30 Days of Clean Challenge: Day Four

I am super proud of myself for getting to all of these projects! The house looks and feels cleaner already. The kids were out of school for Spring Break this week, so I decided to tackle a big project - our "homeschool room". It's really just our second living room that I haven't done anything with since we've been living here for two years. I really want it to be functional for homeschooling, so I moved a few things around and bought some new shelving units. I threw away a bookshelf that was broken. I took the glass doors off our curio cabinet and am using it as a bookshelf now. I threw away a garbage bag full of trash and stuff that we didn't need anymore. I still have to go through our books, but that is going to take another entire day of work! I wish I would have taken before pictures. 

This is looking into the room from our dining room. I moved the couch - it was on the wall where the curtains are. Those two shelving units on that wall are new. I have puzzles and games on the 9-cube shelf and Zeke's toys on the larger 4-cube shelf. I plan to use the empty cube on the big shelf for his Tot School.

Another view of that wall - you can see the shelving units better. In the basket on the floor is our Expedition Earth books and atlases. I am going to buy a world map to hang above the 4-cube shelf.

Another view - the tall bookshelves are built in. We have our Continent Boxes stacked up beside those.

The view looking from our dining room in the other direction. We have our keyboard beside the door to our laundry room. The bookshelves on the far end have our books, some more puzzles, and a few are empty for our new books for next year.

Another view of that wall and the built in bookshelves. We have the kids school books on the cube shelf. They each have a vertical row for their books and binders. I had just reorganized it last week, but I feel like the way it is now will be better. 

Check out my other posts in my 30 Days of Clean Challenge!

30 Days of Clean Challenge: Day 3

I have successfully cleaned out four problem areas in my house, but they were small areas. I really am pleased with the small victories! I knew it was time to tackle a big problem area - my closet.

My closet is huge; it's narrow and long. I have my desk in there so I can pay bills and scrapbook in there. I also keep the kids baby books there for easy access. My husband and I have our clothes and shoes, and Zeke keeps his dresser with his clothes and blankets in there. I had not really cleaned it much lately. I was hanging up my clean clothes but that's about it. It had gotten seriously messy and it was stressing me out. But the thought of cleaning it was a little overwhelming because Zeke is a pretty needy toddler right now. I did convince the kids to take him outside for a while so I could get a big head start on it.

The before - the lighting is terrible but you can see how it had gotten out of control.

Especially the baby's area! 

I moved his car seat and the tub of clothes he had outgrown to our shed outside (another project I need to get to!). I donated the brown nursing pillow and over half of the blankets in the basket on the top shelf. I also threw away the picture frame you see on the bottom left - it was broken. I organized his clothes better and donated a few outfits that he had outgrown.

after! 

after - I vacuumed the carpet, reorganized some things, threw some things away, and donated some things. 

I reorganized my desk and dusted it. It's still a bit cluttered, but it's much better than it was!

I even reorganized my shoes.

I was feeling pretty good about how clean my closet was that I decided to clean under my bed! Our bed is really big and really heavy. We bought it two years ago and I have never cleaned underneath it. It really wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but it did need some serious cleaning. Instead of moving the bed, we took the mattresses off and cleaned it that way!

before - you can see the trash, dust, and other items.

after - nice and clean!

Then I decided to use the big fabric basket that I did have the baby's blankets in for something else. He has a ton of board books that I had in a basket, but the basket was overflowing! I put his books in the fabric basket and they fit much better with room for more books!

before - overflowing

after - room for more!

What have you cleaned lately?

Check out my other posts in my 30 Days of Clean Challenge!

30 Days of Clean Challenge: Day Two

Today I tackled two more small areas that I have been meaning to get to for several weeks now. The first is my "catch-all box" which sits on my kitchen counter. I like this box because I can keep important mail, pens, notepads, and stuff that I need to have handy in a convenient spot. The box is deep so it doesn't normally look cluttered. However, it was getting quite full and I needed to empty it out.

before

inside the box

I took every single thing out of the box and made piles - a pile of trash, a pile of mail to be put away, a pile of things that belonged somewhere else, and a pile of things I wanted to keep in the box.

empty box

everything out of the box

Then I put all the piles where they needed to go and put the few things back in the box neatly. Hopefully I can keep it this neat and organized!

the box now - nothing peeping out the top

the inside of the box - neat and orderly (I don't know why I keep these two Gideon Bibles in this box, but they've been there forever so I just keep them there)

The things I like to keep handy - flashlight, lighter, pens, pencils, baby nail clippers, coupons, mail to be mailed or that needs to be dealt with, sticky notes and sometimes medicine.

