34 Weeks of Clean: Week 16 - The Master Closet

Last week I was too tired to do much.  I'm still trying to finish my bedroom.  I had one day to work in the closet, so we worked hard to see how much could get done.  My sister-in-law came over  to help for a little while.  Sometimes having a helper provides the energy needed to work on the job better.

I put a movie on for the kids, so we would hopefully be able to work without much interruption for a while.  We worked together and got a lot accomplished.  We tossed some stuff that didn't need to be kept, almost filled another large giveaway box, condensed a few items into a smaller space, put several things away and put all the photographs into the same container/area in the closet, and straightened up some areas.

There is still work to be done in the closet, but it is nice to have gotten as much done as we did in just a couple hours. 

On the left is the before area of my space we worked on.  Most of what was on the floor has been put in it's place and I now have room to actually walk up to my shelf and closet rod.  I also took several items off the hanging rod that I don't think I will ever wear again for the giveaway.  On the right is where we have some storage.  We went through and removed two large boxes and straightened up this area somewhat.  The things I knew what they were we left for me to work on some other time.

This space is my husbands.  I didn't clean anything in this area, but I did add a few things that were his that I didn't know what to do with.

We didn't work on cleaning the shelves, but most of what is up there is labeled.  It is a mixture of storage and items belonging to my husband or I.





This week's cleaning project is the master bathroom.
 

34 Weeks of Clean: Week 15 - The Master Bedroom

Doesn't it look awful?  This was my master bedroom on Monday, April 13th.  My goal is to work on it a little bit everyday this week.

Monday:  I began in the corner by the window, by putting all the misplaced items away.  I moved the infant car seat to the nursery and cleaned off my shelf and washed the baby swing cover and car seat liners.  We have plans to put a portable crib in this corner for the twins for shortly after they are born.

Tuesday:  Jeff and I loaded all the giveaway stuff that has accumulated in our bedroom into his truck for him to drop off tomorrow.  I also worked on organizing the toys from Kent's room.  The kids and I went to Target and bought some plastic lidded containers that can hold the toys and have a label so we know what belongs where.

stuff to giveaway

Thursday:  I continued working my way along the windows, dusting, de-cluttering, trashing, and putting things in a new giveaway box.  I set aside a few boxes to give to a friend who is moving.  I also put the seat cover back on the baby swing.   Jeff was looking for camping stuff in the closet and he pulled out a box of stuff that he doesn't want anymore.  He said some is trash and some is worthy of the giveaway box.  I told him I would look through it tomorrow when I am working in the bedroom.  I let him know not to look too hard, since cleaning the closet is for another week :)

Friday: Friday, I worked a little bit more on sorting through a few things and putting them where they belong.  I found a long lost item of my husbands, which he had been looking for on Thursday night.  We realized it had probably been there for almost three years and we never would have looked there for it.

Saturday:  I had hoped to tackle the rest of the room and get it finished, but I only moved a few things.  The girls and their cousin who was visiting washed some kitchen set toys that I had when I was a girl and I was able to put them into a container that they will be able to play with them sometimes.  Jeff, Kent, and Clark had gone camping over the weekend and I think I lost my motivation.  I also worked more in the playroom, putting the toys in the locked closet, so little people can't get into them and dump them all out at the same time.

Tuesday 4/21:  I worked on it a little more, but my energy levels this week have been on the low side.

Wednesday 4/22:  I had Jeff put the suitcases from our trip in March, back on the shelf in the closet.

I haven't finished yet, and to be honest if I took another picture from the same angle you wouldn't think much progress had been made.  We filled another large box full of stuff to giveaway and several items went in the trash.  I still have a lot of work to do and will continue plugging away at it.  The progress along the windows has been amazing, that has been the catch all for many items over the last few years.  Right now I'm getting about 20-30 minutes at a time before I have to take a rest break or see what our children need.

Enjoying watching Felicity, Clark, and Quinn play with the tool box activity set on one of my breaks.

 This week we are supposed to be working on the Master Closet.

34 Weeks of Clean: Week 14 - Arts and Crafts

Before

After

Working on arts and crafts meant working on my sewing room/office/guest room.  My before and after pictures don't do justice to what was actually accomplished, and I'm obviously not done yet. 

