Thursday, March 10, 2011

Project Simplify- Hotspot Number ONE!



Over at Simple Mom they are having a party... a cleaning party that is. Spring cleaning 5 different hot spots throughout your house by spring equinox. There are prizes involved if you blog or post your before and after pictures, but I'm in it for the challenge. See in 8 weeks we are moving. Not out of Rhode Island but to base housing where the utility bills will not send me into a panic attack each month and this spoiled little family of mine will enjoy the comforts of having more than one toilet in the house. Its been hard. :) But since there will be packing and yard sales and the need to get rid of things we are just tired of moving anyways I figured this would be a great start.

This week started the challenge and Tsh Oxenreider author of Organized Simplicity and the blog Simple Mom set us out on our first challenge. Bathrooms? Kitchen? Under the kids' beds? Nope. The Master Closet and Wardrobe. She sites some pretty good reasons for this being the first week's challenge, but mainly the idea is "Take care of you first" like, you know "Put on you own oxygen mask before you help ANYONE else" ... sound familiar? So with out further ado here is my closet and wardrobe before their makeover....


Gross.
The sad part is this is not the worst my closet has ever looked. And we have been living in this house for less than a year! I told Mike what I was doing and was given the stern, "Don't touch my stuff!" Which means he was just worried I would put half of his clothes in the yardsale. I mean seriously who needs 12 pairs of jeans!?! So all of his stuff is on the top rack. My stuff resides on the bottom rack and the top shelf.....and the floor, and top of my dresser.
Opps!

Tsh recommended we get all our laundry done and then clean out the closet. But the laundry is never done here, with adults and kids coming in and out with so many different schedules, the best I can do is keep up. So Monday morning I set my toss box by my closet and as I did each day's laundry I would toss things that should not make it another go round and hit one drawer a day. This fit into my regular clothes folding time so it really wasn't that hard. I was waiting for the end of the week for the big clean. And the rain to make me do it.

Here are some pictures of everything cleared out and ready to get a sweep.

So Pretty.
During this process I learned a few things:
I have an amazing volume of shoes for someone who has a size 12 foot and wears mainly sneakers.
I had clothes in there I could have been wearing all winter but didn't know they were there. (Which is really sad considering we just moved from Florida)
I have a problem getting rid of things from family because I'm afraid they will ask me about the item. (Sorry Mom, no more reversible rain poncho... I haven't worn it in 5 years.)
Inspection of my underwear drawer revealed ..... a laser pointer? True Story.
The little noises we thought we heard in the heating ducts were not just the sounds of an old house. I have officially waged war against Fivel!
So I went through the clothes and tossed the ones that were just horribly worn, bid a teary farewell to half of my shoes, and threw what I couldn't or wouldn't wear into a box marked for the yard sale. Tsh recommends going ahead and pricing everything, but I had to finish this during nap time and it was almost over.
I wiped off everything and found respectable places for things that were on the dresser.
And here is the proof of my efforts...


Ta Daaa!
Beautiful! All my drawers are decluttered and organized as well, I just didn't get a picture of them. Everything is off the floor save my running sneakers which get used each morning. The "to sell" box is already in the attic and the trash has been carted away. Yay!
To follow along with Project Simplify just head on over to www.simplemom.net

2 comments:

The Starr Family said...

Love those clear boxes!! I can just seem them with polaroids on the outside showing the contents (or.. I guess that defeats the purpose of CLEAR box). Love it!

Zoanna said...

Nice job. So serene looking now. :)Congrats on all the hard work.

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