The next area that needed to be tackled was our school cube shelves. I usually try to do this weekly, but it had been several weeks since I gave it a good once-over.

before - messy and cluttered

I took everything off, reorganized some of the bins, threw away trash and put things back where they belong like stray pencils, scissors, glue sticks, books, etc. It looks much nicer now!

after - much more organized and clean looking

Two more small victories that made me feel much more productive!

Check out my other posts in my 30 Days of Clean Challenge!

30 Days of Clean Challenge: Day One

I am normally a fairly clean and organized person, and I've always had the mindset of "a place for everything and everything in its place".

However.

Since giving birth to Zeke 15 months ago and trying to homeschool three kids with a very active toddler, not to mention all of our extra-curricular activities, my house has taken a backseat. It's not terrible by any means - we keep it tidy, get the laundry and dishes done daily, and keep it generally clean. But there are several projects I've been meaning to get to - some big and some small - and I figured if I gave myself a challenge to blog about, hopefully I would get it all done!

I decided today to tackle a small project - our medicine cabinet. I have been haphazardly throwing medicine back into our cabinet, digging for stuff I know we have (thermometers namely!), and I knew I needed to clean out and organize the box we keep our medicines in!

Here is a picture of the before:

the inside of the cabinet (why do we have so many bottles of hydrogen peroxide??)

and a close-up of the inside of the box

I took out every single thing from the box, threw away all medicine that was expired and all empty boxes and bottles, and wiped down the box.

I put each item into a group:

- kid's medicines

- adult medicines

- creams

- bandages and wraps

- medicine cups and droppers

- sprays (aloe relief sprays, burn sprays, Dermaplast)

I put each group into a gallon size zipper bag and put the bags back in the box!

It looks so much better, and it took me around 20 minutes to do it.

Then I noticed our nebulizer - it never fits back into the box like it is supposed to. I put the nebulizer, the tubing and the medication into a plastic tub with a lid. So much nicer!

before

after

It's a small step, but I felt so much better having done it! Also, am I the only person who keeps weird things, thinking we may can use them for some school project? There were these foam squares in the nebulizer box that I couldn't bear to throw away.

The next thing I tackled was my arts and crafts supplies. I keep this in my laundry room, so I don't see it all the time. Therefore, "out of sight, out of mind." It had gotten a bit ridiculous because instead of putting things back in their place, we were just tossing them in a random box. The kids had been in there, making crafts and making a mess of our supply area. Here is the before:

 

 

As you can see, stuff wasn't even fitting in the drawers and they couldn't be closed all the way. Random items were placed on top and there is no order to any of it.

 

I took each drawer out, emptied it, knocked out the trash, glitter, and bits. I then used about 20 gallon zipper bags to organize the supplies and then organized each bin to have like items. Hopefully this will make it easier to find things when I need them. It took me around an hour to do this, and Mikaela entertained Zeke for me while I did it. That was so helpful!

 

I have an entire gallon zipper bag of Christmas items.

 

I found more rubber bands than I will ever need!

 

And here is the after:

 

Much nicer! I have in the black bin set a bin for stickers, stamps, craft sticks and wooden sticks, beads and buttons, ribbons, glues and tapes.

 

In the purple bin set each bin holds random items like blank frames, cotton balls, straws, Christmas items, balloons and balloon pump, scrapbook paper and index cards, paper plates, chalk, and more.

 

The bins in the middle hold extra colored pencils, crayons, felt, and craft sticks. I probably have 5000 craft sticks, and sadly that's not an exaggeration. We also have our air dry clay on top of the middle bins. The blue box on top of the black bins holds tissue paper. And I have some plastic flowers left over from our Valentine banquet!

 

I feel much better now that my art supplies are organized. I also found some items I forgot I had! Now, to keep it this way...