Partying Down in the Bathroom at our Little House

Posted August 16th, 2012 by kerri and filed in small house living
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30 Comments

 

IT’S PARTY TIME AGAIN!

Ok, how many of you are still with us in this quest to get organized?

I admit, I’m behind, but that’s ok. I was sick last week­end and I’m prep­ping for a writer’s con­fer­ence this com­ing week.

At least I have the roadmap to fin­ish when I get back.

We’re mov­ing on to the bath­room this week any­way. Stay with me. I’m announc­ing another give­away at the end of this post.

How many of you have stuff stored under that sink van­ity and have no idea why it’s there?

How many of you have cleaned out your med­i­cine cab­i­net recently? I haven’t cleaned ours since the last time I posted about it (Has that really been over two years ago!?)

When clean­ing out the bath­room, you have to be a lit­tle extra care­ful with the stuff you’re throw­ing into the trash and down the drain.

I was hor­ri­fied watch­ing the tele­vi­sion series “Political Animals” this past week­end to see the char­ac­ters flush­ing cocaine down the toilet.

Of course, they really weren’t doing it, only act­ing, but still. It’s never ok to flush med­ica­tions – legal or ille­gal – down the drain. That stuff ends up in our water­ways and can harm fish and other wildlife, as well as com­ing back to harm us as well.

Here’s how to dis­pose of medications:

  • Crush the pills and mix them in with some­thing such as cof­fee grounds, which will deter any ani­mals from eat­ing the powder.
  • You can also leave them in a securely closed con­tainer. However, remem­ber that glass will break and plas­tic will crush in the land­fill. Wild ani­mals do for­age through trash.
  • Some cities and towns now offer free drop offs dur­ing the year in which you can take old, expired med­ica­tions and leave them.

Now, here’s for the next give­away. We have a great eco-friendly tooth­brush to give away to go along with our bath­room themed party this week.

The fully biodegrad­able tooth­brushes by World Centric com­pletely break down when they are thrown away. They come in a reusable travel case. World Centric also off­sets car­bon emis­sions by plant­ing trees. The com­pany planted 175,000 trees just in one year.

Just tell us in the com­ments on this post by 5 p.m. USCST on Sunday August 19 how you’re doing with your orga­niz­ing. If you’re behind, that’s ok. How will you orga­nize when you get the time and when do you plan to do it?  If I draw your name and you win the tooth­brush, you MUST send me your snail mail address ASAP. Come back Tuesday to see if you've won!

30 Responses to “Partying Down in the Bathroom at our Little House”

  1. Dispose Of Expired Medications Safely : Home Organizing 101 says:
    September 26, 2012 at 11:52 am

    […] water sup­ply. Not Good!  Kerri shares some of her ideas on how to han­dle this in her arti­cle in Living Large In Our Little House.  See below for some […]

  2. Ruth Pennebaker says:
    August 20, 2012 at 9:03 am

    Oh, no! Something else I'm behind on. How do these drugs mul­ti­ply so quickly in my bathroom?

  3. Donna Hull says:
    August 20, 2012 at 8:17 am

    Great tips for dis­posal of med­ica­tions that are out of date. I didn't know about crush­ing and mix­ing with a food item like cof­fee grounds.

  4. Alisa Bowman says:
    August 20, 2012 at 5:24 am

    One of the things that per­plexes me with bath­rooms is how often I have that "how did it all get here?" thought. It seems I purge and reor­ga­nized often, and I'm pretty vig­i­lant about not bring­ing new stuff into the house, but not vig­i­lant enough.

  5. Merr says:
    August 17, 2012 at 11:36 am

    Did my med cab­i­net with you. I try to take meds either back to the phar­macy (they take OTC) or to toxic waste.

  6. Alexandra says:
    August 17, 2012 at 7:26 am

    Thanks for the expla­na­tion on how to get rid of old med­ica­tions. I became aware of this issue when the local hos­pice team flushed meds after my mom's death. That was in 2006. They have, for­tu­nately, aban­doned this prac­tice. What is great about run­ning a B&B, one of the things, is that bath­rooms stay clean and neat. There's no other choice with guests using them.

  7. Jennifer Margulis says:
    August 17, 2012 at 12:47 am

    I'm orga­niz­ing! Little by lit­tle. Recycling old papers that have been sit­ting in my fil­ing cab­i­nets un-looked-at for years has been one of my most suc­cess­ful sum­mer orga­niz­ing events…

  8. Jane Boursaw says:
    August 16, 2012 at 8:12 pm

    Ok, orga­niz­ing and clean­ing is way bet­ter than what first popped into my head with the title of this piece — which was big wafts of smoke ema­nat­ing from beneath the bath­room door (I'm hav­ing some sort of flash­back to my hip­pie days). :-)

  9. Mary Brown says:
    August 16, 2012 at 8:08 pm

    You got me started orga­niz­ing. I've lost over 25lbs so the first thing I did was go through my closet and freecy­cle every­thing too big. I've also orga­nized the pantry and freecy­cled all the high calo­rie food that was hid­ing in there like cake mixes.…LOL Tomorrow I'll do the linen closet, I have no idea what is on the lower 2 shelves and the floor so I prob­a­bly don't need it. The med­i­cine cab­i­net and under the sink is some­thing I look through all the time for some odd rea­son. I will wait to do the hall closet with the win­ter coats so that I can donate unused coats to the local home­less. I had recently orga­nized all my craft stuff so that's taken care of.

