The past day and a half, we have been working like mad on purging and de-cluttering the house. To no one's surprise, we are behind on our original plan, but we have managed to de-clutter the upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms, collect an amazing amount of materials to donate to Goodwill, and throw away or recycle a ridiculous amount of garbage (41 water bottles in one bedroom, anyone?). Thank you so very much to the amazing Nonnie and Pa for keeping our kids in DeSoto for a few days!!
Master Bedroom - Before
We started here on Friday night and finished Saturday morning. The purple basket contains all unmatched socks over the course of the year, aka almost all of our socks.
Packing boxes from Amazon are on the floor and random paperwork is on my dresser.
Will's dresser.
The closet, noteworthy for the fact that it still included all of Will's clothes from before he lost weight.
The Herculean task in this room was going through all of Will's clothes. He had not gotten rid of any clothing since losing weight, meaning that almost everything in our closet was way, WAY too big for him. After this whole process, I think he was down to about 10 articles of clothing, total.
Master Bedroom - After
No more papers on nightstands.
View of my dresser now. We still have these ridiculous pink curtains in the room that match nothing, but they work so darn well that I can't justify getting rid of them. We also still have a chin-up bar in the corner, because everyone needs a chin-up bar.
Our closet! Everything you see is...mine. The rows of empty hangers are where much of Will's clothing used to be.
Will's dresser, next to the empty laundry baskets (with properly matched socks now).
Master Bathroom - Before
Stuff all over the sink. We have an incredibly tiny amount of shelf space here and things get all clumped together.
My favorite part of this de-cluttering experience was getting everything out of the medicine cabinet. We discovered that this tube of Neosporin expired in 1999. Oh, and we have moved 8 times since then. I am going to blame it on the fact that the expiration date is hard to read...but still.
Master Bathroom - After
Reduced amount of stuff on sink. As it turns out, a lot of it I decided that I would like to have out, or I will forget things like flossing. But it is less than before!
Our reorganized medicine cabinet, courtesy of our handy label maker. Nothing in here has expired....as far as we know.
Daniel's Room - Before
Next on our list - Daniel's room! We started this on Saturday morning.
The top of his dresser is impressive.
All of these clothes on the floor are 3T and 4T clothing that no longer fits Daniel. This is almost all of his clothing.
The long-sleeve shirt drawer after de-cluttering has a lonely one shirt left in it. Hopefully it will be a mild winter.
All of these stuffed animals were inside of Daniel's tent - this picture doesn't even include the ones on his bed, which were prized enough to not risk the cut. We ended up with three huge trash bags full of stuffed animals that we donated at Goodwill.
However, the very best surprise inside of the bowels of his tent was a bottle of prenatal vitamins. These expired in 2006, meaning I had to have been pregnant or nursing Annika. They were inside of a basket and Will thought the kids had been playing a "shopping" game. Yeah. I've got nothing.
Daniel's Room - After
Ta-da! A clear dresser!
The bookshelf was the main task that I worked on in here. We had five GIANT trash bags full of books that we took to Goodwill. I also organized and sorted everything to hopefully make it easier to find, so hopefully instead of noticing everything that is missing it will seem like we suddenly have "more" books.
We also really thinned down the toys and left the ones that Daniel actually plays with.
Under the tent now! Still some stuffed animals but nothing like before. Oh, and no prenatal vitamins, either.
Linen Closet - Before
We have two linen closets and have never purged them. My thought before was, You Can Never Have Too Many Blankets or Towels.
After dumping all of the closet content onto the floor of my room, I changed my tune...you CAN have too many blankets and towels. Especially if said contents include items that are stained (gross!), include crib sheets and diaper changing covers (when we have no babies), or are bedding sizes for beds we no longer own.
Will put our Label Maker to work and labeled each shelf. This is primarily the "towel" closet.
The "bedding" closet.
Kids' Bathroom - Before
This is also the primary bathroom that guests use. Isn't it attractive? There is also a copy of just about everything Highlights magazine ever, for your reading pleasure.
Kids' Bathroom - After
Much more sanitary! Oh, and only the current issue of Highlights is available now.
We added baskets and organized the inside of the drawers.
Annika's Room - Before
Oh, Annika's room. This is the room in the house that Will had been dreading the most (mine is the kitchen, which we are still working on).
What an easily-accessed bookcase. On the other hand, it does teach our kids to Fight for the Right to Read...
Annika's dresser looks much like Daniel's did. We left right after opening presents on Christmas, so some of that is scattered on the floor, too. I did not think to take pictures inside the tent, but it was SCARY.
Will stayed up late on Saturday night and removed everything from the tent. Among many treasures, he found 41 water bottles. Yes. All of this trash and much more was hidden among a never-ending bound of stuffed animals, which are on the way to new homes (Annika had sorted out the animals she wanted to keep before she left). He decided it would be easier to just get rid of the tent and turn it into an open reading area. The main area I worked on purging were the books - lots of sorting piles below.
Annika's Room - After
Tada! The animals on top of her bed need to be organized but we took out 2 trash bags full of books, 1 trash bag of clothes, 3 of stuffed animals, and probably a ridiculous number of actual trash.
Another thing we discovered was that the old backpacks hanging on the wall still had clothes in them from various sleepovers...
Bookshelf, bins, and shelves were massively reduced.
I couldn't get a good picture under her bed, but we put her beanbag under with a reading lamp.
And now we are working on the kitchen - stay tuned for more before and after pictures! Will just asked, "How many glue sticks is it possible for one family to own??" We are up to 22 sticks and counting...
6 comments:
You are very inspiring! I need to take notes from you. And I am. It's just so overwhelming thinking of where to start!
We don't allow indoor photography here.
Love it. Reminds me a lot of what I've been doing to my house. I've already hauled four loads of stuff to goodwill, and still have a ton of stuff left to go.
We ended up at 25 glue sticks, not counting the half dozen that were left out and had dried up. Any bets on the number of colored pencils, markers, and crayons?
What incredible tidying, sorting and purging! This is so inspiring! And such great team work. Fab job family!
I am still laughing out loud at this post Amy! You deserved that dessert drink last night after all of this! :) Fighting for their Right to Read....that is good stuff!
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