Babes it has been long overdue for a design related blog to come out on TTL!! For those of you new to TTL, in my twenties I used to be an interior designer working primarily on commercial projects and hospitals in the LA area. I would say a lot of who I am today was shaped working in that profession. 
So much of the knowledge I apply to my everyday lifestyle goes back to days running the streets from showroom to showroom and project to project. Fast forward to nearly 15 years later, the only interior design work I do now is in our home that Mike and I have remodeled over the last 10 years.
Project:
My latest project, while very small, has made a HUGE impact in my daily life. As a lifestyle blogger, a huge part of what I do is try beauty products to vet brands that would be a good fit for TTL to work with. That means a crap ton of boxes are being delivered with lots of lovely goodies. What’s not so lovely is having no system of organization to store them where I can see them to be reminded of what I need to try. 
The Design Goal:
Remove the existing shelving in my nook/ lounge area, which were also from IKEA purchased 2 years ago when doing the original Nook design.
Solution:
Introducing my new Brimes Cabinets from Ikea for all my blog related beauty products. My hope was to source stylish and minimal glass front cabinets without making a huge investment. That can only = IKEA!! I don’t know about you, but in my opinion IKEA has come a long way in quality. BUT you do have to be selective, not everything is top notch. I went with 2 Brimes cabinets because they are the exact size to fit my space AND because they have easy to wipe glass shelves which was essential since beauty products are notorious for making a mess. 
The only element I was not feeling were the cheapy looking handles. No worries on that minor detail, I sourced gorgeous brass and leather cabinet pulls on Etsy that gave the cabinets the posh & shine they needed. Overall, the 2 units are EXACTLY what I wanted and for $300 bucks I am THRILLED!!
Organization:
While at IKEA I also grabbed 4 large white cardboard boxes (that fit beautifully in the cabinets) to store equipment. Not fancy, but they do the trick while looking rather nice though the glass doors. As for bins, I was NOT trying to spend stupid money on posh ones from the Container Store. Don’t get me wrong CS has a time and place but my beauty cabinet ehhhh nahhh! Super sweet score on bins were at Daiso, ya know the Japanese dollar store?! Well, if you shop Daiso online, you can buy in bulk to save loads of money. I found these fabulous 3 section trays and 3 section cube cases.
The Beauty Cabinet Shelves:
When it comes to the fun part …and no, putting the cabinet units together was NOT the fun part (Lord help us but IKEA instructions tested our marriage for a couple hours), I’m talking about how to set up the products inside the cabinets. For now, I have a gifted skincare section of products broken down in sub-categories like moisturizers or serums. Within the skincare cabinet I have another section for product lines to try with potential of collaborating with a brand. The other cabinet has a makeup section and hair care section. Makeup is broken down by product, like foundation or palettes. Hair is sectioned off by brand. 
For now each section has room to grow which is fabulous!! Any products I am currently trying or using stay either in my closet beauty drawer or in my bathroom skincare drawers. Giving each “beauty product” a designated home has already improved my day to day blogger life 1000%!! Like a package comes in, I open it, determine where it belongs and immediately put it away. Ok that’s kinda lying because I often don’t have time to even open boxes, but when I get around to opening them it’s so damn nice that everything is super organized and looks BEAUTIFUL!! 
This turned out to be the perfect quarantine project. Organizing is the perfect way for me to destress. Anyone else using quarantine time to get organized? 
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