawers, clip boards...but what I'm really excited about is this:
Okay so, in my last post, I mentioned that I had a dream organization system from Pottery Barn. It really is a dream of mine, ( I have weird dreams). The only problem standing in the way of me and my dream is well Money. My dream system is pretty pricey over there at the Barn, and that is a problem...UNLESS you have the Bestest hubby in the whole world who is good with tools, and has a little experience in building things!

My wonderful hubby has agreed to lend his great building skills to help make one of my dreams come true! So I looked at all the different options that the Pottery Barn system has to offer, and tweaked them with what I needed for my office area and the picture below is my (sad), mock up drawing of the system that I want him to build for me!
My family is blessed with some great artistic ability and as you can see...that is a blessing that I was not given, and yes I know that the proportion is way off (or else I have some giant paperwork to file)...but hey the picture does the trick! He gets what I'm saying.

I am so excited to get started on this project and to FINALLY get some organization in to my space. I need it man! I'm telling you, I will be one happy lady once I get this first phase done. Stay tuned to follow my progress!