Episode 1!
Do you know the show, Mission: Organization? You know, the one where they go into a home and reorganize it for them. Most of these homes are worse than messy, they're scary messy. The kind of scary where you would be afraid to enter the rooms cause you might not be able to find your way out again.
I'm dealing with a couple of situations like that in my home.
I don't normally make New Year's resolutions, but this year? Yep, I want a more organized house.
I come from a background of depression era style hoarders. My grandparents had an excuse, they lived through the depression and lived on a farm where any little thing could suddenly become very useful again.
My parents were taught by these same people not to get rid of anything, you never know how useful something might be.
So, guess where that has got me? I never, ever get rid of a crafty type item. And it's been a darn good thing too. I'm constantly needing that stuff for school projects and cross-over craft projects. The hubby is just as bad with tools and guy stuff.
Oh, and don't forget, we've got two kids and a billion toys (I'm not kidding) to contend with.
So here's how I'm starting to tackle everything.
1. Mostly complete: Master bedroom - Used to be a combined office/bedroom when the hubby was living at home. I forced the hubby to use a much smaller desk that was given to us and to get rid of all the crap that was visible. We moved a small wardrobe from the Youngest's room to our room and hid all the office crap in there. I now have most of my bedroom back and where I'm not ashamed for guests to see it.
2. Boy's bedroom: Currently the boys are sleeping in separate rooms. We are moving both of their beds to the smaller bedroom and they will now share that space. My goal is to eventually get bunk or twin beds in there, but they can live cramped for now.
3. Playroom: The Largest of the two bedrooms is now going to become a playroom. All items that belong to anyone under the age of 37 will go in here. I'd like to have my downstairs mostly toy free as well and all toys currently down will now go up. The room is huge and will hold all children's junk nicely. The Eldest's favorite stuff, his clothes and everything that is tiny will go into the closet in there and we will put a latch on the closet to prevent the Youngest getting into it. By the time he can reach the latch, it won't really matter what he gets into in there anyway.
4. Garage: Would be nice to use it for what it's supposed to be used for and not as a storage unit. A year or so ago we thought we were going to move and began boxing up toys and other things. All of that will move to the playroom as well, even if it continues to live in boxes.
5. Dining room/my office/craft room: I hung a curtain in one of the doorways so that I can close it if company comes over. That way I can at least hide what ever I may be working on.
I'd show you pics of everything, but it's way too embarrassing.
I'm desperate to have a nice house again (a pipe dream with small children, but still.) If I can't have nice, I'll settle for a tiny bit more organized.
I'm currently going through each room as I get to it and I'm separating things into 5 piles: donate, trash, sell, attic or find a damn place for it. There's a couple of children's consignment sales coming up and I really want to get rid of some toys. We have enough for five families. Especially since I was on a children's consignment committee for so long. I got all the best stuff first and went overboard. Time for some of it to go.
It's going to be a while going through every room, but I'll get there. Wish me luck!
