Feb 21, bagging up the floor

Hi again.  I'm back to show my progress.  It looks great!  But there's still lots of work to do.  Still I can go in and sigh a sigh of relief and see what the room can be.  For the most part I'll just be posting pictures of my progress, so let the show begin.  Although my main focus is the floor, it's obvious by the pictures what work still needs to be done.  The pictures with the disorganized messes are all behind closed closet doors and drawers, with the exception of the dresser.

8 year old's closet. We definitely need to throw out and organize.

The other side of the 8 yr. old's closet as well as the top drawer.  The bottom drawer holds his shoes.

The 6 year olds' closet.  It's time to go through those clothes.  It's mostly for dressier wear since he can't reach that high right now.  And then there's the toy box full of junk.  Close up to come. . . 

I bought two of these hanging shelves.  The 6 year old didn't have a chance to junk it up before I got to it.  These are his school/scout clothes.  I plan on doing something similar to the 8 year old's closet.  They're identical, although not in content.  ;o) 

I'm happy we've been able to maintain this drawer.  My 6 year old lives in a world all his own and sometimes he likes to dress the part.

The 6 year old's dresser is a mess.  It really doesn't take much.  This dresser my parents bought for the hubby and me when I was pregnant with our oldest (13, going on 14 in May '12!). The top folds down to a changing table, although we mostly changed the kids on the couch or bed.  Rarely used that dresser.   From the oldest to the youngest.  He (the 6 year old) will be outgrowing this soon.

Here's a close up of the junk in the toy chest in the closet.  This really needs to be organized.  How can they find ANYTHING in here?  Can someone find me a trash bag. . . .

This is pretty organized by like things.  Still could use some work though.  Some things, like the PlayMobil's on the bottom, hubby's not ready to part with yet, even though the boys rarely play with them.

The bookshelf.  I really want to organize it, but by the looks of how my boys keep up with things, I think it'd be a waste of time.  Better to just get said books back on the shelf when we're finished reading, yes?

This has worked out well.  It's two sets of a 3-drawer cabinet thing that houses their most used toys. . . Ben 10 action figures and Bakugan stuff.  This one shows the top shelf that can use a declutter session.

The bottom view of the most used toys cabinets.  This closet is really too small for anything else but coats and my guys are still to short to reach so why not utilize it for toys for now?  By the way, their room used to be the old owners dining room so that's why the minuscule closet and the other two (closets) had to be bought (Ikea) and brought in.

The view from the bunk beds.

The view from the door. This makes my heart smile.  :o)  In case you noticed, yes that's a sheet covering the window.  The kids moved the ladder and one day it fell through the window, messing up the blinds in the process.  The window got fixed, but the blinds have yet to be replaced.  

Amazingly, only two bags from the mess in the room need to be gone through. The stuff in the pink thing just need to be moved to their homes outside of the boys room.  It's been sitting in there for weeks. . . {sigh} . . . the boys room, not the hallway.  :o)

Ah, yes, and then there's these two long boxes full of stuff that the boys are most likely too old to play with.  Out of sight, out of mind though, so I haven't dealt with it.  Soon, junk, soon. . . . 

Feb 21. . . What day am I on again? 13? LOL

So this is me, avoiding the inevitable. . . the mess that is my kids rooms.  It's harder to accomplish this challenge than I originally thought.  I fight with getting the kids in there to help out, which is a must, at least part of the time.  I know I can clean it better (which I'm doing today while they're at school), but they need to learn how to do it themselves.  This is one of those life skills that, if they'll embrace it, will serve them well later in life. . . shoot now, even!  I've lost count of the times one of them has come and said, "mom where is my . . . ?"  How am I supposed to know?  I'm not the keep of  . . . whatever.  If you'd find a home for it and put it there, yada, yada, yada.  One of them tries, he really does, but the other one could care less and that makes it hard to keep it up.  But I digress. . . I also fight with the motivation to do anything in there when I see what I've done trashed in a matter of minutes.  Which is why I know it's important to get them in on it; it is their room after all.   So today, I will follow the advice of my daughter's teacher.  Someone she knows used to pick up everything on the floor and put it in a bag and put the bag in the hallway.  This way you could see the clean room, the potential of what it should look like.  Then one item at a time go through the bag and either find a home, throw it away or put it in a give away bag.  We'll see how that works.  I've done something similar using a laundry basket but then I'd procrasitnate and the basket would sit there forEVER before I got around to dealing with it.  Again, good thing about this challenge and the weekly progress link ups is I'm kind of forced to just keep going instead of giving up.

