Organizing- Wrapping Station

In my quest to get my disaster of a house just slightly organized and more liveable, I finally executed a Pinterest wrapping station idea- I love it!

I used to have all my wrapping stuff in the guest room closet, which had to be moved to the nursery when Ella moved to her big room, but now that Everett is mobile, that didn't work either.  So now it's on the back of our downstairs coat closet door.

Top shelf is my tape and scissors (you wouldn't have to put it that high, but I wanted the scissors as far away from the kids' reach as possible)...

Next is tissue paper (above) followed by gift bags (below)...

Then wrapping paper (all my Christmas paper is in a big bin under the crib)...

And last is ribbon...

Here is a photo of the closet with the door open...

We have really tall closets throughout our house so they lend themselves perfectly to those cheap Target storage cubes, which I use for all my boxes, etc.

All you need are some Elfa components from The Container Store.  Here is the blog where I got the idea, and she tells you exactly what you need.  The only addition I made was an extra media rack, which is the one on the bottom where I have the ribbon so you can pull the ribbon right from it and cut it and not have to take it out.

Every time I open the closet, it makes me happy!  I love organization!  Although you wouldn't know it from the look of my house post-two kids.

Next up...we are building a room in half of our formal living/dining room for a playroom- SO excited.  Having a formal living/dining room is such wasted space, and I noticed that NONE of the model homes we've been looking at (oh, did I mention that we are considering moving?) have them, even the 3,500 square foot models.  No one wants them anymore.  So while we will still have a formal dining room, the formal LR will be gone- yippee!  I told Gary it will kill FOUR birds with one stone!
(1) It will give me the playroom I want downstairs;
(2) It will add value to our house (perfect since we're thinking of moving!);
(3) It will create the cozy enclosed formal dining room that I wanted so bad when we were house hunting but couldn't find anywhere; and
(4) It will create an actual entryway since I hate how when you walk into our front door, you walk right into a room instead of an entry or foyer.

HERE are photos of our formal LR/DR area.  The dining room will stay exactly like it looks except it will now have walls on both sides.  The play room will be where the couch/chairs are.

Wish us luck!  These projects always end up being MUCH more complicated then we anticipate, but at least this time, we are hiring a contractor to do the framing and drywall...decided to give dad and Gary a break for once. ;)