30 Days to an Organized Home - Day 3

Okay, I know it says Day 3, but it's more like "almost a month"! Needless to say, I haven't been as focused as I'd hoped, but I hear slow and steady wins the race!

So Day 3 is the Living Room. Now this room doesn't look as bad as it has in the past. In fact, my husband refers to it as "Shipping and Receiving", because this is where I sort and store all the Stampin' Up! orders that are waiting to be picked up. Today there is only one box sitting there, and I've been pretty good about keeping it down to that. However, you can see that I am not the only one who uses this room as a dumping ground!


Notice all the papers on the floor - those are not mine! (okay, the Target bags are mine, just look away...) My youngest son, Kevin, just finished an SAT prep course and for some reason all the papers ended up on the living room floor. I think it might be because we needed the dining room table!

In the book, the author understands that the living room probably isn't the hardest room to organize. It really only took me about 15 minutes to just pick up. But she did say this was a good time to look around and fix up something you've been wanting to do. Well, don't get me started, I really would like to redo the whole room (can you say area rug, get rid of curio cabinets, repaint, and boy would I LOVE new couches!), but that's not going to happen any time soon. But I did finally take down the picture over the piano, which I think I've had since "early marriage", about 27 years or so, and put up another picture I recently purchased. I also centered it over the piano and moved the sconces.

And that's what I ended up with. It certainly looks better and I do feel like I accomplished a little something! Now the hard part will be to keep it like this, since this room really is the perfect spot to put stuff that need to be out of the way "just for now, until I can find a better place for it"! Wish me luck!

Day 2 - Organized Home - Front Closet

Well, at this rate it's going to take me 30 weeks rather than 30 days to get to my organized home! I'm going to try and set a goal of 2 tasks per week, so we'll so how that goes!

Day 2 is the Front Closet. My closet is very small. We don't keep most of our jackets in there, just the ones we only use occasionally. However, I do keep all of the hats and gloves in a "shoe holder" hung on the back of the door. That has worked out great for me. I also keep a vacuum cleaner in there, which I don't like doing, but I have nowhere else to put it! In the book the author tells you that the front closet IS NOT for storage! So I guess I am guilty of that when you look at the shelf...

So, cleaning out this closet didn't take that long. I reorganized the gloves and hats, cleared off the shelf and made room for the vacuum cleaner on the floor. The plastic bins on the shelf don't look that great, so I will keep my eyes open for a nicer option whenever I'm out shopping. I also bought a few wooden hangers so that when guests come, I can hang up their coats.

Here was my revelation doing this chore - I have a serious tote bag problem! I could not believe how many useless tote bags I had stuffed onto the top shelf! I really don't need all these bags, and as you can see, I was able to fill a whole box of bags that I can now donate! I was telling some friends about this problem of mine, and one of them said "You've had that problem for years"! Friends should not let friends collect tote bags!

So now the closet looks good, but turn around and there is the table in my entryway - ugh! Four drawers filled with "stuff", plus 2 big baskets on the bottom shelf. My son keeps his school things in the baskets, but I'm sure there are some things that don't need to be in there. And as far as the drawers, well that will have to be another day. And once again, one organizing chore created another one!

So has anyone else jumped on the organizing band wagon with me? Let me know how you're doing!

Getting Organized...or trying to...

The other day I was reading a blog called "30 Minute Martha" , and the blogger, Lain Ehmann, was talking about a 30-day organizing project she was getting ready to do. It was based on an e-book titled "30 Days to an Organized Home". Each day she was going to do the challenge and then blog about it. Well, I am all about getting organized (when I was a kid, I loved to clean out my closet, I was organizing at a young age!) and I thought it might be kind of fun to try the same thing. So I ordered the book here, it downloaded immediately, and I was ready to get started!





Day One:

The challenge today was to clean up "The Spot". This is the area that I'm sure we all have, the place where all those papers and other miscellaneous things land. The place where you put all the stuff that you will get to later! My "Spot" is a counter top in my kitchen. I have a file basket there for my kids' papers, plus another basket that I keep notepaper and writing utensils in. And that is where the organized part ends! I am pretty good about going through the mail and immediately recycling or shredding what I don't need. But then I seem to put every piece of paper I DO need into piles on my "Spot", and that's where the piles get bigger and bigger. This was the perfect place for me to start on my 30 day quest to organization!



So I cleared out all the papers and other stuff, and that's when I realized it was going to take me a lot longer than 30 days to get through the book! Because once I cleared out all the papers I had to sort everything and figure out where they needed to be filed. You can see below how I parked myself on the family room floor and got to work. Plus I had to find homes for all the other items that had been living on that counter top! And that was going to take more than one day, since believe it or not, I do have other things that need to get done around here!

So once I came to the realization that I could take on this project, but it would take a bit longer than originally planned, I was determined to do this! Below you can see my beautiful clean counter top! The things you see behind the sink are actually the clay pots and other "sculptures" my boys have made over the years. I cannot part with them just yet, so they are part of the decor. I have also decided that I need to add another file to my basket for all those papers that will need attention in the near future. So hopefully when I add that, then I won't be tempted to just make piles again, and maybe the counter top will stay clean! Yikes - this is harder than I thought it would be!

I will keep you posted on my progress! And I challenge you to join me and get an organized home too! Really, this could be fun!