Over the Christmas holidays, I tackled some organizing projects, and one of them was the desk space in our master bedroom. I’ve avoided it since 2013, the year Mother passed away. This space was her spot to write notes, play on the computer, and pay bills. I went through the drawers shortly after she passed away to look for important papers, but after that, I just didn’t want to move her things. It’s the last space in the house that was still “hers.” But, it was time to claim it for me, and I think she’s smiling down seeing that I am enjoying using her desk.
Just like the organizing project in the kitchen, I went through each drawer removing everything, sorting it into piles of keep, donate, trash, or find space elsewhere in the home. I went through each pen and pencil and if it didn’t work it went into the trash. I wiped out all the drawers. The two drawers I will show you today are the center drawer you can see in the photo above, and the top drawer on the right.
This is a really shallow drawer so the challenge was finding drawer inserts to keep my supplies organized. Guess what? I went around the house gathering up trinket dishes and trays. Brilliant twist if I do say so myself. I got six dishes into the drawer and I love how it turned out.
I have a dish for stamps and return address stamps. The little plastic box for stamps is from the Container Store here. I love the size for keeping smalls together. I use two trays for sticky notes and tabs. My favorite tray houses little notes from friends. I used to leave mother sticky notes by the coffee maker so when she started her day she’d have a nice note from me until I got home from work. I found all the notes I wrote her tucked inside an envelope. I like keeping them close. Since the drawer is super shallow, this is about all I can fit.
The next drawer houses all the office supplies. I bought these inserts from Amazon. I use them all over the house because they are so versatile. Now I have space for pens, pencils, highlighters, scissors, hole punches (I almost bought one because I didn’t think I had one – then I found two!), erasers, staple removes, clips, paper clips, glue stick, pencil sharpener, and white-out. I can’t tell you how nice it has been to open the drawer and easily find what I need. At the very back of the drawer holds staples and larger binder clips.
I’ll share next week how I organize my technology cords. Exciting stuff!
Hospitality is in my DNA. I founded Home with a Twist, a daughter’s twist on her mother’s traditions, in memory of my mother to celebrate her life and the gifts she shared with me. Mother loved to celebrate life’s occasions – big and small.
