Computer area clutter - finished!

As I've mentioned at least 5,000 times since I started this blog, we live in a very small house. The only place we've found to put our computer is, unfortunately, on our kitchen countertop. Not the prettiest of all places, but it works. This space gets very cluttered with incoming mail, recipes and coupons, notes, magazines, preschool information, pens and pencils, etc. It is a part of my home that causes me anxiety because there is really no hiding it when people come over. So, as part of my de-cluttering for 2011 resolution, I decided to tackle this mess.

Here is the before:


I decided the vertical magazine holder (which you can't even see because it's hidden behind so much stuff) wasn't cutting it anymore. I wanted my stuff even more hidden. So I found this great, small (and cute) hanging file folder container at Target for $9. The hardest part was picking the color...so many cute ones...but I went with a muted orange. Here's my new baby:

I tossed a bunch of old and/or outdated and unread magazines. I organized my piles of stuff into categories like bills, household information, preschool information, coupons, recipes, etc. Here is the "after" of my file folder box:

A good cleaning later, here is the finished space:
Hooray!