Closet before

Closet After

current fabric stash and patterns

I worked on going through the fabric I had and pulled out several pieces that I had purchased for our previous home and never made the item it was intended for and the fabric doesn't have the same vision in this house.  I put them in the giveaway box.  I went through my scrap box and organized my scraps by color and threw away several scraps that were too small to do anything with.  I was able to put the lid on my scrap box again and still have a little space for any new scraps that may come along.  I worked in the closet and was able to condense my fabric stash into a much smaller space than it had been taking up.  I also labeled the boxes so I will hopefully be able to more easily find what I am looking for.  We are still working on turning the gameroom into a playroom, so one of my chests of craft supplies for school was moved into the office.  I don't need little hands getting into paint and other small items.  I tossed several plastic items into the recycle bin and some patterns and other crafty items into the giveaway box.  I hope to spend some more time in this room getting the bed cleared off this week.

Kent's room rearranged

This weekend we also finished working on getting Kent's room all cleaned out.  We rearranged the furniture and left room for the toddler bed for Quinn to be moved up there later.  We also added a dresser since the drawers Kent has been using for clothes wouldn't work for the three boys.  The drawers in the dresser were broken and Jeff took a little while and fixed them so now they slide in and out easily again.  I bought the dresser used and broken about 10 years ago and it's only gotten worse.  We've talked about replacing it, but now it works just fine.  The plan is to have none to very few toys in this room and the toys will be in the playroom.  Kent even acknowledged that he is getting excited about Clark moving into his room.

 Week 15's challenge is the master bedroom.  Mine is in deplorable shape and I've been looking forward to getting a chance to tackle it.  It may take more than one week, but I'm sure planning on it looking much improved from its current state of catch all.

34 Weeks of Clean: Week 12 & 13 - Gameroom and Pictures

Week 12 for the 34 weeks of Clean was to work on the Family Room and DVD's.  Since our main living room is where we spend most of our family time and I went through our DVD's on Week 8 I thought I might get to work a little on our gameroom.  We've been out of town for a couple weeks and when I got back I found that my sister-in-law had come over and worked on the gameroom while we were gone.  She picked up all the toys that didn't belong and set them in groups according to the boys or girls rooms.  She found all the "missing" socks under the futon and put them in the dirty laundry basket and vacuumed.  Since I had plans to work in the gameroom this week and she made a great dent in what was scattered around I can focus better on a smaller, but much needed task as we get ready to do some reorganizing in the next few weeks upstairs.  

Gameroom Before

  I cleaned the corner cabinet and Katy cleaned her desk cabinet.



After the children were in bed for the evening, Jeff and I brainstormed about what we want to do with the gameroom.  We are working to make it into a "playroom".  We moved the TV on top of the corner cabinet and put the xbox and dvd's in the cabinet.  That helps keep them out of sight and raises the TV out of low swinging reach of Clark and Quinn.  The old shelf that we had the TV on became a nightstand in our guest room.  We made plans to move the bookshelves and free up some wall space and we talked about toy storage and how we can help reduce the number of items out in the "playroom" at one time.

Gameroom After

Guestroom, progress made

The gameroom isn't quite finished, but a lot of progress was made toward getting it where we want it to be soon.  Apparently the trains were played with and not cleaned up today before I went to take the picture.  My sister-in-law came over and helped with some of the projects we were working on and her help was wonderful.  We were able to go through Clark and Quinn's clothes and pull out the too small clothes and sort them into the proper storage containers and giveaway bag.  We worked on
moving one of the bookshelves from the gameroom to the office/guest room, and made continued progress on getting the guest room ready for guests again.  We also tackled Kent's room, since we have have plans to move Clark into Kent's room very soon.  We are planning to make the boys room just a room for sleeping and have the play area in the gameroom.  When we started on Kent's room we could barely see any of the floor under all of his Legos and paper trash collection.  We've removed several 13 gallon size trash bags full of mostly paper trash and he will be learning how to better let go of the things he doesn't need to keep long term.

Kent's room in progress

 Week 14's challenge is Craft Supplies, so I'm hoping to finish the office/guest room this week since that is most of what is in there.  I already purged a large bag of fabric that I don't think I will use and my sister-in-law took a few pieces from the stash that she thought she would be able to use.

Week 13's challenge is "Pictures and Scrapbooks."  I only had two days to work on this challenge, so I didn't get much done.  I've learned over the last several years to delete the digital pictures that aren't very good and keep only what I really want.  It cuts down on the clutter in my computer photo program.  So for this week I downloaded the pictures from my camera from our trip and got rid of any that I didn't want to keep.  Hopefully, I'll post some of them on my blog soon.

Week 14's challenge and details can be found by clicking the button below.