My Life's To-Do List: Organization, My Favorite Hobby

I love organizing. I know most people cringe when I say that, but I can get lost in the possibilities of the storage section in any store. Any time I wander off, Mark knows right where to find me. (Think Monica from Friends, although I don't own a label maker, but would love one!)
Over the years, I've learned that when my house is organized I feel like my life is organized and I'm just happier. Somehow my emotional state is connected to my level of organization.
That being said my house has been cluttered for months (and my level of stress has been pretty high, no surprise). Now, I don't want you to think of my house like an episode of Hoarders or Clean House. I could never let it get to that point, but we've had piles of papers waiting to be filed and laundry I keep trying to fold and never get to. So I decided to tackle the paper mountain first.

I wanted to turn an empty wall in our kitchen into our paper and life organization center. I saw this one from Pottery Barn, but I am way too frugal to spend that kind of cash on something I knew we could make!

So, step one was to determine the pieces we wanted:
- calendar
- at least two mail trays (one for new mail, one for things to be filed)
- phone charger stations
- key hooks
- a functional shelf
- peg boards for menus and invitations, etc.

Then we started creating...I had a cheap magnetic calendar on this wall before, so after adding some nice white trim($2) that went back up.

We also had 12'x12' peg board sheets so we again added trim to them ($2) and used ribbon to give another a French memory board feel (under $1). We had an extra white decorative shelf from a set we bought for our bathroom, so that went up as well. (probably under $5)

The major project, however, was the mail/phone charger station. I knew exactly what I wanted and couldn't find one anywhere, so we decided to make one on our own. For several weekends, Mark worked to build me the cabinet exactly like I wanted it and then I put coat after coat of pure white lacquer so it would look clean and simple. (This whole cabinet was less than $30!)

The final step was to add some decorative touches and labels of course! I made the Mail and File labels using some scraps from some scrapbooking paper I had left over. I also had some cute ornaments we'd received this year, which I made into a monogram.