Ep 156: Hidden in Plain Sight

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 this episode was helpful for you, please share it with your friends rate and review it on iTunes. That's Apple podcasts now, and let me know what you'd like to hear about next. Thanks again for listening and happy organizing.