    I was happy to read World Centric planted all those trees. I also enjoy read­ing everyone's com­ment on what they are doing because that also gives me ideas.

    Thanks for all you do Kerri to get us think­ing about things.

    • Kerri says:
      August 17, 2012 at 7:07 am

      Congratulations on los­ing all of that weight, Mary! I'm glad the orga­niz­ing party is also help­ing get every­thing you don't need into freecycle!

  10. Melanie @ Frugal Kiwi says:
    August 16, 2012 at 3:10 pm

    My bath­room is a pain. Tiny, no med­i­cine cab­i­net and haven't been able to FIND a med­i­cine cab­i­net that will fit. I think even­tu­ally Mr Gorgeous will end up build­ing me one.

    • Kerri says:
      August 16, 2012 at 4:14 pm

      My uncle built us a cus­tom med­i­cine cab­i­net for our other house, Melanie. It is some­thing I still trea­sure, but it will not fit into the bath­room here. :(

  11. Tony says:
    August 16, 2012 at 12:02 pm

    Your ideas have me think­ing of free­ing up the closet from out of sea­son stuff and being able to have plenty of room for the things I am using every day and week. Sounds so basic, buti never gave it much thought.

    • Kerri says:
      August 16, 2012 at 4:13 pm

      Tony, I do rotate our out of sea­son clothes. We have good plas­tic con­tain­ers that seal well and all of our clothes go into them. It's actu­ally fun to unpack every­thing again and remem­ber what we have to wear for the upcom­ing sea­son. :)

  12. Heather L. says:
    August 16, 2012 at 10:55 am

    I think I've only cleaned my bath­room cab­i­nets once in this house and that is shame­ful. They don't how­ever hold pre­scrip­tion meds. But you're right I have no idea why what's under the sink is there. And I don't know when I'm going to be able to find out.

    • Kerri says:
      August 16, 2012 at 11:06 am

      It prob­a­bly wouldn't take that long to go after the van­ity, Heather. If it is a large van­ity like we had in the city, maybe break it down into parts, 1/2 hour each. Good luck!

  13. Tony says:
    August 16, 2012 at 8:53 am

    I can only blame myself in my small house. I have great trou­ble return­ing items to their proper place. My great­est issue is clothes. Dirty is no problem…in the bas­ket. The lightly worn which are not dirty??? Chair backs, hooks, and door knobs tend to get full of clothes. I don't want them in with the clean, as they have been worn, but there is no need to wash the lightly used items. Has any­one solved this…or am I alone on this one?

    • Kerri says:
      August 16, 2012 at 10:21 am

      My hus­band has the very same prob­lem with this, Tony! He has me to remind him not to get out any­thing else as he already has a shirt on the bed post or on the back of the kitchen chair. Would it help if you made such a rule — no more clean clothes come out until the "lightly worn" are dirty and ready for the hamper?

      • Tony says:
        August 16, 2012 at 10:58 am

        I am open to any thoughts on the sub­ject. If, it is a "guy thing" then what do the gals do? I have 6 jobs, plus my vol­un­teer work. Many times I just run in and jump out of one uniform/outfit into the next. Maybe I need a series of lock­ers or bins?

        • Kerri says:
          August 16, 2012 at 11:04 am

          I think that's a great idea! We don't have a lot of closet space, but we have shelves built into the clos­ets, as well as hooks on the closet wall and behind the bath­room door. Maybe if you start look­ing around, you could iden­tify spots you could have these hooks or bins. You have a busy life, I don't know how you keep up with it all!

  14. Brette Sember says:
    August 16, 2012 at 7:16 am

    I've got to work on the mas­ter bath. I did the kids' bath a while ago. I can't believe the stuff I find in the draw­ers and clos­ets in there.

  15. Carol says:
    August 16, 2012 at 7:09 am

    I made it through the bed­room. My best plan was to call Vietnam Vets for a pick up so I had to go through my clothes so I would have some­thing to donate!

    CVS phar­macy has mail in envelopes to send expired med­i­cine in for dis­posal, but I think there is a charge.

    On to the bath­room, why do I have old make up when I don't even wear it any more and how many hair brushes to you really need? Oh my.…. And the half used tubes of lotion, etc… Time to get tough. I'm get­ting bet­ter at it. Thanks for the inspi­ra­tion. I'm going to clean out the bath­room in my travel trailer too. Amazing how much stuff just gets put places. I really think it all breeds at night!

    • Kerri says:
      August 16, 2012 at 8:11 am

      I like the "breed­ing" the­ory, Carol, it takes the rap off of us! ;) Good for you on the bed­room. That is a good action plan, to call a char­ity and sched­ule a time for a pick up so you have to be ready for them.I for­got I used to do that. Thanks for the reminder! Good luck with that make up (I have some stuff left from when I worked in the cor­po­rate world 14 years ago, WTH!)

  16. Sheryl M says:
    August 16, 2012 at 5:08 am

    Kerri — Thanks for the tip on the World Centric prod­ucts. I'm brows­ing there now, and it looks like they have sev­eral things I can use!