Wednesday, July 11, 2007

#16 Tame kitchen desk clutter

Our kitchen desk has always been a bit of a sore spot for us. It is a very convenient horizontal surface right as you enter the house from the garage that regularly collects things like junk mail, newspapers, and just about any other detritus that enters the house. It is also where we have tried to keep the computers (two laptops) my cellphone and PDA chargers and about 10 other corded things. Basically, it's a mess. It's also dangerous for a very tall toddler who doesn't know any better than to grab onto things that hang and dangle (this, of course, is also dangerous for the computers). (Important note, the BEFORE pics were taken after the months spent working on the cabinets above the desk so the mess is not nearly as bad as it used to be. It used to literally be stacked up to two feet high with miscellaneous stuff.) So we spent several months coming up with new routines to deal with junk mail and receipts and whatnot and cleaning out the cabinets above the desk. Then, in the last couple weeks, I ordered a magazine rack and a really cool desk valet charger (something that you wrap all your cords up into and then put the little electronics things on top of) and it is now regularly clear which is nothing short of a miracle. (Disclaimer, we actually finished this task a few weeks ago and it has collected a little bit of junk since then so I had to remove a few things to take the very nice AFTER pictures below. HOWEVER, it has improved so much that most of the stuff is truly temporary and takes only minutes to clean up instead of literally an hour of bulldozing.)

BEFORE


AFTER


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