Counter Organization and the Shopper Syndrome

My Dad lives in a nursing home. There is a tendency for some of his neighbours to collect things as they travel about. You know like visitors' purses they have set down for a moment, or the neighbours' shoes or teeth, you get the idea. My Mom calls them 'shoppers'. Sweet but very confused little old people walking around looking for something exciting to pick up. Well, as with many scenarios involving confused adults, small children act in similar ways. That is the reason anything important at our house must be put up high to keep it from walking away with the help of a mini-shopper.

The reason I mention this you ask? I am hoping it helps explain the colossal mess next to the fridge in our kitchen.

It's kinda embarrassing. But really we need to keep all these random things away from the shoppers. Otherwise you never know where things might end up. Like the slippers might be under the stove, only to be found when some rewiring necessitated the whole stove being slid out. You know, that kind of thing.

So here it is. This is my attempt to organize the mess beside the fridge. Starting with the paperwork.

The papers are my biggest issue. I don't want to loose anything important and I am visual. I need to see it or I forget it exists. But I cannot live with a disaster as that offends my visual sensibilities as well. The clip boards solve this.

One for every kid and me. A has a magnetic clip (or four) on the fridge as he handles a lot of the paperwork stuff. The boards were a dollar each and were from the big dollar store at the mall. I covered them with scrapbook paper and A hung them on cup hooks. It was pretty cheap and easy but it took forever as each step was held up by a lot of procrastination. I like them so much I might buy 2 more and make it 3 rows of 2.

The drawer unit is from IKEA, painted with black craft paint and decorated with thickers (foam stickers). And the organizer is from Home Sense also a very good deal. All the keys, cell phones and paid bills and of course the chargers and cords live here.

And that is it. The whole system.

It has lots of place to shove junk so it works well for now. Keeping those shoppers out of trouble. And looking darn cute at the same time.

added this to the Beautiful Life linky party at The Inspired Room