So, let me upload a picture of what I had the kids doing this past weekend and then get back to it.  I'm setting a timer for 1 hour so I don't lose myself in the process and waste my day away when there are other things needing my attention before I need to pick the kids up from school.  Ok, so maybe "waste" is not a good word.  This will be working for the good of the room, but I need to set limits so that I can get dinner prepped and the bathrooms cleaned, et al.

The picture is of the boys and their older sister.  I had work to do so I needed someone to supervise the youngest or nothing would've gotten done.  The 8 year old was off doing something initially but when he came back I told my daughter to go back to her room and work on it.  Here I have them going through toys to discard or give away and then find a place for the ones they want to keep.  Have I mentioned they have WAY TOO MANY toys!  Hubby wants to do a garage sale.  Me. . . not so much, but for now as long as they're out of the house I don't care.  He can have his garage sale.  Oops, I'm over my time here.  Gotta get crack-a-lackin'!

Going through toys with big sisters help.

 

Day 10 - Feb 17, 2012

{sigh} It's so easy to get discouraged.  Just look at my pictures below.  It doesn't look like I'm doing anything.  BUT I guess it's to be expected when you're working in a room that's being lived in . . . by little boys. . . . little boys who have much better things to do than clean up their room.  It's my fault really because I haven't established a routine of coming in and having the boys clean up after themselves.  I really need to get a handle on this because they need to learn to be responsible for their own room.  Honestly, by the time supper is finished, which is a perfect time to get them to come in and tidy up before they get ready for bed, I'm pooped.  The last thing I want to do is clean up something else.  But the good thing about this OrgJunkie Challenge is that it's keeping me accountable.  I dread and love these progress link-ups.  I dread them because it means I have to keep organizing.  I feel like my boys in that I have much better things to be doing than cleaning up after someone else.  I'm being held accountable to what needs to be done and a lot of the times I don't feel like I'm doing much, but on the other hand I love Friday's progress link up's  because they keep me accountable and when I've done my due for the day I love to see my progress.  So for all the world, at least out there in the OrgJunkie's Challenge world, I present to you my "1 step forward, 3 steps back" progress.  Now I gotta go get and make some more progress so I can put some better pictures up before I go to bed.  :o)

The view from the edge of the bunk bed.

The view from the doorway.

Feb 14th-Day 7 -Happy Valentine's Day

Wow, since I didn't start this challenge on Feb 1st, I had to go to my calendar to see what day I was on.  One whole week, day 7.  Although, really, I've only been working on the room for a total of 3 or so days.  I'm just having a HARD time finding the motivation.  It was a busy weekend with science fair finals for my older two, then a mad dash to make it to church on time where my son plays the guitar and my daughter was one of the altar servers.  Then Sunday was clean up day for most with a few errands interspersed throughout.  The boys were supposed to be cleaning up and the older of the two would, but he gets frustrated that his little brother isn't doing his part, so if someone is not in there supervising them and giving them specific tasks, their "cleaning" is just playing quietly and hoping mom or dad don't come in and tell us to clean.  LOL  Fine by me because I was busy working on other areas of the house to really do much with the boys room.  Given that I didn't do much, the boys didn't really mess up what I did all that much, with the exception of the little guy who was going through his toy box while I read to three of the kids.  That got me thinking though . . . my youngest loves to play while I read and I'm perfectly happy with that, as long as they're not loud toys.  So much more reason to get this room organized so he can play with the toys he has instead of messing up wherever he treads.  LOL

So, with Pandora cranking out my Adele station, I set my watch timer to 30 minutes.  I may have mentioned this in an earlier post, but when I set my focus to manageable time increments I'm more likely to get started and make great strides.  I do have to refrain from getting discouraged when I walk out of the room to the other messy areas in my home.  One step at a time.  :o)  I also find I can work with less discouragement and frustration when I zone up my area.  At the moment, I can't really say "I'll work on the floor".  There's just too much work that needs to be done so instead I said to myself, "I'll do this corner".  Embarrassingly enough the bags from Christmas were still on the floor and had not been gone through since the week of Christmas.  I managed to make it through two of those, which were not as full as I thought they'd be.  If I get around to it tonight, fine.  If not, I'll work tomorrow on one of the buckets full of toys.  Some days I just feel like all I ever do is declutter and I can't get to the real clean.  So glad for this challenge though!  This is just what I needed.  So, let me stop rambling and upload some pictures. . . later.  I've got to get up to school to help with a Valentine's dance that my son's class is hosting and my daughter/cheerleader will be performing with her squad.

This picture only took me 3 days to upload but here it is.  A clean and tidy corner.  Now to keep it that way. . . 

