File that Under "O"

... for organization. Last week when I announced our big news, I mentioned how we never got as organized around here as I would like. Well, I have decided that in the new house I will not let things get out of hand and I will do a better job on staying on top of organization. It's so important for everything to have it's own place, and it's extremely obvious to me now with a little one running around and all of the other things we have going on.

Top of my list when it comes to organization is a great filing system, but sadly B and I have not yet mastered it. We are working on it though and are starting by upgrading our system from a plastic rolling filing cabinet, a basket of papers and a bunch of other papers piled on top of my printer and on the kitchen island, to a proper filing cabinet.

This whole process really started back in mid March when we picked up this sad looking filing cabinet off of Craigslist for free...

As many other projects seem to be going lately, this bad boy spent over a month hanging out in our Dining Room before we finally made a trip to Home Depot for some spray paint primer. Before we sprayed it, B did some light sanding on the rusty spots on the cabinet and then I got to spraying. We let the primer dry for quite a while (like two weeks - oops), before we took a trip back to Home Depot and grabbed two cans of Rustoleum Rust Spray paint in white. The body of the cabinet and the hardware got the white treatment, while the drawers got some chalkboard paint. With some help and encouragement from B we managed to finish this project up last week, and our old free filing cabinet is now looking a lot more pretty.

I wish I could get a better picture of it, but the house is in a constant state of madness as we pack everything up, and of course the cloudy days have returned, which doesn't allow for the best photos. The cabinet itself is looking lovely though.

We'll be able to write whatever we wish on those pretty drawers, or I can just leave them nice and clean - whatever I choose. Now of course the next big step will be taking care of the actual filing of paperwork.

We started going through some stuff this past weekend - shredding stuff we no longer needed and reorganizing some pre existing folders. We still have a long way to go before we have a really functional and easy to use system though.

How do you file everything? Do you have your stuff filed alphabetically, or do you file things in categories? What tips do you have for creating a fantastic filing system? I'd love to hear what you do to keep your paperwork organized at home!