simplefrills: $0 to Refresh & Reorganize!

Late last week, something happened.

I got the bug. (If you ask Mr. B, he'd probably tell you this happens about once a week, but I digress!)

For a while, I've been meaning to do something about the side table situation in our bedroom. More specifically, the mess that was the area next to my side of the bed. It's one of those things that bothered me every time I went to get in bed but by the time I saw it, it was time to actually sleep and not redecorate!

Last Thursday I had some time when I got home from work, so I took advantage and finally did something about the mess! Mr. B and I are also trying to watch our spending right now, so I knew I would need to do it without spending any money.

Here's what I was working with:

Yep, it was quite something. I won't feel bad if you cringe a little.

The first step was to get rid of the mess. Which, of course, just means moving the stacks of random items to a different location. Temporarily. I mean, I totally, definitely picked up every single thing I moved out of the way when I was working on this. Hey look, a cute picture of a puppy in the room!

(Ok, good...dodged that bullet!)

Back to the work at hand.

So, once the space was cleared, I decided that I needed to house-source a different side table. I ended up going with one that I had used for a night table in our condo, but had in the living room at our house.

The size of the table was perfect, and it definitely had more storage capability that I was looking for! But oh, that lamp.

So, I decided to house-source that too! A few weeks back I found an awesome gold lamp on one of my Goodwill visits. It's geometric, nice and big, and, did I mention....gold?!? I had to try it out.

And though it is beautiful and pretty much my soulmate-in-a-lamp, it wasn't quite right. It was actually a little too big for the table, and it didn't go with the lamp on Mr. B's side table.

Back to the lamp drawing board. My other thought was a lamp that was in our living room. It has a white base and a white and yellow patterned shade.

I tried it out on my newly chosen side table, and it was a winner!

So then I decided to try adding a lamp with the same shade to Mr. B's side of the bed.

And it was perfect! Even though the bases on the lamps don't match, the shades add the right color to the room and the bases are different enough that they don't clash. I'm keeping my eye out on my thrifting trips for another brass lamp base for my side of the bed, but for now it is definitely an upgrade from the old, mismatched lamps that we had before!

The last thing I needed to do was ORGANIZE! All of that stuff piled up on the bed needed to be gone through, purged, and placed in their new side table home.

And after a little work, here's what the top drawer of my side table looks like now:

I'm a fan of divided drawer organization...can you tell? LOL. I've got 5 areas in this drawer:

1. Diabetes corner - all those things I might need in case my blood sugar goes low in the middle of the night
2. Miscellaneous stuff I find myself needing before bed - chapstick, glasses cleaner, etc
3. Health stuff - I like to keep things like tums and bacitracin next to my bed. Don't ask me why, I just do.
4. Things I use every night - my vitamins, face wipes and moisturizer
5. Sleep Number bed remote - because otherwise it would get lost :)

One trick that I use to keep the little baskets in place in my drawers is using little velcro squares on the bottom of the basket and in the drawer

That way, the baskets stay in place and I can keep things organized without even trying! When things come out and go back in, they automatically keep separated. The velcro squares are easy to remove if I ever want to reorganize the drawer or use the basket for something else.

One of my other favorite organizational tools - Cord Clips!!

They are little half-round things with a slit down the middle that hold a cable in place when you're not using it. I put two of them on the back of my nightstand to hold my phone and glucose monitor charging cables. The picture only shows one, but I added another later that night! I grab mine at the Container Store, but I have seen them other places too. (I just like a reason to go to the Container Store)

Now everything had a home in my nightstand and there was zero clutter on the floor! So I did a little happy dance!

And here is a picture of what the room looks like with a bed that isn't covered on randomness and is actually made, along with the new lamps, table, and my favorite DIY project to date, my wooden display hanging!