THE TOYS

The childrens clothes would definitely be the death of me, so I opted to participate in the toy section of this weeks Decluttering challenge from Simple Mom.

Ahem. i present to you the before picture.

And now the after picture.

I know. Less than impressive. turns out my children get their inability to make decisions and let go of things from me. Oh wait, no i figured that out many moons ago. Still trying to make that bit of learned information useful in my daily life. We did get rid of a few things that we were keeping because they were gifts. Even though nobody has played with them for years. I will keep plugging along at it, especially this summer i think. when they're building their forts outside. My favorite picture from this week though is this one...

These two are really starting to play together. Their giggles fill my heart to bursting and their screaming makes my ears bleed.

Paper piles

Ok, so this week the goal is paper piles. I'm choosing to focus on my desk, although any flat surface in my house qualifies for this challenge. I will definitely have to tackle the "ledges" as well because they are the most apparent paper clutter in the house.



I did as Tsh over at Simple Mom suggested and gathered everything together into a great big pile. I actually did this twice. First I tackled the ledges and then on a separate night (ie last night) I did the desk. Knowing that I had to completely finish in one night because I was going to work in the living room (and Vee has no respect for piles that have already been sorted) made me break up the project a little more.
The good news at our house is that clean does lead to more clean.
Once the ledges were cleaned off, then the kitchen counters started staying cleaner too.

Once the ledges were cleared off, I was once again annoyed by the screw holes from where we attached them. This time they got filled with joint compound and are ready for a new coat of paint. Perhaps if they are lovely, I will be more motivated to keep them clean.
The desk was next, it feels like I've cleaned it off a thousand times. Our system works well, until I get to those fuzzy sentimental kid items. Then the inbox starts to overflow with things "I am still deciding on". The one thing that has always worked for us is receipts. They get laid right on the keyboard so you can't do anything (like this blog) until you enter them into the budget. Then they are immediately tossed into the trash (we rarely have any that are needed for taxes or the like).


The little extra thing we (and by we I mean Mike) did this week was inspired by a post over at Ana White. Although it is not my wish-list swing bed (you should check it out, so fun!), it is very exciting. What was once just hooks on the wall is now our key basket/sunglasses holder/mike's pocket dump spot. The blue tape is so we can open the drawers till i find some drawer pulls that fit the spot. and the drawer fronts need a coat of paint as well, but we were waiting for the joint compound to dry on the ledges so we could paint all at once.

So this week we did a bit more than paper piles, but it's all for the sake of keeping the spaces clear so the paper doesn't look at home in its piles :)

Before and After

Ok, here are the results. And for the record, I can't believe i'm putting this "before" picture on the internet. yikes. You can see in the before picture that there are a couple tubs full of out of season clothes/dirty clothes/ clothes that need to go somewhere else. These have been a constant in our closet. I have put a tall laundry basket with a lid on my "wish list" that will go in another corner of the room for our dirty laundry. putting a basket on the floor of our closet just doesn't cut it. the basket fills, overflows and quite quickly takes over the entire floor of that side of the room. so we're going to try a smaller corner and see how that works. I've got one giant garbage bag of clothes to go to goodwill and another shopping bag of cute skirts to offer my friends first. Turns out I really like to own skirts, but not wear them. The shocking part of that to you my friends is probably that I actually own skirts :) I also got rid of several pairs of shoes. as much as i love shoes, i haven't worn some of them since I was paid for my work. The bins on the shelves I scavenged back from my children who had been using them to play house with downstairs. My love of all things "Container Store" has finally paid off.
I'm pretty happy with the results, Mike hasn't done his shirts/pants section but I did some of his other stuff because it's shared space.
One other place I got inspiration is from www.theproject333.com
Now to see if we can keep it this great :D

Decluttering

One of my favorite people did a whole house reorganization project last year. I got to hear the trials and tribulations over the several months that an ENTIRE house project can take. I got to celebrate and be very very impressed with the results when she finally finished the last closet. I love my friend, I am impressed with my friend. I am not my friend. I can't keep the top of my desk from becoming a delicately balanced mountain that self generates "caution avalanche area" signs.
That being said, one of the blogs that I like to check out on occasion (occasion being at least 5 times a week) has issued a challenge. 5 weeks to declutter and reorganize 5 "hot spots" in my house. This I might be able to manage. So I'll be posting my before and after pics for posterity so that someday I can have a visual reminder of the subtleties of life in the midst of raising these 4 energetic sweet young things. and plus now i have to do it, because now i have told the interwebs...