Unknown: Hi, I'm Paige Killian, and I'm passionate about helping
busy moms of littles organize and style their life in three
simple steps. Living this mom life is incredible, and
sometimes completely overwhelming. is stressing about
overstuffed drawers never ending mail piles, a mountain of Legos
and our kids artwork really what God intended. No way. Getting
organized has been a game changer for me, and also my
clients. But it has to be simple, or it just won't get
done. So let's simplify the process and clear the clutter to
see the blessings God has for us. I know your time is
valuable. So thanks for joining me each week for a healthy dose
of organization and a whole lot of motivation.
Oh, hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of the moms
organization motivation podcast where we discuss all things
organizing and doing it while we are busy moms of littles, and
middles and bigs.
I am saying that because I have kids that are growing at
lightning speed, and one of them is about the same size as me
now, and I can't even handle it. This is middle school MRI. So
today I wanted to talk about those kiddos plus organization
and all of the stuff that comes along with having kids, and then
finding a way to make that fit in our space without it feeling
disorganized without it feeling cluttered. And I wanted to title
this episode, hidden in plain sight. Because I wanted to make
sure you would do me a solid and not let my children listen to
this episode because I'm going to divulge some secrets today.
One of the things that I was really, really certain of is
that when we moved into the new house where we live now, which
still feels new Sunday's other days feels like we've lived here
for many, many years. But we bought this house at the end of
2020. We were one of those COVID homebuyers. So we have moved
into the house. And we were leaving behind a storage space
and a townhouse that we lived in for a little while and moved
into a larger home, not totally bigger, not too much bigger, but
it was going to offer us a lot more storage. And I said to my
husband, the things that we have in storage right now, I would
really like to be able to take them into our home and find a
space for them. And then purge what doesn't fit. Because it
just was one of those things that I thought we can let go of,
we don't need an additional storage unit. So it was really
important to me when we moved into our new home, which
technically, it's not really a new home. We've lived here for a
few years at this point. But it still feels new in some ways.
But it's really important to me to not hang on to that storage
unit, I really wanted to try and make everything that we had that
we needed fit in our new home. And one of the things that I
decided I was going to do is make use of the garage. And that
weird awkward shaped under the stairs closet, you know the one
that slopes down into sort of this awkward triangle? Well, we
have one of those that you can actually walk into it looks like
a regular normal closet. And then you can walk in and then
you see the back of it sloped down and it actually goes wraps
around back underneath our stairs as well. And so we have
this kind of awkward shaped closet. And I thought I want to
maximize that space. And also I want to maximize the space
that's in my garage, because we have these great cabinets that
were already there when the last homeowners were there. So I
wanted to make sure that I had enough space for holiday decor
in those two areas. And then I wanted to make sure that
anything that I was going to be gifting the kids, even my
husband, don't let him know about this episode, either the
kids, my husband, any birthday presents that we might have on
reserve in case my kids go to a birthday party on a weekend and
I haven't had a chance to go get something or order something on
Amazon. I like to have a lot of these options already sort of
waiting in the wings, or waiting in the garage or waiting in the
under the stairs awkward shaped closet. And the way I've done
that is actually containing it in clear plastic bins so I can
see through it, but then using a chalk label to make sure that I
give it a title. Now what I know, but my kids don't know is
that there are a couple of miscellaneous bins and those are
the ones where I hide in plain sight. Some of these things that
I want to have on reserve that they don't necessarily know
about. If I hear in conversation that one of them is talking
about oh I really love this thing or oh what am I for
friends got this thing and they really love it, I sort of do a
mental check in, do I have something like that coming to
them if a birthday is coming up or like Valentine's Day or a
holiday like Christmas or something, do I have something
like that? If I don't, I know that I could grab that now have
that tucked away in one of those miscellaneous bins, or tuck it
away in a container that is in an awkward shaped closet that
they never go in, because they just think it's our holiday
decor. And then that way all be prepared. So when those dates do
arrive, I have already gotten some of those items. And they
are ready. So I wanted to bring that up today, because I was
just recently working with a client actually a few clients on
their garages right now, in Southern California. Well, it's
so freezing yesterday. And today, we've got some really
chilly weather coming up, we actually had quite a break in
that chilly weather. And it got warm for a little bit in
January. And so I started doing a lot of garages, and one of my
clients I was just working with yesterday, we were talking about
putting some new shelving in her garage, and instead of having it
be cabinetry that was closed up. Because think about cabinetry
that's closed up as well, it's great that it sort of out of
sight out of mind, two things can happen. One, you can forget
what you have. And to sometimes you don't the things that you
have don't fit specifically into a cabinet or into the confines
of a container inside of there. And so it's kind of nice if you
have open shelving, if something needs to, like hang over the
edge just a little bit if it's a temporary thing. And one of the
things we talked about is instead of doing cabinetry, what
if we did these open shelves, and we did and they turned out
so well, it's a whole clean, clear wall on her garage side of
the wall that we actually pulled out cabinetry that was really
old and just was not serving her anymore. Some of it was broken.
It just it wasn't working. And then we put in these awesome
open hanging shelves. And so we said some of the things that she
needs, like, you know, maybe K parents, this is where if your
kids are listening, you say, I hope you've enjoyed what you've
heard so far. And now I'm going to listen to the rest of it in
my earbuds. Get you've been warned. Okay, here we go. Turn
it off.