Day Two

Today is the link up over at Org Junkie and I hesitated to link up because I just started this challenge yesterday, but I kept thinking about this blog and figured I could do something in a set amount of time.  So, here I am and below I'll post the pictures of what I've done.  I think it'll be easy enough to get the bulk of the floor cleaned up since it mostly clothes or books or pillows, etc.  Big, easy things to put away.  I just get discouraged when I walk in there and see the mess the 6 year old can make in no time.  I will be patient thought and teach him to pick up after himself if it drives my insane.  LOL  What I dread the most though is once I get the floor picked up, going through the baskets of toys that are sitting on the floor.  So many toys.  Little toys.  Bits and pieces of toys.  Many, many toys that the kids have outgrown.  But I will do it, one basket at a time.  And when I'm finished with that, I'll tackle the closets and drawers.  I opened one of the closet drawers by mistake and shut it as quickly as I could.  One thing at at time.  :o/

The first picture is of one of the closets that I will tackle once the floor, toy boxes and under the bed have been conquered (we have two of those, one for each boy).  The drawer I mentioned earlier looks similar to the lower part of the closet.  Ugh! Below that is a picture of the tidied up floor that took me about 20 or 30 minutes to do.  

Have a great weekend!

February 8- Day One

29 Day Challenge

Hi there!  My name is Lisa and I’m a stay at home mom (who has doesn’t get to stay home as much as the name implies) to 4 beautiful kids.  I have 3 boys and 1 girl; 13 (b), 12 (g), 8 (b), & 6 (b).  My husband and I have been married for almost 17 years (July 2012).  He’s the love of my life and our kids are the apples of his eyes.  He’s the most caring and thoughtful husband and an incredibly awesome father.  We live in a modest house, which for me, is beginning to feel the growing pains of kids growing up.  It’s time to get some stuff out and get organized!

So, I’ve been reading this blog at www.orgjunkie.com.  I really desire to have some order in my home and so far I’m not doing a very good job.  Laura, who is the author of the blog, has challenged her readers to a month of organization.  We are to pick a project, a room, and spend the month of February getting it organized.  Boy do I need this!  I wasn’t going to join because she requires those that officially join to have a blog.  I don’t have a blog (well, until today), I’m not a blogger and who’d want to read what I wrote anyway?  I am really enthusiastic about getting organized, but actually taking the steps to do it and continue with it day after day?  Hmmmm, at this point, and I know me so well; I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in myself.  However, I’ll never know if I don’t try right?  I DO have a gmail and I know they make it easy for anyone to start a blog, so after much thought (and dismay at my cluttered and very unorganized home), I’ve decided what the heck?  I can only hope I’ll stick with it for the duration. 

Some of the other blogs I’ve been reading (Time Warp Wife, Women Living Well, Inspired To Action & Simple Mom) encourage their readers to take care of thier home and family, striving the whole time to be more like the Proverbs 31 wife, living simply and taking action to accomplish any goals you’d like to accomplish.   So I’ll use their blogs, Orgjunkie’s blog and their readers to be my inspiration as I venture into a much calmer, ordered life.  I’m not sure if I’ll officially enter this challenge.  In fact, I’m not sure if I can being as it started February 1^st, but I won’t let that deter me.  I can still do my best and be encouraged by others.  I’ll just do the Flylady thing and “jump in where I’m at”. 

Here’s to an organized room and hopefully some habits that will stick around, both for me and for my boys.  May my other two children be inspired to do the same and who knows, maybe I’ll reward them with a fresh coat of paint, some new sheets for their beds or some Ben 10 decals to put on the walls that I’ve had for longer than I care to admit (that was another inspiration to try to get them to clean up that never worked).

Below are some before pics that I took this morning.  I don’t know if anyone is out there in blog-land reading this, but if you have any tips or suggestions I am open to what you have to say, both in what to do with the room or how to instill good organizational habits into my kids.  By the way, that tent is not a staple in that room.  It's a come and go thing.  We've had it up since maybe the weekend, possibly since last week.  They sleep in there together most nights and for reasons unbeknownst to me, they LOVE and are taking turns sleeping on top of their sisters toy box top.  Weird, I know, but they're mine and I love them.  :o)

P.S.  I think I may be adventurous, maybe not.  Their closets are a mess too so I may have to post pics of the insides and work on those this month as well.  Their room was originally the dining room and only had one teeny tiny closet, which we use for . . . yes . . . MORE toy storage.  So we had to buy their closets and build them.  They are more along the lines of armoires.  Either way, they're a chaotic mess and in need of organization.