Organizing and decluttering the homestead

[Beekissed]

Yep...saw that top one. Too much money for that little thing...it's what I'm wanting but I'm too cheap to pay that to get it. I've seen the other things where you put the rod through the bag, but I'd like something a little more...stable than that. I yank on that to get a bag and that whole rod would fly off the rest and roll of bags drop down and...yeah...that's just how clumsy I am.

The hooks that just hook the boxes is, again, a little less sturdy and functional for the long term than I would like. I can just see me trying to quickly pull a bag out of those boxes and they being so tight in there that I lift that whole box off the hooks as I yank on one.

I'm looking for one handed dispensing options. Cheap ones. Something moderately good to look upon.

 

[baymule]

I used plastic bins to organize my freezers. The old freezer was a mess. I put one bin in it to see how it would work.

Then I organized it.

We bought half a beef and bought a new freezer. This one is holding beef and pork.

 

[Beekissed]

Bay, what a difference! Nothing so frustrating as a tower of frozen meats raining down on you when you try to slide the package you need out from underneath it all.

I LOVE your organizing of the freezers. And, whoo, lady! ALL THAT MEAT!!!!!!

 

[treerooted]

Nice bay, looks great!

Lol, I should take a picture of my freezer...looks pretty much empty right now.
But hopefully this year I'll be able to fill it up!

 

[baymule]

We bought a half of a grass fed steer for $4.50 a pound! We took our ram to slaughter and he is in the freezer. We raised those Red Wattle hogs this past summer and put one in the freezer. Then we found this deal on 2 grown hogs, bought them, fed them corn soured in goat's milk whey and had them slaughtered. We sold a half hog and kept a hog. We had been offered a small chest freezer when were visiting with friends in Livingston. We were in the car, so didn't get it. When the buyer for the other half hog backed out on us, we borrowed freezer space from a friend for it. What to do? We called our friends and asked them to pick up that little freezer, clean it up and plug it in to see if it worked. They did and it worked. Then we asked them to come see us and bring ice chests. We gave them 90 pounds of pork. So the short story is.....we gotta a lot of MEAT!

In the old freezer, I have a bin full of okra, one full of cream corn and one full of butterbeans and peas. I love the bins! It makes it so much easier!

 

[Beekissed]

Finally!!

After a year of good intentions and never getting to it, I got that last shelf in the pantry/mud room decluttered, sorted out, reorganized and functional once again. It may not seem like a big deal to most folks to get one shelving unit sorted out, but to me it's a big deal....I've been needing to do it for all year, each time I needed to find something important there, I couldn't find it or the bins were so overflowing with other junk it was impossible to access unless one would pull everything out of the bin just to reach it.

I try to label everything I can so we can keep it all straight and remember what goes in what bin...works for me, but Mom sometimes forgets to read and just tosses stuff in a bin or onto a shelf. That's so funny because she complained about us kids doing that all our growing up years...said we just threw stuff at a shelf and hoped it would stick, but that's basically what she's been doing these past few years. Weird how we regress as we age, huh?

I didn't take a before pic...forgot. Just imagine twice as much stuff on this shelf, with bins piled high and stuff sticking out in all directions, miscellaneous other things stuffed in behind and between the bins and, in some cases, a dozen of each item...like Mom's collection of wasp spray or her growing collection of caulk, her two caulk guns, two grease guns and tubes of grease, or four cans of WD40, etc.

Don't know why, but in the past 5 yrs that woman has been collecting caulk...seems to get a tube each time she goes to town. We have a whole bushel fruit box full up in the shed and I found enough down here to fill a small basket.

That bin labeled "tools" was clear full....now it only has a hammer, various wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers, a tape measure, marker, box cutter, etc. in it. JUST the essentials for any project we are doing down here at the house. I removed duplicates of all tools and moved them to similar bins up in the shed. They sort of drift down here over the year and never walk themselves back, if you know what I mean.

In the end I have several items for Good Will, took a whole bin and a bucket overflowing with stuff up to the shed to disperse to various boxes and bins there...and some stuff went in the trash.

As you can see, I've still got some room on that bottom shelf~between those two tubs~ for a little more stuff!

Earlier this year my middle son mounted a simple, long shelf for me over the door, extending over this shelving unit so I could move my stock pots, canning supplies, blenders, grinders, etc. up and off the shelving units. All that stuff went up there and I turned around to enjoy all the freed up space...and there wasn't much! How in the world did I fit all that on the shelving units and still have the stuff there I have now? I'll never know.


Still not finished entirely in the pantry....need to get a few things to mount on the wall for organizing and dispensing our disposable gloves and our various trash bags. That will free up space that is badly needed for our collection of boxes of zip loc bags....

 

[sumi]

You're making good progress, Beekissed! I need to tackle the under stairs space where some tubs of nonessentials and misc items ended up during the move-in. And sort out DS's clothes again. He refuses to wear so much of it, I can donate or sell the unwanted stuff and finally unpack the last suitcase of stuff that he barely wears. I've been putting it off since August.

 

[Beekissed]

Funny you should say that about August...I was just looking on our seasonal list of things to get done, noting how many things didn't get done...then noticed the seasons labeled at the top of the list~Spring/Summer!

And a lot of those were carried over from LAST year's fall/winter list! When I make a new list, I just bump them up there, but it's a slow process to get some of those chronic chores off the list.

Today we are replacing a bathtub that sprung a leak...things like that tend to take much of our time from the listed things. Or so I tell myself.

A neat thing to note...this DIY tub replace required that we access the newly sorted tool shelves and it was a dream to find everything we needed~tools, thread tape, caulk, etc, and quickly! It's times like this that make the organizational efforts all worth while.

 

[treerooted]

Awesome Bee!

I completely understand how good that feels. When you finally get something done that's been sitting in the back of your head forever, oh man, best feeling.

 

[milkmansdaughter]

Bee, your shelves look great! I love the shelf above the door. So often that space is wasted.

This is not technically our property but we were cleaning the back property line, and removed tons of junk. In order to clear our line, we had to cross the line to cut back ancient grapevines that were taking down whole trees with their weight. And there's all kinds of old rusty fence line back there, and rolls of barbed wire so rotted it crumbles when you try to pick it up. So much of this wasn't actually on our property but cleaning it makes our property look so much nicer. I was tired of seeing this stuff every time we were back there. And we got some good stuff too (posted under Free is free...)
Stuff we cleaned out of the woods today:

Whew!! It looks soooooo much better! We've still got work to do, but a clear property line is so much nicer (and safer!) than someone's trash heap! There's still tin roofing material (with just corners sticking up), lots of old fencing (that has to be cut out of trees), old tires and more stuff out there, but we made a big difference already.