Put in her earbuds. If you've got like the elf on the shelf
that you're wanting to hide, if you've got like any of those
surprises, things that you want to have, that you don't want the
kids to see. Or maybe if their birthday is coming up and you're
wanting to hide things like I was talking about I do. I really
love having clear bins so you can see what you have in there.
But you can actually take a piece of printer paper or you
could just simply put those contents in a bag, even like a
shopping bag or something that they came in and place them
inside. And then you can label it something that would not be
something they would think oh, that looks like an interesting
container I need to get into and see the contents of
a there quick reminder that now there are four ways to get my
book. If you head over to Amazon, you can search up I've
got your girlfriend, why getting organized and living this mom
life is not a solo mission. You can now get it on the Kindle
app, paperback hardcover. And the audio book is finally here.
So if you've been enjoying this podcast episode, I have a
feeling you might love the audiobook. Thanks so much for
making it a best seller. And now back to the show.
So case in point, my client yesterday, she was saying she
was trying to hide something that's for the holidays. And she
said, What can we do? Because it's clear, and they're gonna be
able to see through it. And I said, No, let's just put it in
this white bag. So they have no idea what's in it. And we're
gonna put a label on it, that's a code for you. And so we
decided that we were going to put Christmas and then we were
going to write the mom's name, because that's not really
anything that the kids would get excited about. Or think I'm
going to pull that out and look at it. And she said that way, if
it has my name on it, I'm going to know, these are the things
that I need to get into. And then you can constantly rotate
them, right. So like if something comes out, like I do
when when I give the gifts to my kids or to my husband, and it's
out then for whatever the next holiday is, or whatever the next
reason is that I might give them a little something we used to do
mystery surprises if you've been listening to the podcast for a
while we had these marbles in jars and we call them rock
stars. And so if the kids did something awesome, they'd have
rock star moment that we would drop in a little marble and then
for the end of the week or toward the end of the month,
they would trade in their rock stars for a mystery surprise or
sometimes they could trade it in for like an extra BEDTIME STORY
stay up a little bit extra
like to read a bedtime story, maybe it was go to a movie,
dress with mom, or go hang out with dad and do something
special. So it wasn't just materialistic things every time.
But that was kind of a cool thing. But we did have mystery
surprises. And this, again, was a bin that I had, that I had
labeled miscellaneous. And I had no idea what that meant what
that was, so it wasn't of interest to them. And I would
always make sure that I would have something to cover it
because it was clear. So just an idea, that is something that we
did that was really smart of them on to say, put my name on
it. So that way, they're not going to be going in it because
they don't care, whatever mom has tucked away, and they're not
going to know that it's stuff for them. So that's an idea. I
do love chalk pin, I've talked about that a lot. They work
really well on clear bins, they work well on some other bins as
well. But if it's white chalk pin, you probably don't want to
put it on white bin, you might want to do one of those adhesive
chalk labels. And then you could write over the top of it so that
maybe it's like a black adhesive label, and then you write over
the top of that, but I love those because that way, when
they're constantly changing, then you can wipe it away. Now
what I do have, and I did this intentionally is I haven't been
that says gifts. And those gifts, my children understand
our gifts in case any of the friends that have birthdays
coming up, and we didn't get to shop, that's where we might
store things in there. So it's okay, if they go in there and
pick out something for a friend, that's totally fine. Or maybe I
have things for my parents or my brothers who don't live here in
town with me. And so I can put their stuff in the gift bin. And
then whenever a birthday or holiday comes up, and I want to
send them something, I can pull that down and say, Oh, I got
something for peers, I got something for Parker got
something for mom or dad. And I'm gonna grab that quickly
packaged it up, and then take it to the post office and mail it
to them. So these are just some ideas of actually hiding things
in plain sight. But it's more for you to know, it's a great
way to sort of have things at your fingertips that you need.
And they're super easy and convenient for you. But if they
are surprises, and they're not things that you want your
littles or your husband to see, make sure that you put some sort
of code label on it and make sure that you are covering it if
it is a clear bit. So just wanted to leave that with you
today. Hopefully, that is going to give you some ideas of how
you can store your stuff in plain sight. And also ditch the
storage unit and get really clear on what it is what you
need. Find some storage solutions within your home that
you can make work so that you don't have that extra added cost
of paying for that monthly fee or you don't have the necessary
driving to and picking those things up and bringing them
back. Now if you don't have the proper storage at your house,
absolutely use a storage unit for as long as you need to. But
don't let it get out of control and super cluttered. Because
that is the fastest way to forget the stuff that you have
in there. And then you are paying monthly for this service
that is really costing you money in the long run because you're
not even using the things inside of it because you've forgotten
it. So keep that in mind. Hopefully this helps if it did
share it with a friend, a busy mom friend of course. And I will
talk to you next week for some more organization motivation.
Bye bye.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the moms organization
motivation podcast. For more resources to organize and style
your busy life, head over to everything with style.com and
connect with me on Instagram at everything with style mom. If
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now, and let me know what you'd like to hear about next. Thanks
again for listening and happy organizing.